"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 1807, and before those known to have been written in 1808; while _The Force of Prayer_ naturally follows it. The poem--first published in quarto in 1815--was scarcely altered in the editions of 1820, 1827, and 1832. In 1837, however, it was revised throughout, and in that year the text was virtually settled; the subsequent changes being few and insignificant, while those introduced in 1837 were numerous and important. A glance at the foot-notes will show that many passages were entirely rewritten in that year, and that a good many lines of the earlier text were altogether omitted. All the poems were subjected to minute revision in 1836-37; but few, if any, were more thoroughly recast, and improved, in that year than _The White Doe of Rylstone_. As a sample of the best kind of changes--where a new thought was added to the earlier text with admirable felicity--compare the lines in canto vii., as it stood in 1815, when the Lady Emily first saw the White Doe at the old Hall of Rylstone, after her terrible losses and desolation-- Lone Sufferer! will not she believe The promise in that speaking face, And take this gift of Heaven with grace? with the additional thought conveyed in the version of 1837-- Lone Sufferer! will not she believe The promise in that speaking face; And welcome, as a gift of grace, The saddest thought the Creature brings?