mother of the house seems intelligent though not over clean. N. B. No snuff being to be had in the village she made us some. The Guid Man is a rough-looking hardy stout Man who I think does not speak so much English as the Guid wife who is very obliging and sensible and moreover though stockingless has a pair of old Shoes-Last night some Whisky Men sat up clattering Gaelic till I am sure one o'Clock to our great annoyance. There is a Gaelic testament on the Drawers in the next room. White and blue China ware has crept all about here Yesterday there passed a Donkey laden with tin-pots opposite the Window there are hills in a Mist -a few Ash trees and a mountain stream at a little distance. They possess a few head of Cattle. If you had gone round to the back of the House just now you would have seen more hills in a Mist- some dozen wretched black Cottages scented of peat smoke which finds its way by the door or a hole in the roof. girl here and there barefoot. There was one little thing driving Cows down a slope like a mad thing. There was another standing at the cowhouse door rather pretty fac'd all up to the ankles in dirt. [Oban, July 21.] a We have walk'd 15 Miles in a soaking rain to Oban opposite the Isle of Mull which is so near Staffa we had thought to pass to it—but the expense is 7 Guineas and those rather extorted. -Staffa you see is a fashionable place and therefore every one concerned with it either in this town or the Island are what you call up. 'Tis like paying sixpence for an apple at the playhouse-this irritated me and Brown was not best pleased- we have therefore resolved to set northward for fort William to-morrow morning. I fed upon a bit of white Bread to-day like a Sparrow-it was very fine-I cannot manage the cursed Oat Cake. Remember me to all and let me hear a good account of Your affectionate Brother JOHN 63. TO BENJAMIN BAILEY Inverary, July 18 [1818]. MY DEAR BAILEY- The only day I have had a chance of seeing you when you were last in London I took every advantage of some devil led you out of the way- Now I have written to Reynolds to tell me where you will be in Cumberland so that I cannot miss you. And when I see you, the first thing I shall do will be to read that about Milton and Ceres, and Proserpine Proserpine-for though I am not going after you to John o' Grot's, it will be but poetical to say so. And here, Bailey, I will say a few words written in a sane and seber mind, a very scarce thing with me, for they may, hereafter, save you a great deal of trouble about me, which you do not deserve, and for which I ought to be bastinadoed. I carry all matters to an extreme so that when I have any little vexation, it grows in five minutes into a theme for Sophocles. Then, and in that temper, if I write to any friend, I have so little selfpossession that I give him matter for grieving at the very time perhaps when I am laughing at a Pun. Your last letter made me blush for the pain I had given youI know my own disposition so well that I am certain of writing many times hereafter in the same strain to you · now, you know how far to believe in them. You must allow for Imagination. I know I shall not be able to help it. I am sorry you are grieved at my not continuing my visits to Little BritainYet I think I have as far as a Man can do who has Books to read and subjects to think upon for that reason I have been nowhere else except to Wentworth Place so nigh at hand moreover I have been too often in a state of health that made it prudent not to hazard the night air. Yet, further, I will confess to you that I cannot enjoy Society small or numerous - I am certain that our fair friends are glad I should come for the mere sake of my coming; but I am certain I bring with me a vexation they are better without - If I can possibly at any time feel my temper coming upon me I refrain even from a promised visit. I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women at this moment, I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot - Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish Imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not. I have no right to expect more than their reality—I thought them ethereal above men - I find them perhaps equal - great by comparison is very small. Insult may be inflicted in more ways than by word or action-One who is tender of being insulted does not like to think an insult against another. I do not like to think insults in a lady's company — I commit a crime with her which absence would not have known. Is it not extraordinary? when among men, I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen I feel free to speak or to be silent - I can listen, and from every one I can learn - my hands are in my pockets, I am free from all suspicion and comfortable. When I am among women, I have evil thoughts, malice, spleen- I cannot speak, or be silentI am full of suspicions and therefore listen to nothing-I am in a hurry to be gone. You must be charitable and put all this perversity to my being disappointed since my boyhood. Yet with such feelings I am happier alone among crowds of men, by myself, or with a friend or two. With all this, trust me, I have not the least idea that men of different feelings and inclinations are more short-sighted than myself. I never rejoiced more than at my Brother's marriage, and shall do so at that of any of my friends. I must absolutely get over this but how? the only way is to find the root of the evil, and so cure it with backward mutters of dissevering power' that is a difficult thing; for an obstinate Prejudice can seldom be produced but from a gordian complication of feelings, which must take time to unravel, and care to keep unravelled. I could say a good deal about this, but I will leave it, in hopes of better and more worthy dispositions - and also content that I am wronging no one, for after all I do think better of womankind than to suppose they care whether Mister John Keats five feet high likes them or not. You appeared to wish to know my moods on this subject—don't think it a bore my dear fellow, it shall be my Amen. I should not have consented to myself these four months tramping in the highlands, but that I thought it would give me more experience, rub off more prejudice, use to more hardship, identify finer scenes, load me with grander mountains, and strengthen more my reach in Poetry, than would stopping at home among books, even though I should reach Homer. By this time I am comparatively a Mountaineer. I have been among wilds and mountains too much to break out much about their grandeur. I have fed upon oat-cake not long enough to be very much attached to it. The first mountains I saw, though not so large as some I have since seen, weighed very solemnly upon me. The effect is wearing away — yet I like them mainly. [Island of Mull, July 22.] We have come this Evening with a guide - for without was impossible — into the middle of the Isle of Mull, pursuing our cheap journey to Iona, and perhaps Staffa. We would not follow the common and fashionable mode, from the great Imposition of Expense. We have come heath and rock, and river and bog, to what in England would be called a horrid place. Yet it belongs to a Shepherd pretty well off perhaps. The family speak not a word over but Gaelic, and we have not yet seen their faces for the smoke, which, after visiting every cranny (not excepting my eyes very much incommoded for writing), finds its way out at the door. I am more comfortable than I could have imagined in such a place, and so is Brown. The people are all kind very We lost our way a little yesterday; and inquiring at a Cottage, a young woman without a word threw on her cloak and walked a mile in a mizzling rain and splashy way to put us right again. I could not have had a greater pleasure in these parts than your mention of my sister. She is very much prisoned from ine. I am afraid it will be some time before I can take her to many places I wish. I trust we shall see you ere long in Cumberland — At least I hope I shall, before my visit to America, more than once. I intend to pass a whole year there, if I live to the completion of the three next. My sister's welfare, and the hopes of such a stay in America, will make me observe your advice. I shall be prudent and more careful of my health than I have been. I hope you will be about paying your first visit to Town after settling when we come into Cumberland · Cumberland however will be no distance to me after my present journey. I shall spin to you in a Minute. I begin to get rather a contempt of distances. I hope you will have a nice convenient room for a library. Now you are so well in health, do keep it up by never missing your dinner, by not reading hard, and by taking proper exercise. You'll have a horse, I suppose, so you must make a point of sweating him. You say I must study Dante - well, the only Books I have with me are those 3 little volumes.41 I read that fine passage you mention a few days ago. Your letter followed me from Hampstead to Port-Patrick, and thence to Glasgow. You must think me by this time a very pretty fellow. One of the pleasantest bouts we have had was our walk to Burns's Cottage, over the Doon, and past Kirk Alloway. I had determined to write a Sonnet in the Cottage. I did but lawk! it was so wretched I destroyed it - however in a few days afterwards I wrote some lines cousin-german to the circumstance, which I will transcribe, or rather crossscribe in the front of this. [Here follow the lines printed on pp. 246, 247.] man Reynolds's illness has made him a new - he will be stronger than ever -before I left London he was really getting a fat face. Brown keeps on writing volumes of adventures to Dilke. When we get in of an evening and I have perhaps taken my rest on a couple of chairs, he affronts my indolence and Luxury by pulling out of his knapsack 1st his paper - 2ndly his pens and last his ink. Now I would not care if he would change a little. I say now why not Bailey, take out his pens first sometimes But I might as well tell a hen to hold up her head before she drinks instead of afterwards. Your affectionate Friend, John Keats. 64. TO THOMAS KEATS Dun an cullen, [Derrynaculan ?] ⚫ Island of Mull [July 23, 1818]. MY DEAR TOM - Just after my last had gone to the Post, in came one of the Men with whom we endeavoured to agree about going to Staffa he said what a pity it was we should turn aside and not see the curiosities. So we had a little talk, and finally agreed that he should be our guide across the Isle of Mull. We set out, crossed two ferries -one to the Isle of Kerrara, of little distance; the other from Kerrara to Mull 9 Miles across we did it in forty minutes with a fine Breeze. The road through the Island, or rather the track, is the most dreary you can think of -between dreary Mountains, over bog and rock and river with our Breeches tucked up and our Stockings in hand. About 8 o'Clock we arrived at a shepherd's Hut, into which we could scarcely get for the Smoke through leges Monasteries and Nunneries in so remote an Island? The beginning of these things was in the sixth Century, under the superstition of a would-be - Bishop - saint, who landed from Ireland, and chose the spot from its Beauty - for at that time the now treeless place was covered with magnificent Woods. Columba in the Gaelic is Colm, signifying Dove - Kill signifies church, and I is as good as Island -SO I-colm-kill means the Island of Saint Co a door lower than my Shoulders. We found our way into a little compartment with the rafters and turf-thatch blackened with smoke, the earth floor full of Hills and Dales. We had some white Bread with us, made a good supper, and slept in our Clothes in some Blankets; our Guide snored on another little bed about an Arm's length off. This morning we came about sax Miles to Breakfast, by rather a better path, and we are now in by comparison a Mansion. Our Guide is I think a very obliging fellow-lumba's Church. Now this Saint Columba in the way this morning he sang us two Gaelic songs one made by a Mrs. Brown on her husband's being drowned, the other a jacobin one on Charles Stuart. For some days Brown has been enquiring out his Genealogy here - he thinks his Grandfather came from long Island. He got a parcel of people about him at a Cottage door last Evening, chatted with ane who had been a Miss Brown, and who I think from a likeness, must have been a Relation - he jawed with the old Woman - flattered a young one kissed a child who was afraid of his Spectacles and finally drank a pint of Milk. They handle his Spectacles as we do a sensitive leaf. [Oban,] July 26th. Well we had a most wretched walk of 37 Miles across the Island of Mull and then we crossed to Iona or Icolmkillfrom Icolmkill we took a boat at a bargain to take us to Staffa and land us at the head of Loch Nakgal, [Loch na Keal] whence we should only have to walk half the distance to Oban again and on a better road. All this is well passed and done, with this singular piece of Luck, that there was an interruption in the bad Weather just as we saw Staffa at which it is impossible to land but in a tolerable Calm sea. But I will first mention Icolmkill- I know not whether you have heard much about this Island; I never did before I came nigh it. It is rich in the most interesting Antiquities. Who would expect to find the ruins of a fine Cathedral Church, of Cloisters Col became the Dominic of the barbarian Chris- I am puzzled how to give you an Idea of Staffa. It can only be represented by a first-rate drawing. One may compare the surface of the Island to a roof- this roof is supported by grand pillars of basalt standing together as thick as honeycombs. The finest thing is Fingal's Cave-it is entirely a hollowing out of Basalt Pillars. Suppose now the Giants who rebelled against Jove had taken a whole Mass of black Columns and bound them together like bunches of matches and then with immense axes had made a cavern in the body of these columns - Of course the roof and floor must be composed of the broken ends of the Columns - such is Fingal's Cave, except that the Sea has done the work of excavations, and is continually dashing there so that we walk along the sides of the cave on the pillars which are left as if for convenient stairs. The roof is arched somewhat gothic-wise, and the length of some of the entire side-pillars is fifty feet. About the island you might seat an army of Men each on a pillar. The length of the Cave is 120 feet, and from its extremity the view into the sea, through the large Arch at the entrance — the colour of the columns is a sort of black with a lurking gloom of purple therein. For solemnity and grandeur it far surpasses the finest Cathedral. At the extremity of the Cave there is a small perforation into another cave, at which the waters meeting and buffeting each other there is sometimes produced a report as of a cannon heard as far as Iona, which must be 12 Miles. As we approached in the boat, there was such a fine swell of the sea that the pillars appeared rising immediately out of the crystal. But it is impossible to describe it. [The lines At Fingal's Cave,' p. 122, are here given in a variant.] I am sorry I am so indolent as to write such stuff as this. It can't be helped. The western coast of Scotland is a most strange place—it is composed of rocks, Mountains, mountainous and rocky Islands intersected by lochs - you can go but a short distance anywhere from salt water in the highlands. I have a slight sore throat and think it then best to stay a day or two at Oban we shall proceed to Fort William and Inverness, where I am anxious to be on account of a Letter from you. Brown in his Letters puts down every little circumstance. I should like to do the same, but I confess myself too indolent, and besides next winter everything will come up in prime order as we verge on such and such things. Have you heard in any way of George? I should think by this time he must have landed. I in my carelessness never thought of knowing where a letter would find him on the other side-I think Baltimore, but I am afraid of directing it to the wrong place. I shall begin some chequer work for him directly, and it will be ripe for the post by the time I hear from you next after this. I assure you I often long for a seat and a Cup o' tea at Well Walk, especially now that mountains, castles, and Lakes are becoming common to me. Yet I would rather summer it out, for on the whole I am happier than when I have time to be glum—perhaps it may cure me. Immediately on my return I shall begin studying hard, with a peep at the theatre now and then- and depend upon it I shall be very luxurious. With respect to Women I think I shall be able to conquer my passions hereafter better than I have yet done. You will help me to talk of George next winter, and we will go now and then to see Fanny. Let me hear a good account of your health and comfort, telling me truly how you do alone. Remember me to all including Mr. and Mrs. Bentley. Your most affectionate Brother 65. TO THE SAME JOHN. Letter Findlay, August 3 [1818]. MY DEAR TOм-We have made but poor progress lately, chiefly from bad weather, for my throat is in a fair way of getting quite well, so I have had nothing |