35

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1837.

Is not a ruin of the ancient time, 1800.

... antique ... MS.]

[Variant 2:

1802.

... which was to have been built 1800.]

[Variant 3:

1800.

Of some old British warrior: so, to speak
The honest truth, 'tis neither more nor less
Than the rude germ of what was to have been
A pleasure-house, and built upon this isle. MS.]

[Variant 4:

1837.

... the Knight forthwith 1800.]

[Variant 5:

1837.

Of the ... 1800.]

[Variant 6:

1800.

Bred here, and to this valley appertained MS. 1798.]

[Variant 7:

1800.

... glory, ... 1802.

The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: In a MS. copy this is given as "the lesser Island."--Ed.]

[Footnote B: Compare Wordsworth's

"objections to white, as a colour, in large spots or masses in
landscape,"

in his 'Guide through the district of the Lakes' (section third).--Ed.]

* * * * *

1799

The poems belonging to the year 1799 were chiefly, if not wholly,
composed at Goslar, in Germany; and all, with three exceptions, appeared
in the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads" (1800). The exceptions were
the following: The lyric beginning, "I travelled among unknown men,"
which was first published in the "Poems" of 1807; and two fragments from
'The Prelude', viz. 'The Influence of Natural Objects' (which appeared
in 'The Friend' in 1809), and 'The Simplon Pass' (first published in the
8vo edition of the Poems in 1845).

Wordsworth reached Goslar on the 6th of October 1798, and left it on the
10th of February 1799. It is impossible to determine the precise order
in which the nineteen or twenty poems associated with that city were
composed. But it is certain that the fragment on the immortal boy of
Windermere--whom its cliffs and islands knew so well--was written in
1798, and not in 1799 (as Wordsworth himself states); because Coleridge
sent a letter to his friend, thanking him for a MS. copy of these lines,
and commenting on them, of which the date is "Ratzeburg, Dec. 10, 1798."
For obvious reasons, however, I place the fragments originally meant to
be parts of 'The Recluse' together; and, since Wordsworth gave the date
1799 to the oth