In many cases the MS. variants which have been published in previous volumes occur in copies of the poems, transcribed by the Wordsworth household in private letters to friends. I have occasionally indicated this in footnotes; but, to have done so always would have disfigured the pages, and frequently the notes would have been longer than the text. To trace the present possessors of the MSS. would be well-nigh impossible. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in several cases Wordsworth entered as “misprints” in future editions, what some of his editors have considered “new readings.” _E.g._ in _The Excursion_, book ix. l. 679, “wild” demeanour, instead of “mild” demeanour. On Nov. 4, 1893, Mr. Aubrey de Vere wrote to me-- “I earnestly hope that, in your ‘monumental edition,’ you will restore the _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_, to the place which Wordsworth always assigned to it, that of the High Altar of his poetic Cathedral; remitting Quillinan’s laureate Ode on an unworthy, because ‘occasional,’ subject to an Appendix, as a work that at the time of publication was attributed to Wordsworth, but was written by another, though it probably was seen by him, and had a line or two of his in it, and corrections by him. “This is certainly the truth; and I should think that he probably himself told all that truth to the officials, when transmitting the Ode; but that they concealed the circumstance; and that Wordsworth, then profoundly depressed in spirits, gave no more thought to the subject, and soon forgot all about it.… “Yours very sincerely, “AUBREY DE VERE.” It was in compliance with Mr. Aubrey de Vere’s request that, in this edition, I departed, in a single instance, from the chronological arrangement of the poems. It may not be too trivial a detail to mention that I gladly gave permission to other editors of Wordsworth to make use of any of the material which I discovered, and brought together, in former editions; _e.g._ to Mr. George, in Boston, for his edition of _The Prelude_ (in which, if the reader, or critic, compares my original edition with his notes, he will see what Mr. George has done); and to Professor Dowden, Trinity College, Dublin, for his most admirable Aldine edition. For the latter--which will always hold a high place in Wordsworth literature--I placed everything asked from me at the disposal of Mr. Dowden. While these sheets are passing through the press, Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum--one of the kindest and ablest of bibliographers--has forwarded to me a contribution, previously sent by him to _The Academy_, and printed in its issue of January 2, 1897.