POEM "BY ONE BEAUTIFUL MRS. PHILIPS." She that would be Rosania's Friend, Must be at least compleat. If I have any bravery, 'Tis cause I have so much of thee. 8. Thy Leiger Soul in me shall lie, Such is the sacred name of Friend. 9. Thus our twin-Souls in one shall grow, IO. A Dew shall dwell upon our Tomb That fighting Armies, thither come, Shall reconciled be. We'll ask no Epitaph, but say ORINDA and ROSANIA. 353 (7) The Life, Letters &c. has by way of foot-note to line 4 of this stanza,-"A compleat friend'-this line sounded very oddly to me at first." It is not stated whether the note is Keats's. IV. LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND BY CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN. SIR CHARLES DILKE has recorded in the Memoir of his grandfather prefixed to Papers of a Critic (Volume I, pages 2 and 3) that, in July 1818, Brown wrote to Mr. Dilke as follows: "Keats has been these five hours abusing the Scotch and their country. He says that the women have large splay feet, which is too true to be controverted, and that he thanks Providence he is not related to a Scot, nor any way connected with them." I presume the letter contained nothing else about Keats, as it is not among the Keats collections placed unreservedly at my disposal by Sir Charles, and is believed to have been destroyed with others of Brown's which there seemed no occasion to preserve. The following letter addressed to the late Henry Snook while prosecuting his studies at Eton is valuable as placing Keats's Scotch Tour on record from his companion's point of view. My dear Henry, Inverness, 7th August 1818. Yesterday I had a letter from your Uncle. He told me you had been for a day at Wentworth Place. Why did he not say how you got on at Eton? I am very-very anxious to hear of your success in the Classics. I have thought of you, and your brother, and my two nephews, every day on my walk. To have left you all, after so long having been your companion, sometimes comes across my mind in a painful manner, and the farther I have travelled away the stronger has been the feeling. There may be many who cannot understand why I should think of you so much, but my dear boys know how much I have loved them, and they must likewise know it is not in my nature to be changeable with them. But let the proof of this remain till some future day, that is, the proof of my unchangeableness for in the meanwhile I can have nothing to offer but assurances of affection. It gives me delight to think I have friends growing round me. Do you want to hear about my journey? I think you do; and what else can I have to write about? Come,listen! You shall have an abridgement of the history of Charles Brown's adventures, first part. We set out from Lancaster and went to Windermere Lake, then to Keswick and Derwent Water, and up Mount Skiddaw; these Lakes like all fresh water ones must be in the neighbourhood of great mountains, for they are fed by the springs and rain from the sides of them; it is for this reason they are so beautiful; imagine if you can a large piece of clear, smooth water not round or square like a pond in a Garden but winding about to and fro with parts of the rocks jutting forward in them, and with several little islands peeping up here and there, all wooded with different kinds of trees, while the view upwards rests on grand mountains, one rising above another, with the clouds sailing beneath their summits, and sometimes spreading downwards into the valleys. When we had seen many of these scenes in Cumberland and Westmoreland, we trudged to Carlisle, from which City we took the stage to Dumfries, which was an unin teresting distance of 36 miles. We travelled all over the coast of Kircudbright with great pleasure; the country there is very fruitful, and the views delightful. It was our intention to see the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and we took the packet from Port Patrick to Donaghadee, but did not proceed further than Belfast and returned back again, for the Irish people did not please us, and the expence was enormous. You must now follow me, up the coast to Ayr, and I heartily wish I had time to detain you on the road, for it's worth admiring, even at second hand. Near Ayr, we paid a visit to the Cottage in which Burns was born,-thousands go there for no other purpose but the happiness of being under the roof, and I was not the least among them in that happiness; we likewise took a survey of the Ruins of Kirk Alloway, where, you will remember, Tam o' Shanter saw the Witches dancing as he peeped thro' the west window, and we saw the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon," and the "auld Brig" and the "new Brig" in the Town; and every thing we could think of that was connected with Burns' poetry. I ought to tell you Burns had as charming a country to live in, as he himself has described, indeed the sight of it is almost enough to make a man a Poet. In a little time after, we entered the City of Glasgow,—the largest City in all Scotland, and a noble place it is. Then journeying by the banks of the Clyde, we reached Dumbarton, and turned northwards by the side of Loch Lomond, the famous Lake that people go in such crowds to have a sight of. Who shall attempt to describe such scenery? I believe I must pass it over, and take you across the country to the top of Loch Awe, where we had one of our pleasantest days in walking by its side to the south end. We afterwards went to the coast,-a rough and moun tainous coast, where the sea breaks in between the hills, twenty and thirty miles up the Country, forming what they call salt water Lakes. At last we arrived at Oban, and took the ferries, first to the Island of Kerrera, and then to the Island of Mull. Here a Guide led us thro' the Country; no stranger could possibly find the roadfor in fact road there was none, nearly for the whole journey of 37 miles,-sometimes it was over smooth rock, then we had for miles to hop from one stone to another, up hill and down hill, then to cross rivers up to our knees, and, what was worst of all, to walk thro' bogs. At the extremity of Mull, we crossed to the little Island of Iona or Ikolmkill, which is only three miles long, but it was here that Christianity was first taught in Scotland, and for that reason perhaps it was thought a more sacred ground, and it became the burial place of Kings; 48 Scotch Kings have been buried here, 8 Irish, 4 Norwegian, and I French; besides there are very interesting ruins of the Cathedral, the College, a Nunnery, Monasteries, and Chapels. We hired a Boat at Iona to take us to Staffa,-that astonishing island of Basaltic Pillars, which you know I so much desired to look at. We went into the cave, nearly to the end, and I shall never forget the solemn impression it made on me ;—the pillars on each side, the waves beneath, and the beautiful roof,-all surpassed the work of man,-it seemed like a Cathedral, built by the Almighty to raise the minds of his creatures to the purest and the grandest devotion,-no one could have an evil thought in such a place. We returned to Oban by a different road, and I ought to tell you of the strange sight we had of a swarm of sea gulls attacking a shoal of herrings, with now and then a porpoise heaving about among them for a supper, -I assure you that as our boat passed the spot, the |