The _Prelude_, as the title page indicates, is a poetical autobiography, commencing with the earliest reminiscences of the author, and continued to the time at which it was composed. We are told that it was begun in 1799 and completed in 1805. It consists of fourteen books. Two are devoted to the infancy and schooltime of the poet; four to the period of his University life; two to a brief residence in London, immediately subsequent to his leaving Cambridge, and a retrospect of the progress his mind had then made; and three to a residence in France, chiefly in the Loire, but partly in Paris, during the stormy period of Louis the Sixteenth's flight and capture, and the fierce contest between the Girondins and Robespierre. Five books are then occupied with an analysis of the internal struggle occasioned by the contradictory influences of rural and secluded nature in boyhood, and of society when the young man first mingles with the world. The surcease of the strife is recorded in the fourteenth book, entitled "Conclusion." The poem is addressed to Coleridge; and, apart from its poetical merits, is interesting as at once a counterpart and supplement to that author's philosophical and beautiful criticism of the _Lyrical Ballads_ in his _Biographia Literaria_. It completes the explanation, there given, of the peculiar constitution of Wordsworth's mind, and of his poetical theory. It confirms and justifies our opinion that that theory was essentially partial and erroneous; but at the same time, it establishes the fact that Wordsworth was a true and a great poet in despite of his theory.