I find with pleasure that a considerable agreement of opinion exists,--
though less among professed poets or critics, than among men of
eminence in other departments of thought or action whose attention
has been directed to Wordsworth's poems. And although I have felt it
right to express in each case my own views with exactness, I have
been able to feel that I am not obtruding on the reader any merely
fanciful estimate in which better accredited judges would refuse to
concur.
[Footnote 1: I take this opportunity of thanking Mr. William
Wordsworth, the son (now deceased), and Mr. William Wordsworth, the
grandson, of the poet, for help most valuable in enabling me to give
a true impression of the poet's personality.]
Without further preface I now begin my story of Wordsworth's life,
in words which he himself dictated to his intended biographer.
"I was born," he said, "at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on April 7th,
1770, the second son of John Wordsworth, attorney-at-law--as
lawyers of this class were then called--and law-agent to Sir James
Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale. My mother was Anne, only
daughter of William Cookson, mercer, of Penrith, and of Dorothy,
born Crackanthorp, of the ancient family of that name, who from the
times of Edward the Third had lived in Newbiggen Hall, Westmoreland.
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