upon the room,
and an influence as of terror pervaded the whole assembly. It was a song
by Dessauer, which he had composed for her voice, the words by Tennyson.
No one who was present that evening can forget how she broke the silence
with

"We were two daughters of one race,"

or how she uttered the words,

"The wind is roaring in turret and tree."

It was like a scene in a great tragedy, and then I fully understood the
worship she had won as belonging only to those consummate artists who
have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. As we left the house
Procter said, "You are in great luck to-night. I never heard her sing
more divinely."

The Poet frequently spoke to me of the old days when he was contributing
to the "London Magazine," which fifty years ago was deservedly so
popular in Great Britain. All the "best talent" (to use a modern
advertisement phrase) wrote for it. Carlyle sent his papers on Schiller
to be printed in it; De Quincey's "Confessions of an English
Opium-Eater" appeared in its pages; and the essays of "Elia" came out
first in that potent periodical; Landor, Keats, and John Bowring
contributed to it; and to have printed a prose or poetical article in
the "London" entitled a man to be asked to dine out anywhere in society
in those days. In 1821 the proprietors began to give dinners in Waterloo
Place once a month to their contributors, who, after the cloth was
removed, were expected to talk over the prospects of the magazine, and
lay out the contents for next month. Procter described to me the
authors of his generation as they sat round the old "mahogany-tree" of
that period. "Very social and expansive hours they passed in that
pleasant room half a century ago. Thither came stalwart Allan
Cunningham, with his Scotch face shining with good-nature; Charles Lamb,
'a Diogenes with the heart of a St. John'; Hamilton Reynolds, whose good
temper and vivacity were like condiments at a feast; John Clare, the
peasant-poet, simple as a daisy; Tom Hood, young, silent, and grave, but
who nevertheless now and then shot out a pun that damaged the shaking
sides of the whole company; De Quincey, self-involved and courteous,
rolling out his periods with a pomp and splendor suited, perhaps, to a
high Roman festival; and with these sons of fame gathered certain
nameless folk whose contributions to the great 'London' are now under
the protection of that tremendous power which men call _Oblivion_."