a time will come, and that speedily, when he will be no longer in
the fashion; when this idiotic admirer of his, who is still grinning at
my side, shall have ceased to mould his style on Byron's; and this
aristocracy, squirearchy, and what not, who now send their empty
carriages to pay respect to the fashionable corpse, shall have
transferred their empty worship to some other animate or inanimate thing.
Well, perhaps after all it was better to have been mighty Milton in his
poverty and blindness--witty and ingenious Butler consigned to the tender
mercies of bailiffs, and starving Otway; they might enjoy more real
pleasure than this lordling; they must have been aware that the world
would one day do them justice--fame after death is better than the top of
fashion in life. They have left a fame behind them which shall never
die, whilst this lordling--a time will come when he will be out of
fashion and forgotten. And yet I don't know; didn't he write Childe
Harold and that ode? Yes, he wrote Childe Harold and that ode. Then a
time will scarcely come when he will be forgotten. Lords, squires, and
cockneys may pass away, but a time will scarcely come when Childe Harold
and that ode will be forgotten. He was a poet, after all, and he must
have known it; a real poet, equal to--to--what a destiny! Rank, beauty,
fashion, immortality,--he could not be unhappy; what a difference in the
fate of men--I wish I could think he was unhappy--

I turned away.

"Great poet, sir," said the dapper man, turning away too, "but
unhappy--fate of genius, sir; I, too, am frequently unhappy."

Hurrying down a street to the right, I encountered Francis Ardry.

"What means the multitude yonder?" he demanded.

"They are looking after the hearse which is carrying the remains of Byron
up Tottenham Road."

"I have seen the man," said my friend, as he turned back the way he had
come, "so I can dispense with seeing the hearse--I saw the living man at
Venice--ah, a great poet."

"Yes," said I, "a great poet, it must be so, everybody says so--what a
destiny! What a difference in the fate of men; but 'tis said he was
unhappy; you have seen him, how did he look?"

"Oh, beautiful!"

"But did he look happy?"

"Why, I can't say he looked very unhappy; I saw him with two--very fair
ladies; but what is it to you whether the man was unhappy or not? Come,
where shall we go--to Joey's? His hugest bear--"

"O, I have had enough of bears, I have j