PREFACE
In one of the most interesting chapters of his Gossip in a Library Mr. Gosse tells of the good luck by which he became possessor of a manuscript volume of the poems of Lady Winchelsea of about the year 1696. With what light-hearted pride he writes: 'If there is any person in the two hemispheres who has so fair a claim upon the ghost of Ardelia, let that man stand forth. Ardelia was uncultivated and unsung when I constituted myself, years ago, her champion!'
So far back, however, as 1815 Wordsworth, in his 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' of his two-volume edition of Poems, referred to 'some delightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea' as containing new images of external nature in an age sadly destitute of poetic recognition of 'the changes produced in the appearances of nature by the revolution of the year.' The year 1820 saw the publication of Wordsworth's sonnet: 'To the Lady Mary Lowther: With a selection from the Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea; and extracts of similar character from other Writers; transcribed by a female friend.' This poem is a favourite with many of Wordsworth's admirers who know nothing
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