DEDICATION. PREFIXED TO THE EDITION OF 1815. ΤΟ SIR GEORGE HOWLAND BEAUMONT, BART. MY DEAR SIR GEORGE, Accept my thanks for the permission given me to dedicate these volumes to you. In addition to a lively pleasure derived from general considerations, I feel a particular satisfaction; for, by inscribing these Poems with your Name, I seem to myself in some degree to repay, by an appropriate honor, the great obligation which I owe to one part of the Collection, as having been the means of first making us personally known to each other. Upon much of the remainder, also, you have a peculiar claim, for some of the best pieces were composed under the shade of your own groves, upon the classic ground of Coleorton; where I was animated by the recollection of those illustrious Poets of your name and family, who were born in that neighborhood; and, we may be assured, did not wander with indifference by the dashing stream of Grace Dieu, and among the rocks that diversify the forest of Charnwood.-Nor is there any one to whom such parts of this Collection as have been inspired or colored by the beautiful Country from which I now address you, could be presented with more propriety than to yourself, to whom it has suggested so many admirable pictures. Early in life, the sublimity and beauty of this region excited your admiration; and I know that you are bound to it in mind by a still strengthening at tachment. Wishing and hoping that this Work, with the embellishments it has received from your pencil,* may survive as a lasting memorial of a friendship, which I reckon among the blessings of my life, I have the honor to be, My dear Sir George, Yours most affectionately and faithfully, RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND, February 1, 1815. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. *The state of the plates has, for some time, not allowed them to be repeated. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1815. THE powers requisite for the production of poetry are first, those of Observation and Description, i. e. the ability to observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and with fidelity to describe them, unmodified by any passion or feeling existing in the mind of the describer; whether the things depicted be actually present to the senses, or have a place only in the memory. This power, though indispensable to a Poet, is one which he employs only in submission to necessity, and never for a continuance of time: as its exercise supposes all the higher qualities of the mind to be passive, and in a state of subjection to external objects, much in the same way as a translator or engraver ought to be to his original. 2dly, Sensibility, which, the more exquisite it is, the wider will be the range of a poet's perceptions; and the more will he be incited to observe objects, both as they exist in themselves and as reacted upon by his own mind. (The distinction between poetic and human sensibility has been marked in the character of the Poet delineated in the original Preface.) 3dly, Reflection, — which makes the Poet acquainted with the value of actions, images, thoughts, and feelings; and assists the sensibility in perceiving their connection with each other. 4thly, Imagination and Fancy,-to modify, to create, and to associate. 5thly, Invention, by which characters are composed out of materials supplied by observation; whether of the Poet's own heart and mind, or of external life and nature; and such incidents and situations produced as are most impressive to the imagination, and most fitted to do justice to the characters, sentiments, and passions, which the Poet undertakes to illustrate. And, lastly, Judgment, to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own injury, more than its due. By judgment, also, is determined what are the laws and appropriate graces of every species of composition.* - The materials of Poetry, by these powers collected and produced, are cast, by means of various moulds, into divers forms. The moulds may be enumerated, and the forms specified, in the following order. 1st, The Narrative, including the Epopoeia, the Historic Poem, the Tale, the Ro * As sensibility to harmony of numbers, and the power of producing it, are invariably attendants upon the faculties above specified, nothing has been said upon those requisites. mance, the Mock-heroic, and, if the spirit of Homer will tolerate such neighborhood, that dear production of our days, the Metrical Novel. Of this Class, the distinguishing mark is, that the Narrator, however liberally his speaking agents be introduced, is himself the source from which everything primarily flows. Epic Poets, in order that their mode of composition may accord with the elevation of their subject, represent themselves as singing from the inspiration of the Muse, " Arma virumque cano"; but this is a fiction, in modern times, of slight value; the Iliad or the Paradise Lost would gain little in our estimation by being chanted. The other poets who belong to this class are commonly content to tell their tale; so that of the whole it may be affirmed that they neither require nor reject the accompaniment of music. 2dly, The Dramatic, — consisting of Tragedy, Historic Drama, Comedy, and Masque, in which the Poet does not appear at all in his own person, and where the whole action is carried on by speech and dialogue of the agents; music being admitted only incidentally and rarely. The Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it proceeds by dialogue; though, depending, to the degree that it does, upon music, it has a strong claim to be ranked with the lyrical. The characteristic and impassioned Epistle, of which Ovid and Pope have given examples, considered as a species of |