This is from the Author's own MS., and is published _for the first
time_. Every reader of 'The Recluse' and 'The Excursion' and the 'Lines
on the French Revolution, as it appeared to Enthusiasts at its
Commencement'--to specify only these--is aware that, in common with
SOUTHEY and the greater COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH was in sympathy with the
uprising of France against its tyrants. But it is only now that we are
admitted to a full discovery of his youthful convictions and emotion by
the publication of this Manuscript, carefully preserved by him, but
never given to the world. The title on the fly-leaf--'Apology,' &c.,
being ours--in the Author's own handwriting, is as follows:

A
LETTER
TO THE
BISHOP OF LANDAFF
ON THE EXTRAORDINARY AVOWAL OF HIS
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES,
CONTAINED IN THE
APPENDIX TO HIS LATE SERMON:
BY A
REPUBLICAN.

It is nowhere dated, but inasmuch as Bishop WATSON'S Sermon, with the
Appendix, appeared early in 1793, to that year certainly belongs the
composition of the 'Letter.' The title-page of the Sermon and Appendix
may be here given;

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE STEWARDS OF THE WESTMINSTER DISPENSARY, AT
THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING, CHARLOTTE STREET CHAPEL, APRIL 1785.