once
referred to, and the talk goes on in that direction for some time. At
last both Dickens and Felton fell into such a paroxysm of laughter at
Forster's dogged determination to be complimentary to the world-renowned
novel, that they could no longer hold out; and Forster, becoming almost
insane with wonder at the hilarious conduct of his two visitors,
Dickens revealed their wickedness, and a right jolty day the happy trio
made of it.

Talfourd informs us that Forster had become to Charles Lamb as one of
his oldest companions, and that Mary also cherished a strong regard for
him. It is surely a proof of his admirable qualities that the love of so
many of England's best and greatest was secured to him by so lasting a
tenure. To have the friendship of Landor, Dickens, and Procter through
long years; to have Carlyle for a constant votary, and to be mourned by
him with an abiding sorrow,--these are no slight tributes to purity of
purpose.

Forster had that genuine sympathy with men of letters which entitled him
to be their biographer, and all his works in that department have a
special charm, habitually gained only by a subtle and earnest intellect.

It is a singular coincidence that the writers of two of the most
brilliant records of travel of their time should have been law students
in Barry Cornwall's office. Kinglake, the author of "Eothen," and
Warburton, the author of "The Crescent and the Cross," were at one
period both engaged as pupils in their profession under the guidance of
Mr. Procter. He frequently spoke with pride of his two law students, and
when Warburton perished at sea, his grief for his brilliant friend was
deep and abiding. Kinglake's later literary fame was always a pleasure
to the historian's old master, and no one in England loved better to
point out the fine passages in the "History of the Invasion of the
Crimea" than the old poet in Weymouth Street.

"Blackwood" and the "Quarterly Review" railed at Procter and his author
friends for a long period; but how true is the saying of Macaulay, "that
the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is
written _about_ them, but by what is written in them!" No man was more
decried in his day than Procter's friend, William Hazlitt. The poet had
for the critic a genuine admiration; and I have heard him dilate with a
kind of rapture over the critic's fine sayings, quoting abundant
passages from the essays. Procter would never hear any disp