because it is WORDSWORTH who has noticed it, while an old ballad, a
legend, a bit of rural usage, takes a light of glory from the page in
which it is found. Hence as so much diamond-dust or filings of gold the
published Notes are here brought together. Added, and far exceeding in
quantity and quality alike, it is the privilege of the Editor to print
_completely and in integrity_ the I.F. MSS., as written down to the
dictation of WORDSWORTH by Miss FENWICK. These have been hitherto given
with tantalising and almost provoking fragmentariness in the 'Memoirs'
and in the centenary edition of the Poems--again withdrawn in the recent
Rossetti edition. In these Notes--many of which in both senses are
elaborate and full--are some of the deepest and daintiest-worded things
from WORDSWORTH. The I.F. MSS. are delightfully chatty and informal, and
ages hence will be treasured and studied in relation to the Poems by the
(then) myriad millions of the English-speaking races.

Miss FENWICK, to whom the world is indebted for these MSS., is
immortalised in two Sonnets by WORDSWORTH, which surely long ere this
ought to have been included in the Poetical Works; and they may fitly
reappear here (from the 'Memoirs'):

'_On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies_.

We gaze--nor grieve to think that we must die,
But that the precious love this friend hath sown
Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,
Will pass so soon from human memory;
And not by strangers to our blood alone,
But by our best descendants be unknown,
Unthought of--this may surely claim a sigh.