Blank space on page for section title and possible drawing (MS IX)—Since the first line of this poem is placed significantly below the top of the page, leaving a vertical column measuring approximately eleven lines of Ruskinʼs cursive copperplate script, it is reasonable to assume that he intended to paste a drawing here, but never produced it, or that he produced a drawing, but it has been removed or lost. Most likely, he never produced the drawing at all, since this is the first section of the travelogue to lack even a section heading. The heading “St Goar” is supplied without comment in the Library Edition (Ruskin, Works, 2:359), but it is placed in square brackets here since Ruskinʼs intention can only be inferred (see The System of Title Citation for Works. In this instance, the inference is very strong, since Ruskin entitled the poem “St Goar” in MS IA, g.2; and this title was maintained as a subtitle for the version of the poem as revised for “Fragments from a Metrical Journal”.

Copytexts of poem, variously titled “St Goar” and “St. Goar” and “First Sketch of ‘St. Goar’“ (MS IA; MS IX; Poems [1886]; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—In Poems (1891), W. G. Collingwood relegates to an endnote the version of the poemʼs text as found in both MS IA, g.2, and MS IX, preferring as main copytext the version as revised for Friendshipʼs Offering, “Fragments from a Metrical Journal”. While this version cannot strictly be understood as having authority separated from its companion text “Andernacht” forming the “Fragments”, Collingwoodʼs choice was in keeping with his preference for published versions (albeit a preference he did not consistently follow) (see Poems [4^o, 1891], 1:266–67; Poems [8^o, 1891], 1:268). In the Library Edition, the editors followed suit, reproducing the Friendshipʼs Offering version as main copytext as well, while dropping the MS IA/MS IX version into a note.

The title applied by all these editors to the earlier version, “First Sketch of ‘St. Goar’”, is properly placed in square brackets since Collingwood invented it (see System for Title Citation of Works). The title is misleading in calling the earlier version a “first sketch”, since Ruskin did not substantively alter the poem when he fair‐copied it in MS IX from its earliest surviving draft in MS IA, g.2; and at that time, he did not anticipate revising this version to form part of “Fragments” for publication in Friendshipʼs Offering. For Collingwood, however, use of the term sketch was implicitly justified by his rationale for printing the earlier version in a note: “as in the case of [“First Sketch of ‘Andernach’”], it may be interesting to compare the first draft; if for nothing else, to show that the young poet could polish when he chose, and that he would have eliminated the slipshod grammar and faulty rhymes if he had prepared the rest of his juvenile verses for publication” (Poems [4^o, 1891], 1:282–83; Poems [8^o, 1891], 1:284–85). Intended to bestow faint praise on the “polished” version, these unsupported generalizations are not in fact applicable to the relation between what Collingwood calls the “sketch” and the “polished” published versions. While the latter is more condensed, the first version of “St Goar” is a carefully considered exercise in the contrasting modes of the sublime and the beautiful.

The Library Edition reprinted this careless commentary by Collingwood without challenge, only adding some bibliographical details (Ruskin, Works, 2:359 n. 1). In the Poems (1886), only the Friendshipʼs Offering text was used, and in its proper context companioned with “Andernacht”. The American editor understood his task as recovering Ruskinʼs poetry texts from the annuals and of course lacked access to manuscripts or the information needed to make a connection between “Fragments from a Metrical Journal” and the “Account” (see Poems [1886], iii–iv, 4–6).