Talking of the ocean with him one day, he revealed this curious fact:  although he is the author of one of the most stirring and popular sea-songs in the language,—­

    “The sea, the sea, the open sea!”—­

he said he had rarely been upon the tossing element, having a great fear of being made ill by it.  I think he told me he had never dared to cross the Channel even, and so had never seen Paris.  He said, like many others, he delighted to gaze upon the waters from a safe place on land, but had a horror of living on it even for a few hours.  I recalled to his recollection his own lines,—­

    “I’m on the sea!  I’m on the sea! 
    I am where I would ever be,”—­

and he shook his head, and laughingly declared I must have misquoted his words, or that Dibdin had written the piece and put “Barry Cornwall’s” signature to it.  We had, I remember, a great deal of fun over the poetical lies, as he called them, which bards in all ages had perpetrated in their verse, and he told me some stories of English poets, over which we made merry as we sat together in pleasant Cavendish Square that summer evening.

His world-renowned song of “The Sea” he afterward gave me in his own handwriting, and it is still among my autographic treasures.

It was Procter who first in my hearing, twenty-five years ago, put such an estimate on the poetry of Robert Browning that I could not delay any longer to make acquaintance with his writings.  I remember to have been startled at hearing the man who in his day had known so many poets declare that Browning was the peer of any one who had written in this century, and that, on the whole, his genius had not been excelled in his (Procter’s) time.  “Mind what I say,” insisted Procter; “Browning will make an enduring name, and add another supremely great poet to England.”

Procter could sometimes be prompted into describing that brilliant set of men and women who were in the habit of congregating at Lady Blessington’s, and I well recollect his description of young N.P.  Willis as he first appeared in her salon.  “The young traveller came among us,” said Procter, “enthusiastic, handsome, and good-natured, and took his place beside D’Orsay, Bulwer, Disraeli, and the other dandies as naturally as if he had been for years a London man about town.  He was full of fresh talk concerning his own country, and we all admired his cleverness in compassing so aptly all the little newnesses of the situation.  He was ready on all occasions, a little too ready, some of the habitues of the salon thought, and they could not understand his cool and quiet-at-home manners.  He became a favorite at first trial, and laid himself out determined to please and be pleased.  His ever kind and thoughtful attention to others won him troops of friends, and I never can forget his unwearied goodness to a sick child of mine, with whom, night after night, he would sit by the bedside and watch, thus relieving the worn-out family in a way that was very tender and self-sacrificing.”