er of the
_Quarterly Review_, and by Jeffrey in the corresponding number of the
_Edinburgh_. Both articles are valuable to the student of Burns, but
their great length made their inclusion in the present volume
impracticable.

14. _Rusticus abnormis sapiens, etc._ Horace, Sat. II, l. 3.

15. _A great lady ... and celebrated professor_. Evidently Mrs. Dunlop
and Professor Dugald Stewart, who both took great interest in Burns
after the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The thin quartos containing _An Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_
were published by Wordsworth in 1793. The former was practically a
school-composition in verse, written between 1787-89 and dedicated to
his sister; the latter was composed in France during 1791-92 and was
revised shortly before publication. The dedication was addressed to the
Rev. Robert Jones, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was
Wordsworth's companion during the pedestrian tour in the Alps. Though
_An Evening Walk_ was published first, the _Monthly Review_, XII, n.s.
(216-218), in October, 1793, noticed both in the same issue and
naturally gave precedence to the longer poem. Specific allusions in the
text necessitate the same order in the present reprint.

The impatience of the reviewer at the prospect of "more descriptive
poetry" was due to the fact that many such productions had recently been
noticed by the _Monthly_, and that the volumes then under consideration
evidently belonged to the broad stream of mediocre verse that had been
flowing soberly along almost since the days of Thomson. These first
attempts smacked so decidedly of the older manner that we cannot censure
the critic for failing to foresee that Wordsworth was destined to
glorify the "poetry of nature," and to rescue it from the rut of
listless and soporific topographical description. Both poems, in the
definitive text, are readable, and exhibit here and there a glimmer of
the poet's future greatness; yet it must be borne in mind that
Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent
despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the
absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the
correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing
taste.

A collation of the accepted text with the _Monthly Review's_ quotations
will repay the student; thus, the twelve opening lines quoted by the
reviewer are represente