people--it would be wiser to do so by means of some mark or marginal
note, than by printing his selected text in the main body of the work.
He could thus at once preserve the chronological order of the readings,
indicate his own preference, and leave it to others to select what they
preferred. Besides, the compiler of such an edition would often find
himself in doubt as to what the best text really was, the merit of the
different readings being sometimes almost equal, or very nearly
balanced; and, were he to endeavour to get out of the difficulty by
obtaining the judgments of literary men, or even of contemporary poets,
he would find that their opinions would in most cases be dissimilar, if
they did not openly conflict. Those who cannot come to a final decision
as to their own text would not be likely to agree as to the merits of
particular readings in the poems of their predecessors. Unanimity of
opinion on this point is indeed quite unattainable.

Nevertheless, it would be easy for an editor to show the unfortunate
result of keeping rigorously either to the latest or to the earliest
text of Wordsworth. If, on the one hand, the latest were taken, it could
be shown that many of the changes introduced into it were for the worse,
and some of them very decidedly so. For example, in the poem 'To a
Skylark'--composed in 1825--the second verse, retained in the
editions of 1827, 1832, 1836, and 1843, was unaccountably dropped out in
the editions of 1845 and 1849. The following is the complete poem of
1825, as published in 1827.


Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?