In all editorial notes the titles given by Wordsworth to his Poems are invariably printed in italics, not with inverted commas before and after, as Wordsworth himself so often printed them: and when he gave no title to a poem, its first line will be invariably placed within inverted commas. This plan of using Italics, and not Roman letters, applies also to the title of any book referred to by Wordsworth, or by his sister in her Journals. Whether they put the title in italics, or within commas, it is always
italicised
in this edition.
A subsidiary matter such as this becomes important when one finds that many editors of parts of the Works of Wordsworth, or of Selections from them, have invented titles of their own; and have sent their volumes to press without the slightest indication to their readers that the titles were not Wordsworth's; mixing up their own notion of what best described the contents of the Poem, or the Letter, with those of the writer. Some have suppressed Wordsworth's, and put their own title in its place! Others have contented themselves (more modestly) with inventing a title when Wordsworth gave none. I do not object to these titles in themselves. Several, such as those by Archbishop Trench, are suggestive and valuable. What I object to is that any editor—no matter who—should mingle his own titles with those of the Poet, and give no indication to the reader as to which is which. Dr. Grosart has been so devoted a student of Wordsworth, and we owe him so much, that one regrets to find in "The Prose Works of Wordsworth" (1876) the following title given to his letter to the Bishop of Llandaff,
Apology for the French Revolution
. It is interesting to know that Dr. Grosart thought this a useful description of the letter: but a clear indication should have been given that it was not Wordsworth's. It is true that, in the general preface to his volumes, Dr. Grosart takes upon himself the responsibility for this title; but it should not have been printed as the title in chief, or as the headline to the text. Similarly, with the titles of the second and third of the three
Essays on Epitaphs
.
As students of Wordsworth know, he issued a volume in 1838 containing all his sonnets then written; and, at the close of that edition, he added, "The six Sonnets annexed were composed as this Volume was going through the Press, but too late for insertion in the class of miscellaneous ones to which they belong." In 1884, Archbishop Trench edited the sonnets, with an admirable introductory "Essay on the History of the English Sonnet"; but, while Wordsworth gave no title to the 3rd and the 4th of the six, "composed as the Volume was going through the Press,"—either in his edition of 1838,
or in any subsequent issue