Several political sonnets, and others, were written in 1807; also the _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_, and the first and larger part of _The White Doe of Rylstone_, with a few minor fragments. But, for reasons stated in the notes to _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (see p. 191), I have assigned that poem to the year 1808. The _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_ forms as natural a preface to _The White Doe_, as _The Force of Prayer, a Tradition of Bolton Abbey_, is its natural appendix. The latter was written, however, before _The White Doe of Rylstone_ was finished.
It would be easier to fix the date of some of the poems written between the years 1806 and 1808, if we knew the exact month in which the two volumes of 1807 were published; but this, I fear, it is impossible to discover now.
On November 10th, 1806, Wordsworth wrote to Sir George Beaumont from Coleorton, "In a day or two I mean to send a sheet or two of my intended volume to the press" (evidently referring to the "Poems" of 1807). On the following day--11th November 1806--Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Lady Beaumont, "William has written two other poems, which you will see when they are printed. He composes frequently in the grove.... We have not yet received a sheet from the printer." On the 15th November 1806 she again wrote to Lady Beaumont (from Coleorton), "My brother works very hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the transcriber." In a subsequent letter from Coleorton, undated, but bearing the post-mark February 18, 1807, she is speaking of her brother's poetical labour, and says, "He must go on, when he begins: and any interruptions (such as attending to the progress of the workmen and planning the garden) are of the greatest use to him; for, after a certain time, the progress is by no means proportioned to the labour in composition; and if he is called from it by other thoughts, he returns to it with ten times the pleasure, and the work goes on proportionately the more rapidly." From this we may infer that the years 1806-7 were productive ones, but it is disappointing that the dates of the composition of the poems are so difficult to determine.--ED.
[The winter garden of Coleorton, fashioned out of an old quarry, under the superintendence and direction of Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister Dorothy, during the winter and spring we resided there.--I. F.]