bad I cannot transcribe them. The man at the cottage was a great bore with his anecdotes. I hate the rascal. His life consists in fuzy, fuzzy, fuzziest. He drinks glasses, five for the quarter, and twelve for the hour; he is a mahogany-faced old jackass who knew Burns: he ought to have been kicked for having spoken to him. He calls himself "a curious old bitch," but he is a flat old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close before you the real Isle of Tenedos. You would rather read Homer afterwards than remember yourself. One song of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole year in his native country. His misery is a dead weight upon the nimbleness of one's quill; I tried to forget it— to drink toddy without any care-to write a merry sonnet-it won't do-he talked with bitches, he drank with blackguards; he was miserable. We can see horribly clear, in the works of such a man, his whole life, as if we were God's spies. What were his addresses to Jean in the latter part of his life? I should not speak so to you-Yet, why not? You are not in the same case -you are in the right path, and you shall not be deceived. I have spoken to you against marriage, but it was general. The prospect in those matters has been to

me so blank, that I have not been unwilling to die. I would not now, for I have inducements to life-I must see my little nephews in America, and I must see you marry your lovely wife. My sensations are sometimes deadened for weeks together-but, believe me, I have more than once yearned for the time of your happiness to come, as much as I could for myself after the lips of Juliet. From the tenor of my occasional rhodomontade in chit-chat, you might have been deceived concerning me in these points. Upon my soul, I have been getting more and more close to you every day, ever since I knew you, and now one of the first pleasures I look to is your happy marriage-the more, since I have felt the pleasure of loving a sister-in-law. I did not think it possible to become so much attached in so short a time. Things like these, and they are real, have made me resolve to have a care of my health-you must be as careful.

The rain has stopped us to-day at the end of a dozen miles, yet we hope to see Loch Lomond the day after to-morrow. I will piddle out my information, as Rice says, next winter, at any time when a substitute is wanted for Vingt-un. We bear the fatigue very well: twenty miles a day in general. A cloud came over us in getting up Skiddaw—I hope to be more lucky in Ben Lomond and more lucky still in Ben Nevis. What I think you would enjoy is, poking about ruins, sometimes Abbey, sometimes Castle.

Tell my friends I do all I can for them, that is, drink their healths in Toddy. Perhaps I may have some lines, by and by, to send you fresh, on your own letter.

Your affectionate friend

John Keats

LIII.

To THOMAS KEATS.

Well Walk, Hampstead.

Belantree, July 10

[Postmark, Glasgow, 14 July 1818].

Ah! ken ye what I met the day

Out oure the Mountains

A coming down by craggi[e]s grey

An mossie fountains

A[h] goud hair'd Marie yeve I pray

Ane minute's guessing

For that I met upon the way

Is past expressing.

As I stood where a rocky brig

A torrent crosses

I spied upon a misty rig

A troup o' Horses—

And as they trotted down the glen

I sped to meet them

To see if I might know the Men

To stop and greet them.

First Willie on his sleek mare came

At canting gallop.

His long hair rustled like a flame

On board a shallop.

5

IO

15

20

Although the recovery of this letter is fortunate, it would have been more so had it occurred in time to admit of the opening verses taking their place among the rest of those included in the Scotch tour series in Volume II. I presume Keats's way of spelling Ballantrae has no authority; but I leave the place-name as I find it.

The reason for my writing these lines was that Brown wanted to impose a Galloway song upon Dilke -but it won't do. The subject I got from meeting a wedding just as we came down into this place-where I

1 Although this letter begins the day before the preceding one to Reynolds, it carries the story of the tour on, apparently, a day later.

am afraid we shall be imprisoned a while by the weather. Yesterday we came 27 Miles from Stranraer-entered Ayrshire a little beyond Cairn, and had our path through a delightful Country. I shall endeavour that you may follow our steps in this walk-it would be uninteresting in a Book of Travels-it can not be interesting but by my having gone through it. When we left Cairn our Road lay half way up the sides of a green mountainous shore, full of clefts of verdure and eternally varyingsometimes up sometimes down, and over little Bridges going across green chasms of moss, rock and trees-winding about every where. After two or three Miles of this we turned suddenly into a magnificent glen finely wooded in Parts-seven Miles long-with a Mountain stream winding down the Midst-full of cottages in the most happy situations-the sides of the Hills covered with sheep-the effect of cattle lowing I never had so finely. At the end we had a gradual ascent and got among the tops of the Mountains whence in a little time I descried in the Sea Ailsa Rock 940 feet high-it1 was 15 Miles distant and seemed close upon us. The effect of Ailsa with the peculiar perspective of the Sea in connection with the ground we stood on, and the misty rain then falling gave me a complete Idea of a deluge. Ailsa struck me very suddenly-really I was a little alarmed.

Thus far had I written before we set out this morning. Now we are at Girvan 13 Miles north of Belantree. Our Walk has been along a more grand shore to day than yesterday- Ailsa beside us all the way. From the heights we could see quite at home Cantire and the large Mountains of Annan, one of the Hebrides. We