[Footnote 147: "Legends and Lyrics." By Adelaide Anne Procter. With an Introduction by Charles Dickens. New edition, with additions. Illustrated by W.T.C. Dobson, A.B.A., Samuel Palmer, J. Tenniel, George H. Thomas, Lorenz Fröhlich, W. H. Millais, G. du Maurier. W.P. Burton, J.D. Watson, Charles Keene, J.M. Carrick, M.E. Edward, T. Morten. (Bell & Daldy.) "A Chaplet of Verses." (Longman.)]
The appearance of the beautiful edition of Miss Procter's poems lately issued among the Christmas gift-books of the season forms a fitting occasion for some remarks upon the special character and genius of the authoress whose verses are inscribed upon its delicately-toned pages. Of both the first and second series of Miss Procters "Legends and Lyrics" numerous editions have been called for by the public: they are now collected into a quarto, illustrated by many excellent artists, and are prefaced by a slight biographical introduction from the pen of Mr. Charles Dickens, who, being intimately acquainted with Miss Procter's family, had known her from her early girlhood, and entertained for her the truest admiration and the most cordial esteem.
In attempting an analysis of Miss Procter's poetry, we may well preface it by a few words concerning her life and character, because these were the roots of her verse. To speak of the dead is at all times a sacred thing, demanding heedful words and careful justice. To speak of the beloved dead is always a doubly difficult task, requiring a specially sober modesty of expression, even while giving some scope to that instinctive power of true appreciation which affection best insures. The writer of these pages knew and loved her long and well; and in so far is qualified to speak of what she was: yet of a nature which was all womanly, and which retained to its last earthly moments a singular charm of childlike playfulness and innocence—having been, as it were, at all times sheltered from life's rougher experiences—it is not quite easy so to speak as to bring out a distinctive image to those who knew it not.
Adelaide Anne Procter was born in October, 1825, in Bedford Square, London; the eldest child, the "sweet beloved first-born," of Brian Waller Procter, best known to literature as Barry Cornwall. We have often heard her described as she was at three years old—"the prettiest little fairy ever seen," with fair delicate features and great blue eyes; always frail in health, but exceedingly intelligent. Mr. Dickens tells of a tiny album, made of note-paper, into which her favorite passages of poetry were copied for her by her mother's hand before she herself could write; and she very soon began to acquire foreign languages, and even to learn geometry. One of her early accomplishments was drawing—she composed little figure pieces with grace and facility; and we remember hearing from a loving relative of Miss Procter's, many long years ago, of a certain set of sketches of the Seven Ages of Man, done by her in pencil when she was yet a little girl. Being at the time still younger, we heard of it with a sort of admiring awe, which it is now pathetic to remember; considering in our own mind what a wonderful and even alarming little girl this must be. Some five-and-twenty years later (since her death) those little sketches came to light; the sight of them smiting upon the heart with the memory of that long-ago conversation, so full of fond hope and pride.
Miss Procter was very thoroughly educated, and from her youth went much into society, possessing in a marked degree the best characteristics of a woman of the world. Mr. Dickens says that she had nothing of the conventional poetess about her; was neither melancholy, nor affected, nor self-absorbed. What she had, was the ease, the polish, and the extreme readiness which we are taught to consider the traditionary charm of a Frenchwoman of the old school. To perfect self-possession she added a sort of feminine mastery of those about her. Single out any of the famous Parisians gifted with the power to win and to keep, and imagine this sort of power grafted on to a nature au fond very simple and sterling; and thus the reader will attain to a conception of what she was in social life. She had deep and strong feeling, which she poured out in her poetry; but it did not come uppermost in her conversation. That was always vivid and usually lively, and, moreover, edged with marvellous finesse. "Sweet-briar" one loving friend used to call her.
Her outward life was not very varied; but her conversion to the Catholic faith, which took place when she was about four-and-twenty, gave her a wide circle of intellectual interests beyond those of ordinary English minds. Two years later she went to Piedmont, and passed a year with a relative there. She always recalled this Italian experience with lively pleasure; and it colored many of her poems. Her letters home were very lively and pictorial, showing that she would have excelled in prose composition.
Of her first entrance into literature Mr. Dickens has given an amusing account: how she sent poems to Household Words under the signature of Miss Berwick, and how at the office they all made up their minds she was a governess; and how Miss Berwick turned out, after all, to be the daughter of his old friend Barry Cornwall, who preferred to win her spurs with her visor down. When, some years later, she was with much difficulty induced to collect her poems into a volume, with her name, their success was immediate; both that volume and a second series passed through edition after edition, till she truly became a household word in England.
There is not, alas! very much more to tell. Just when she became famous, and opportunities of literary exertion were opening on every side, her health began to fail. For three or four years before her declared illness she was very delicate, and, with the fatal animation of her peculiar temperament, always overworking herself. But that dread malady, consumption, the scourge of England, can rarely be averted when once it has marked its prey. In November, 1862, her increasing illness first confined her to her room, and very shortly to her bed. For fifteen long months she lay there, wasting gradually away; yet not only was she patient and thoroughly resigned, but up to the very last her bright cheerfulness never quite deserted her. When not actually in pain, she would enter into conversation with all her old zest, taking just the same interest in her friends and their affairs; lively, sympathetic, and helpful to the end. On the very last evening of all, one of her friends, thinking to interest her in the old pursuit, brought her a little poem in proof. It was a Catholic ballad for The Lamp, Miss Procter was sitting up in bed, supported by pillows. She was too weak to speak any unnecessary word; but her large blue eyes roused into their wonted intelligence as she listened; and then, with the sweet sympathy which she at all times gave to others, she made a slight applauding motion with those slender wasted fingers, and smiled into the reader's face. It was such a very slight thing, and yet so utterly characteristic—courtesy and kindness and a sort of unselfish readiness surviving to the very end.