He stood transfixed before the unaccustomed view of London at night time, a vast panorama which reminded him […] of some wood engravings far off and magical, in a printshop in his childhood.

With those hectic ‘Burns’ Nights’ when the emphasis, like their own, falls on food and drink and the absence of all things unpleasant—on the absence, in particular, of any hard thinking—they go well enough.

Proceede then in your bleſt Inauguration, / And celebrate this Annuall Ovation; / Whilſt you nor this way, nor to that way leane, / But ſhunne th' extreames, to keepe the golden meane.

Regarded in this light, the idea of Polarity . . . has nothing to do with the fancy of Terrestrial Magnets, with Hypotheses concerning impalpable and incognoscible Fluids, with Atoms having Poles, or with doctrines concerning Ethereal vibrations.