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 CHAPTER VI.

what period we are to assign the composition of this work is uncertain; it did not, at any rate, appear until 1847, when the two volumes of minor poems had passed through four editions.

Through five successive editions did the Poet alter, enlarge, and retouch this work. The original sketch differs as much from the present text as does the first rough draught of "Hamlet" from the "Hamlet" "enlarged to almost as much again as it was." The intercalary songs, six in number, with the passage begin-