PREFACE 



A pleasant task is finished ; a heavy burden has been 

 laid aside. These are the conflicting feelings that one 

 must needs experience who has completed the writing 

 of a book. Though there have been no ties of con- 

 sanguinity between the subject of this monograph and 

 its writer, yet there has been much to make the work 

 of real interest, and however tedious the labor has 

 sometimes grown, the remembrance of the tireless en- 

 ergy and self-devotion of the spirit over whose life I 

 was working has still nerved me for fresh endeavor. 



The undertaking of this task was suggested to me 

 by one whose ripe experience and discrimination was 

 to me a sufficient guarantee that the work was worth 

 the while, and if the limited public to which such a 

 book as this can hope to appeal adds its approval to 

 his I shall be satisfied and the labor shall have received 

 its reward. 



The few lives of Wilson which have preceded this 

 have been scarcely more than brief sketches written 

 as introductions to his works. Nor, with the exception 

 of a desultory essay by Alexander B. Grosart, have 

 they drawn attention to the pure literary work of the 

 man. My acknowledgments are due to even the least 

 of these biographies, for they have taught me, if 

 nothing else, to keep myself clear from some of the 

 faults into which they have fallen. To the excellent 

 "Belfast Edition" of Wilson's poems and to the vol- 

 umes edited by Grosart I am especially indebted for 

 the complete text of his poems and for a convenient 

 arrangement of his correspondence. Whenever it has 

 been possible, however, I have made use of the orig- 

 inal manuscripts or the first editions, which I was able 

 to do largely through the kindness of the librarians 



