Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/87

 INTRODUCTION Ixxxiii ���contemplated an edition of her poems in 1833. In 1876 Grosart, in his edition of Wordsworth's Prose Works, had complained with regard to Lady Winchilsea: "Sad to say, a collection of this remarkable gentlewoman's poems remains still an unfurnished desideratum." In Ward's English Poets Mr. Gosse, referring to possible existing collections of her poems in MS., had said, "If these unpublished poems are still in the possession of her family, it is highly desirable that they should be given to the world." In his Short History of English Literature (1898) Mr. Saintsbury repeats the wish. In his finely appreciative notice, he says: �It is a pity that her poems have not been reprinted and are difficult of access, for it is desirable to read the whole in order to appreciate the unconscious clash of style and taste in them. �That it is, at last, possible to bring out this much-desired complete edition of Lady Winchilsea's work is but another portion of the debt she owes to Mr. Gosse, as will be seen in the following account of the sources of the present volume. �The poems in this edition have been obtained from the printed volume of 1713, from two manuscript volumes, an octavo and a folio, and from scattered collections o various sorts - Of the manuscripts the octavo, now in the possession of the Earl of Winchilsea, is doubtless the earlier in date. Its beautiful morocco binding and gilt edges, and the exquisitely clear and neat hand- writing of the most of the book show that the compilation and tran- scription of the poems was counted a matter worthy of elegant attention. But toward the end there is a lamentable decline from the precise accuracy of the beginning. The penman- ship changes and is laborious and uneven, with many erasures. And a critical judgment seems to have passed sentence on some of the work, for two poems have been crossed out, letter by letter, in the most painfully effective fashion, while several leaves have been ruthlessly excised ��� �