What a vile slip of the pen was that! How absurd in me to talk
about burying the bones of Byron, who, I have just seen alive, and
incased in a big, round bulk of flesh! But, to say the truth, a
prodigiously fat man always impresses me as a kind of hobgoblin; in
the very extravagance of his mortal system I find something akin to
the immateriality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old story
darted into my mind, how that Byron died of fever at Missolonghi,
above twenty years ago. More and more I recognize that we dwell in
a world of shadows; and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the
trouble to attempt a distinction between shadows in the mind and
shadows out of it. If there be any difference, the former are
rather the more substantial.

Only think of my good fortune! The venerable Robert Burns--now, if
I mistake not, in his eighty-seventh year--happens to be making a
visit to London, as if on purpose to afford me an opportunity of
grasping him by the hand. For upwards of twenty years past he has
hardly left his quiet cottage in Ayrshire for a single night, and
has only been drawn hither now by the irresistible persuasions of
all the distinguished men in England. They wish to celebrate the
patriarch's birthday by a festival. It will be the greatest literary
triumph on record. Pray Heaven the little spirit of life within the
aged bard's bosom may not be extinguished in the lustre of that
hour! I have already had the honor of an introduction to him at the
British Museum, where he was examining a collection of his own
unpublished letters, interspersed with songs, which have escaped the
notice of all his biographers.

Poh! Nonsense! What am I thinking of? How should Burns have been
embalmed in biography when he is still a hearty old man?