rs, M, R.M.

"_BARRY CORNWALL_"
_And Some Of His Friends_.

* * * * *

"_All, all are gone, the old familiar faces_."
CHARLES LAMB.

"_Old Acquaintance, shall the nights
You and I once talked together,
Be forgot like common things?_"

* * * * *

"_His thoughts half hid in golden dreams,
Which make thrice fair the songs and streams
Of Air and Earth_."

* * * * *

"_Song should breathe of scents and flowers;
Song should like a river flow;
Song should bring back scenes and hours
That we loved,--ah, long ago!_"
BARRY CORNWALL.

VII. "BARRY CORNWALL" AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS.

There is no portrait in my possession more satisfactory than the small
one of Barry Cornwall, made purposely for me in England, from life. It
is a thoroughly honest resemblance.

I first saw the poet five-and-twenty years ago, in his own house in
London, at No. 13 Upper Harley Street, Cavendish Square. He was then
declining into the vale of years, but his mind was still vigorous and
young. My letter of introduction to him was written by Charles Sumner,
and it proved sufficient for the beginning of a friendship which existed
through a quarter of a century. My last interview with him occurred in
1869. I found him then quite feeble, but full of his old kindness and
geniality. His speech was somewhat difficult to follow, for he had been
slightly paralyzed not long before; but after listening to him for half
an hour, it was easy to understand nearly every word he uttered. He
spoke with warm feeling of Longfellow, who had been in London during
that season, and had called to see his venerable friend before
proceeding to the Continent. "Wasn't it good of him," said the old man,
in his tremulous voice, "to think of _me_ before he had been in town
twenty-four hours?" He also spoke of his dear companion, John Kenyon, at
whose house we had often met in years past, and he called to mind a
breakfast party there, saying with deep feeling, "And you and I are the
only ones now alive of all who came together that happy morning!"

A few months ago,[*] at the great age of eighty-seven, Bryan Waller
Procter, familiarly and honorably known in English literature for sixty
years past as "Barry Cornwall," calmly "fell on slee