ABSTRACT
Have you seen Wordsworth’s poem? If not, read it, if you can, before you see the author. You will see him with the more pleasure, and look with more interest at the scenery which he describes.
c. To Bernard Barton, 19 December 1814
Wordsworth’s residence and mine are fifteen miles asunder, a sufficient distance to preclude any frequent interchange of visits. I have known him nearly twenty years, and, for about half that time, intimately. The strength and the character of his mind you see in the Excursion, and his life does not belie his writings, for, in every relation of life, and every point of view, he is a truly exemplary and admirable man. In conversation he is powerful beyond any of his contemporaries; and, as a poet, – I speak not from the partiality of friendship, nor because we have been so absurdly held up as both writing upon one concerted system of poetry, but with the most deliberate exercise of impartial judgment whereof I am capable, when I declare my full conviction that posterity will rank him with Milton . . .
