In this volume are collected all the verses by Ruskin which were published in his lifetime, together with one or two others which it has seemed well to include. From a considerable quantity of unpublished pieces belonging to Ruskin's childhood, scarcely anything further has been taken. At least as much as was desirable was published during his lifetime, and the scheme of the edition requires that all this should be reprinted. In some cases, however, where editorial excisions were made in the edition of 1891, passages have been restored from the MSS.; the nature of such restorations is explained in footnotes. Some general account is also given, in notes on successive years, of the verses left unpublished, and extracts containing matter of biographical or other interest are occasionally quoted (see, e.g. pp. 260, 395). Of the period of Ruskin's school and college days, a few hitherto unprinted pieces are now given. The most considerable of these is a dramatic fragment entitled Marcolini (pp. 474—516), which Ruskin, not without reason, considered the best of his earlier metrical essays (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. v. § 2). Shorter pieces, hitherto unpublished, will be found on pp. 439, 444, 465. Of a later period are the Birthday Verses (p. 243), and “The Zodiac Song” (p. 247). Ruskin's serious attempts at versification ceased soon after the publication of the first volume of Modern Painters, so that the present volume covers the same period as the first volume of this edition.