dominion of strong drink. An old lady of Kilmarnock told my friend, the
late Dr. Taylor of New York, that when a young woman she had gone to
Burns' house to assist in preparations for his funeral, and stated that
there was not enough decent linen in the house to lay out the most
splendid genius in all Scotland! When I was at Ayr, a sister of Burns,
Mrs. Begg, was still living, and I am always regretting that I did not
call upon her. His widow, Jean Armour, had died but a few years before;
and when a certain pert American who called upon the old lady had the
audacity to ask her: "Can you show me any relics of the poet?" answered
with majestic dignity: "Sir, _I am the only relic of Robert Burns_."

I went abroad on this first visit to Europe keen for lion hunting, and
with an eager desire to see some of the men who had been my literary
benefactors. On my arrival in London, having a letter of introduction to
Charles Dickens, which a mutual friend had given to me, I resolved to
present it. Charles Dickens was an idol of my college days, and I had
spent a few minutes with him in Philadelphia during his recent visit to
the United States. He had returned from his triumphal tour about a month
before I landed in Liverpool. I called at his house, but he was not at
home. The next day he did me the honor to call on me at Morley's Hotel,
and, not finding me in, invited me up to his house near York Gate,
Regents Park. It was a dingy, brick house surrounded by a high wall, but
cheerful and cozy within. I found him in his sanctum, a singularly
shaped room, with statuettes of Sam Weller and others of his creations
on the mantelpiece. A portrait of his beautiful wife was upon the
wall--that wife, the separation from whom threw a strange, sad shadow
over his home. How handsome he was then! With his deep, dark, lustrous
eyes, that you saw yourself in, and the merry mouth wreathed with
laughter, and the luxuriant mass of dark hair that he wore in a sort of
stack over his lofty forehead! He had a slight lisp in his pleasant