Letter from Aubrey de Vere, Curragh Chase, to William Angus Knight, 1893 November 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

Expressing pleasure at the prospect of "...the Great Ode being, in that Edition restored to the place always assigned to it by the author, & from which he would have been much grieved at its permanently degraded - and this independently of the consideration that, as it was written in two different & long separated years, there is no place which, as a whole, it could occupy on the chronological principles, to which therefore it must be an exception;" saying he first heard from Miss Fenwick that "the Laureate poem was written by Quillinan at Wordsworth's request, he having himself wholly failed in a reluctant attempt to write one. If he had written it I doubt much whether he would ever have admitted it to a place [illegible] his works, for he did hold laureate Odes in honour, & had only taken the Laureateship on condition that he was to write none - Tennyson made the same condition, which of course could not interfere with either Poet addressing verses to the Queen...;" suggesting he write to Miss Arnold for more information on Wordsworth and commenting on editions of Shakespeare's works that include works that were merely attributed to him.