he facsimiles at page 70 are cuttings from A.

_B_ is a MS. book, into which, in '83, I copied from _A_ certain
poems of which the author had kept no copy. He was remiss in
making fair copies of his work, and his autograph of The Deutsch-
land having been (seemingly) lost, I copied that poem and others
from _A_ at his request. After that date he entered more poems
in this book as he completed them, and he also made both
corrections of copy and emendations of the poems which had
been copied into it by me. Thus, if a poem occur in both _A_ and
_B_, then _B_ is the later and, except for overlooked errors of
copyist, the better authority. The last entry written by G. M. H.
into this book is of the date 1887.

_D_ is a collection of the author's letters to Canon Dixon, the
only other friend who ever read his poems, with but few exceptions
whether of persons or of poems. These letters are in my keep-
ing; they contain autographs of a few poems with late corrections.

_H_ is the bundle of posthumous papers that came into my
hands at the author's death. These were at the time examined,
sorted, and indexed; and the more important pieces of which
copies were taken were inserted into a scrap-book. That col-
lection is the source of a series of his most mature sonnets, and
of almost all the unfinished poems and fragments. Among these
papers were also some early drafts. The facsimile after p. 92 is
from _H_.

_Method_ The latest autographs and autographic corrections have
Been preferred. In the very few instances in which this
principle was overruled, as in Nos. _1_ and _27_, the justi-
fication will be found in the note to the poem. The finished
poems from _1_ to _51_ are ranged chronologically by the years, but
in the section _52_-_74_ a fanciful grouping of the fragments was
preferred to the inevitable misrepresentations of conjectural
dating. G. M. H. dated his poems from their inception, and
however much he revised a poem he would date his recast as his
first draft. Thus _Handsome Heart_ was written and sent to me
in '79; and the recast, which I reject, was not made before '83,
while the final corrections may be some years later; and yet his
last autograph is dated as the first 'Oxford '79'.

_Selection_ This edition purports to convey all the author's serious
Mature poems; and he would probably not have wished any
of his earlier poems nor so many or his fragments to
have been included. Of the former class three specime