Note 456 — XXIV BEYOND THE TOP OF THE HILL (continued 2)

I never saw Mrs. Procter again; she died March 5, 1888. She liked to see people to the last. Every Sunday and Tuesday she admitted all who came to her as long as she could; then she saw a portion: up to the last few weeks she saw one or two. As Landor says, “She warmed both hands before the fire of life, and when it sank she was ready to depart.”

One day a young man remonstrated with Mrs. Procter for not going to see an exhibition of Sir Joshuas which was open at that time. “I have seen them all,” she said. “Why, Mrs. Procter, there has never been such an exhibition before.”—“I beg your pardon; there has been.”—“Why, when?”—“In 1808, and—where were you then?”

Mrs. Procter used to tell how she had been at the jubilee of George III., and would add that if she could see the jubilee of Queen Victoria she would say her “Nunc Dimittis;” and she did see it, and the Queen expressed a wish that Mrs. Procter, who was invited to her garden-party, should be especially presented to her.

Mrs. Procter—Anne Benson Procter—was born Sept. 11, 1799, being the daughter of Mr. Skepper, a small Yorkshire squire. Her mother, a Benson, who was aunt of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name, married, as her second husband, Basil Montagu, Q.C. In 1823, Miss Skepper married Bryan Waller Procter, known as Barry Cornwall, described by Patmore as a “simple, sincere, shy, and delicate soul,” well known to his contemporaries by his songs set to music by popular composers. He died in 1874.