Legends and Lyrics, Pt 1 | Page 4

to the
mother of its writer, in its writer's presence; that I had no such
correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that the name had

been assumed by Barry
Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss Adelaide
Anne Procter.
The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why
the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these poor
words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly illustrates the
honesty, independence, and quiet dignity, of the lady's character. I had
known her when she was very young; I had been honoured with her
father's friendship when I was myself a young aspirant; and she had
said at home, "If I send him, in my own name, verses that he does not
honestly like, either it will be very painful to him to return them, or he
will print them for papa's sake, and not for their own. So I have made
up my mind to take my chance fairly with the unknown volunteers."
Perhaps it requires an editor's experience of the profoundly
unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept
unsuitable
articles--such as having been to school with the writer's husband's
brother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the
writer's wife's nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken his
own--fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect of this
resolution.
Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the Book of Beauty,
ten years before she became Miss Berwick. With the exception of two
poems in the Cornhill Magazine, two in Good Words, and others in a
little book called A Chaplet of Verses (issued in 1862 for the benefit of
a Night Refuge), her published writings first appeared in Household
Words, or All the Year Round. The present edition contains the whole
of her Legends and Lyrics, and originates in the great favour with
which they have been received by the public.
Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of
October, 1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an age,
that I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper, into
which her favourite passages were copied for her by her mother's hand
before she herself could write. It looks as if she had carried it about, as
another little girl might have carried a doll. She soon displayed a

remarkable memory, and great quickness of apprehension. When she
was quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the
problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she acquired the French, Italian,
and German languages; became a clever pianoforte player; and showed
a true taste and sentiment in drawing. But, as soon as she had
completely
vanquished the difficulties of any one branch of study, it
was her way to lose interest in it, and pass to another. While her mental
resources were being trained, it was not at all suspected in her family
that she had any gift of authorship, or any ambition to become a writer.
Her father had no idea of her having ever attempted to turn a rhyme,
until her first little poem saw the light in print.
When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary
number of books, and throughout her life she was always largely
adding to the number. In 1853 she went to Turin and its

neighbourhood, on a visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady. As Miss
Procter had herself professed the Roman Catholic Faith two years
before, she entered with the greater ardour on the study of the
Piedmontese dialect, and the observation of the habits and manners of
the peasantry. In the former, she soon became a proficient. On the latter
head, I extract from her familiar letters written home to England at the
time, two pleasant pieces of description.
A BETROTHAL
"We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description. Last
Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out into
the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the mountains,
when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which rather excited
my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost that toils up here. I
went out of the room for a few minutes, and, on my returning, Emily
said, 'Oh! That band is playing at the farmer's near here. The daughter
is fiancee to-day, and they have a ball.' I said, 'I wish I was going!'
'Well,' replied she, 'the farmer's wife did call to invite us.' 'Then I shall
certainly go,' I exclaimed. I applied to Madame B., who said she would
like it very much, and we had better go, children and all. Some of the
servants were already gone. We rushed away to put on