William Wordsworth was born in 1770, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, the second son of John Wordsworth, a lawyer and land-agent to the Earls of Lonsdale. Dorothy, her parents’ only girl, was twenty months younger than William, and the two children very early showed that close sympathy and tender affection for one another which is often the precious possession of happy family life. Only a few years were spent together by the brother and sister in this joyous playtime of life; but the happiness of this early time is recorded in several of Wordsworth’s poems, especially in the one where he speaks of his sister and their visit together to see the sparrow’s nest— She looked at it and seemed to fear it; Dreading, tho’ wishing, to be near it: Such heart was in her, being then A little Prattler among men. The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a boy: She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy. William and Dorothy were less than nine and seven respectively when these happy days of childish companionship were closed by the death of their mother in 1778. William was then sent to school, and Dorothy went to live with her maternal grandparents at Penrith. The children were doubly orphaned five years later by the death of their father, in 1783. William and his brothers then passed to the guardianship of their uncles, Richard and Christopher Wordsworth, while Dorothy was made over to the care of other relatives, and spent her time partly at Halifax and partly with her mother’s cousin, Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor. She and William, however, by no means forgot their childish affection or let it grow cold. They rarely met at this time, but their meetings were looked forward to by both with ardent and intense pleasure. Each continued to be to the other the dearest and most beloved of friends.