Adelaide Anne Procter

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
INTRODUCTION TO HER "LEGENDS AND LYRICS"

In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the
weekly journal Household Words, a short poem among the proffered
contributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of
verses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical,
and possessing much more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to
me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and
she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a
circulating library in the western district of London. Through this
channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and
was invited to send another. She complied, and became a regular and
frequent contributor. Many letters passed between the journal and
Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen.

How we came gradually to establish, at the office of Household
Words, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered.
But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was
governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and
returned; and that she had long been in the same family. We really
knew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably
business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose
we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a
more real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.

This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number,
entitled The Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press. Happening to
be going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished
in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of
that number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table,
that it contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss
Berwick. Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of
the poem 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