Page:Poems and extracts - Wordsworth.djvu/18

 Rh *Philip Doddridge, p. 80.
 * Thomas James, pp. 81–83.
 * Samuel Daniel, pp. 84–91.
 * Christopher Smart, p. 92.

Of Lady Winchelsea it may be said that Wordsworth rediscovered her. Even at the present day her writings have not all found their way into print. A large number—including those from the MS. in the possession of Dr. Edmund Gosse—have been collected in a scholarly edition by Myra Reynolds (Chicago, 1903). The Gosse MS. seems to contain her earlier writings. But there is still an unprinted MS. of her later poems in the possession of Professor Dowden, and these I gather are not inferior to her earlier work.

In the Introduction to the American edition of her poems, pp. lxxv-lxxix, the editor, after saying of the manuscript Album here given to the world that 'this book is probably still in existence somewhere, and the publication of it would be a most interesting addition to our stock of Wordsworthiana,' goes on to quote several letters of Wordsworth's in 1829 and 1830 to Alexander Dyce, in which the writings of Lady Winchelsea are commented on in some detail, and many of the pieces here extracted are mentioned with praise. The correspondence shows how deeply Wordsworth let his impressions sink into his mind. As he once said to Crabb Robinson, he quoted the poets that he loved, and of his love for these pieces of Lady Winchelsea's there can be no doubt.

The selections from George Wither suggest that Wordsworth's interest in his earlier writings may