Extract from an article, ‘Concerning the Poetry of Wordsworth’, in the form of a letter to William Tait, dated 16 May 1838.

[…] I was one day mentioning to you, as you may remember, an idea thrown out by a literary man known to myself, and afterwards reported to the person whose interests would have been chiefly affected by such a plan,—that an edition of Mr Wordsworth's poems upon coarse paper, and in every other way adapted to purchasers of the lowest rank, would form a most acceptable present to the great number (now annually growing rapidly) of grave meditative men in the class of mechanics and artizans both here and in the American United States, and throughout our vast colonial Empire. At that time you expressed some intention (whether arising out of the little anecdote I had reported or itself preceding and suggesting that anecdote, I cannot now recollect) of writing to Mr Wordsworth yourself in some modified shape. I know not whether you have yet acted upon that intention, or whether (having delayed to do so) you still entertain it. But, in either case, there arises no reason why I should not bring forward a scheme of my own—somewhat varying from this, and with a twofold advantage; that it would leave undisturbed the pecuniary interests involved in the copyright of Mr Wordsworth's poems; and that it would offer something much more acceptable to those for whom it was designed, because better and more portably and here and there more intelligibly prepared for their separate use. What I mean is a large selection from the whole body of Mr Wordsworth's poetry, as much perhaps as one half; this of itself would leave the full edition in its integrity of value; whilst from various causes that may be explained hereafter, poems not adapted to the taste which is likely to grow up in such classes of society or at least not equally adapted, will be removed with corresponding advantages to the purse of the buyers. Another part of my scheme would be—to add a very few and brief notes; which indeed are absolutely necessary at times to those readers of Wordsworth who are not classically educated, and secondly to those who are not familiar by long habit with his style of thinking.