s; of witty and ingenious Butler consigned to the tender
mercies of bailiffs; and starving Otway: they had lived neglected and
despised, and, when they died, a few poor mourners only had followed them
to the grave; but this Byron had been made a half god of when living, and
now that he was dead he was followed by worshipping crowds, and the very
sun seemed to come out on purpose to grace his funeral. And, indeed, the
sun, which for many days past had hidden its face in clouds, shone out
that morn with wonderful brilliancy, flaming upon the black hearse and
its tall ostrich plumes, the mourning coaches, and the long train of
aristocratic carriages which followed behind.

'Great poet, sir,' said the dapper-looking man, 'great poet, but
unhappy.'

Unhappy? yes, I had heard that he had been unhappy; that he had roamed
about a fevered, distempered man, taking pleasure in nothing--that I had
heard; but was it true? was he really unhappy? was not this unhappiness
assumed, with the view of increasing the interest which the world took in
him? and yet who could say? He might be unhappy, and with reason. Was
he a real poet after all? might he not doubt himself? might he not have a
lurking consciousness that he was undeserving of the homage which he was
receiving? that it could not last? that he was rather at the top of
fashion than of fame? He was a lordling, a glittering, gorgeous
lordling: and he might have had a consciousness that he owed much of his
celebrity to being so; he might have felt that he was rather at the top
of fashion than of fame. Fashion soon changes, thought I, eagerly to
myself--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, w