All the Notes written by Wordsworth himself in his numerous editions will be found in this one, with the date of their first appearance added. Slight textual changes, however, or casual 'addenda', are not indicated, unless they are sufficiently important. Changes in the text of notes have not the same importance to posterity, as changes in the text of poems. In the preface to the Prose Works, reference will be made to Wordsworth's alterations of his text. At present I refer only to his own notes to his Poems. When they were written as footnotes to the page, they remain footnotes still. When they were placed by him as prefaces to his Poems, they retain that place in this edition; but when they were appendix notes--as e.g. in the early editions of "Lyrical Ballads"--they are now made footnotes to the Poems they illustrate. In such a case, however, as the elaborate note to 'The Excursion', containing a reprint of the 'Essay upon Epitaphs'--originally contributed to "The Friend"--it is transferred to the Prose Works, to which it belongs by priority of date; and, as it would be inexpedient to print it twice over, it is omitted from the notes to 'The Excursion'. As to the place which Notes to a poet's works should occupy, there is no doubt that numerous and lengthy ones--however valuable, or even necessary, by way of illustration,--disfigure the printed page; and some prefer that they should be thrown all together at the end of each volume, or at the close of a series; such as--in Wordsworth's case--"The River Duddon," "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," 'The Prelude', 'The White Doe of Rylstone', etc. I do not think, however, that many care to turn repeatedly to the close of a series of poems, or the end of a volume, to find an explanatory note, helped only by an index number, and when perhaps even that does not meet his eye at the foot of the page. I do not find that even ardent Wordsworth students like to search for notes in "appendices"; and perhaps the more ardent they are the less desirable is it for them thus "to hunt the waterfalls." I have the greatest admiration for the work which Professor Dowden has done in his edition of Wordsworth; but the 'plan' which he has followed, in his Aldine edition, of giving not only the Fenwick Notes, but all the changes of text introduced by Wordsworth into his successive editions, in additional editorial notes at the end of each volume--to understand which the reader must turn the pages repeatedly, from text to note and note to text, forwards and backwards, at times distractingly--is for practical purposes almost unworkable. The reader who examines Notes 'critically' is ever "one among a thousand," even if they are printed at the foot of the page, and meet the eye readily. If they are consigned to the realm of 'addenda' they will be read by very few, and studied by fewer.