ordsworth had gone over the poem
with Coleridge, and that they had altered some passages "together"; that
Coleridge had read a copy of it sent to the Beaumonts, doubtless at
Dunmow in Essex; that he had thought of a plan by which the poem could
be immensely improved, both by addition and subtraction; but that
hearing from Wordsworth, or more probably from his sister Dorothy, that
Charles Lamb had also criticised its structure, he gave up his intention
of sending to his friend suggestions, which evidently implied a radical
alteration of "the incidents and action" of the tale. It would have been
extremely interesting to know how the author of _Christabel_ and _The
Ancient Mariner_ proposed to recast _The White Doe of Rylstone_. It is,
alas! impossible for posterity to know this, although it is not
difficult to conjecture the line which the alterations would take.
Wordsworth's genius was not great in construction, as in imagination;
and he valued a story only as giving him a "point of departure" for a
flight of fancy or of idealization. Early in 1808 he wrote to Walter
Scott asking him for facts about the Norton family. Scott supplied him
with them, and the following was Wordsworth's reply.

"GRASMERE, May 14, 1808.

"MY DEAR SCOTT--Thank you for the interesting particulars about
the Nortons. I like them much for their own sakes; but so far from
being serviceable to my poem, they would stand in the way of it,
as I have followed (as I was in duty bound to do) the traditionary
and common historic account. Therefore I shall say, in this case,
a plague upon your industrious antiquarians, that have put my fine
story to confusion."

From the "advertisement" which Wordsworth prefixed to his edition of
1815, I infer that the larger part of the poem was written at Stockton.
In it he says that "the Poem of _The White Doe_ was composed at the
close of the year" (1807). This is an illustration of the vague manner
in which he was in the habit of assigning dates. The Fenwick note, and
the evidence of his sister's letter, is conclusive; although the fact
that _The Force of Prayer_--written in 1807--is called in the Fenwick
note "an appendage to _The White Doe_," is further confirmation of the
belief that the principal part of the latter poem was finished in 1807.
All things considered, _The White Doe of Rylstone_ may be most
conveniently placed after the poems belonging to the year