The fact that Wordsworth did not republish all his Poems, in his final edition of 1849-50, is not conclusive evidence that he thought them unworthy of preservation, and reproduction. It must be remembered that 'The Prelude' itself was a posthumous publication; and also that the fragmentary canto of 'The Recluse', entitled "Home at Grasmere"--as well as the other canto published in 1886, and entitled (most prosaically) "Composed when a probability existed of our being obliged to quit Rydal Mount as a residence"--were not published by the poet himself. I am of opinion that his omission of the stanzas beginning: Among all lovely things my Love had been, and of the sonnet on his 'Voyage down the Rhine', was due to sheer forgetfulness of their existence. Few poets remember all their past, fugitive, productions. At the same time, there are other fragments,--written when he was experimenting with his theme, and when the inspiration of genius had forsaken him,--which it is unfortunate that he did not himself destroy. Among the Poems which Wordsworth suppressed, in his final edition, is the Latin translation of 'The Somnambulist' by his son. This will be republished, more especially as it was included by Wordsworth himself in the second edition of his "Yarrow Revisited." It may be well to mention the 'repetitions' which are inevitable in this edition, (1) As already explained, those fragments of 'The Recluse'--which were issued in all the earlier volumes, and afterwards incorporated in 'The Prelude'--are printed as they originally appeared. (2) Short Notes are extracted from Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland' (1803), which illustrate the Poems composed during that Tour, while the whole text of that Tour will be printed in full in subsequent volumes. (3) Other fragments, including the lines beginning, Wisdom and Spirit of the universe, will be printed both by themselves in their chronological place, and in the longer poem of which they form a part, according to the original plan of their author. A detail, perhaps not too trivial to mention, is that, in this edition--at the suggestion of several friends--I have followed the example of Professor Dowden in his Aldine edition, and numbered the lines of almost all the poems--even the sonnets. When I have not done so, the reason will be obvious; viz. either the structure, or the brevity, of the poem. [19] In giving the date of each poem, I have used the word "composed," rather than "written," very much because Wordsworth himself,--and his sister, in her Journals--almost invariably use the word "composed"; although he criticised the term as applied to the creation of a poem, as if it were a manufactured article. In his Chronological Table, Mr. Dowden adopts the word "composed"; but, in his edition of the Poems, he has made use of the term" written." [20]