turally seize on, for
Dickens was always on the lookout for exaggerations in human language
and conduct. It was at Procter's table I heard Dickens describe a scene
which transpired after the publication of the "Old Curiosity Shop." It
seems that the first idea of Little Nell occurred to Dickens when he was
on a birthday visit to Landor, then living in Bath. The old man was
residing in lodgings in St. James Square, in that city, and ever after
connected Little Nell with that particular spot. No character in prose
fiction was a greater favorite with Landor, and one day, years after the
story was published, he burst out with a tremendous emphasis, and
declared the one mistake of his life was that he had not purchased the
house in Bath, and then and there burned it to the ground, so that no
meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of Little Nell!

It was Procter's old schoolmaster (Dr. Drury, headmaster of Harrow) who
was the means of introducing Edmund Kean, the great actor, on the London
stage. Procter delighted to recall the many theatrical triumphs of the
eccentric tragedian, and the memoir which he printed of Kean will always
be read with interest. I heard the poet one evening describe the player
most graphically as he appeared in Sir Giles Overreach in 1816 at Drury
Lane, when he produced such an effect on Lord Byron, who sat that night
in a stage-box with Tom Moore. His lordship was so overcome by Kean's
magnificent acting that he fell forward in a convulsive fit, and it was
some time before he regained his wonted composure. Douglas Jerrold said
that Kean's appearance in Shakespeare's Jew was like a chapter out of
Genesis, and all who have seen the incomparable actor speak of his
tiger-like power and infinite grace as unrivalled.

At Procter's house the best of England's celebrated men and women
assembled, and it was a kind of enchantment to converse with the ladies
one met there. It was indeed a privilege to be received by the hostess
herself, for Mrs. Procter was not only sure to be the most brilliant
person among her guests, but she practised habitually that exquisite
courtesy toward all which renders even a stranger, unwonted to London
drawing-rooms, free from awkwardness and that constraint which are
almost inseparable from a first appearance.

Among the persons T have seen at that house of urbanity in London I
distinctly recall old Mrs. Montague, the mother of Mrs. Procter. She had
met Robert B