Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
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.
[Girvan, same day, July 10.]
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
Arran, one of the Hebrides. We are in comfortable Quarters. The Rain we
feared held up bravely and it has been "fu fine this day."----To-morrow we
shall be at Ayr.
[Kirkoswald, July 11.]
'Tis now the 11th of July and we have come 8 Miles to Breakfast to
Kirkoswald. I hope the next Kirk will be Kirk Alloway. I have nothing of
consequence to say now concerning our journey--so I will speak as far as I
can judge on the Irish and Scotch--I know nothing of the higher
Classes--yet I have a persuasion that there the Irish are victorious. As
to the profanum vulgus I must incline to the Scotch. They never laugh--but
they are always comparatively neat and clean. Their constitutions are not
so remote and puzzling as the Irish. The Scotchman will never give a
decision on any point--he will never commit himself in a sentence which
may be referred to as a meridian in his notion of things--so that you do
not know him--and yet you may come in nigher neighbourhood to him than to
the Irishman who commits himself in so many places that it dazes your
head. A Scotchman's motive is more easily discovered than an Irishman's. A
Scotchman will go wisely about to deceive you, an Irishman cunningly. An
Irishman would bluster out of any discovery to his disadvantage. A
Scotchman would retire perhaps without much desire for revenge. An
Irishman likes to be thought a gallous fellow. A Scotchman is contented
with himself. It seems to me they are both sensible of the Character they
hold in England and act accordingly to Englishmen. Thus the Scotchman
will become over grave and over decent and the Irishman over-impetuous. I
like a Scotchman best because he is less of a bore--I like the Irishman
best because he ought to be more comfortable.--The Scotchman has made up
his Mind within himself in a sort of snail shell wisdom. The Irishman is
full of strongheaded instinct. The Scotchman is farther in Humanity than
the Irishman--there he will stick perhaps when the Irishman will be
refined beyond him--for the former thinks he cannot be improved--the
latter would grasp at it for ever, place but the good plain before him.
Maybole, [same day, July 11].
Since breakfast we have come only four Miles to dinner, not merely, for we
have examined in the way two Ruins, one of them very fine, called
Crossraguel Abbey--there is a winding Staircase to the top of a little
Watch Tower.
Kingswells, July 13.
I have been writing to Reynolds--therefore any particulars since
Kirkoswald have escaped me--from said Kirk we went to Maybole to
dinner--then we set forward to Burness' town Ayr--the approach to it is
extremely fine--quite outwent my expectations--richly meadowed, wooded,
heathed and rivuleted--with a grand Sea view terminated by the black
Mountains of the isle of Arran. As soon as I saw them so nearly I said to
myself "How is it they did not beckon Burns to some grand attempt at
Epic?"
The bonny Doon is the sweetest river I ever saw--overhung with fine trees
as far as we could see--We stood some time on the Brig across it, over
which Tam o' Shanter fled--we took a pinch of snuff on the Key stone--then
we proceeded to the "auld Kirk Alloway." As we were looking at it a Farmer
pointed the spots where Mungo's Mither hang'd hersel' and "drunken Charlie
brake's neck's bane." Then we proceeded to the Cottage he was born
in--there was a board to that effect by the door side--it had the same
effect as the same sort of memorial at Stratford on Avon. We drank some
Toddy to Burns's Memory with an old Man who knew Burns--damn him and damn
his anecdotes--he was a great bore--it was impossible for a Southron to
understand above 5 words in a hundred.--There was something good in his
description of Burns's melancholy the last time he saw him. I was
determined to write a sonnet in the Cottage--I did--but it was so bad I
cannot venture it here.
Next we walked into Ayr Town and before we went to Tea saw the new Brig
and the Auld Brig and Wallace tower. Yesterday we dined with a Traveller.
We were talking about Kean. He said he had seen him at Glasgow "in Othello
in the Jew, I mean er, er, er, the Jew in Shylock." He got bother'd
completely in vague ideas of the Jew in Othello, Shylock in the Jew,
Shylock in Othello, Othello in Shylock, the Jew in Othello, etc. etc.
etc.--he left himself in a mess at last.--Still satisfied with himself he
went to the Window and gave an abortive whistle of some tune or other--it
might have been Handel. There is no end to these Mistakes--he'll go and
tell people how he has seen "Malvolio in the Countess"--"Twelfth night in
Midsummer night's dream"--Bottom in much ado about Nothing--Viola in
Barrymore--Antony in Cleopatra--Falstaff in the mouse Trap.--
[Glasgow,] July 14.
We enter'd Glasgow last Evening under the most oppressive Stare a body
could feel. When we had crossed the Bridge Brown look'd back and said its
whole population had turned out to wonder at us--we came on till a drunken
Man came up to me--I put him off with my Arm--he returned all up in Arms
saying aloud that, "he had seen all foreigners bu-u-ut he never saw the
like o' me." I was obliged to mention the word Officer and Police before
he would desist.--The City of Glasgow I take to be a very fine one--I was
astonished to hear it was twice the size of Edinburgh. It is built of
Stone and has a much more solid appearance than London. We shall see the
Cathedral this morning--they have devilled it into "High Kirk." I want
very much to know the name of the ship George is gone in--also what port
he will land in--I know nothing about it. I hope you are leading a quiet
Life and gradually improving. Make a long lounge of the whole Summer--by
the time the Leaves fall I shall be near you with plenty of confab--there
are a thousand things I cannot write. Take care of yourself--I mean in not
being vexed or bothered at anything.
God bless you!
JOHN ----.
LX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Maybole, July 11 [1818].
My dear Reynolds--I'll not run over the Ground we have passed; that would
be merely as bad as telling a dream--unless perhaps I do it in the manner
of the Laputan printing press--that is I put down Mountains, Rivers,
Lakes, dells, glens, Rocks, and Clouds, with beautiful enchanting, Gothic
picturesque fine, delightful, enchanting, Grand, sublime--a few blisters,
etc.--and now you have our journey thus far: where I begin a letter to you
because I am approaching Burns's Cottage very fast. We have made continual
inquiries from the time we saw his Tomb at Dumfries--his name of course is
known all about--his great reputation among the plodding people is, "that
he wrote a good _mony_ sensible things." One of the pleasantest means of
annulling self is approaching such a shrine as the Cottage of Burns--we
need not think of his misery--that is all gone, bad luck to it--I shall
look upon it hereafter with unmixed pleasure, as I do upon my
Stratford-on-Avon day with Bailey. I shall fill this sheet for you in the
Bardie's country, going no further than this till I get into the town of
Ayr which will be a 9 miles' walk to Tea.
[Kingswells, July 13.]
We were talking on different and indifferent things, when on a sudden we
turned a corner upon the immediate Country of Ayr--the Sight was as rich
as possible. I had no Conception that the native place of Burns was so
beautiful--the idea I had was more desolate, his 'rigs of Barley' seemed
always to me but a few strips of Green on a cold hill--O prejudice! it was
as rich as Devon--I endeavoured to drink in the Prospect, that I might
spin it out to you as the Silkworm makes silk from Mulberry leaves--I
cannot recollect it--Besides all the Beauty, there were the Mountains of
Arran Isle, black and huge over the Sea. We came down upon everything
suddenly--there were in our way the 'bonny Doon,' with the Brig that Tam
o' Shanter crossed, Kirk Alloway, Burns's Cottage, and then the Brigs of
Ayr. First we stood upon the Bridge across the Doon; surrounded by every
Phantasy of green in Tree, Meadow, and Hill,--the stream of the Doon, as a
Farmer told us, is covered with trees from head to foot--you know those
beautiful heaths so fresh against the weather of a summer's evening--there
was one stretching along behind the trees. I wish I knew always the humour
my friends would be in at opening a letter of mine, to suit it to them as
nearly as possible. I could always find an egg shell for Melancholy, and
as for Merriment a Witty humour will turn anything to Account--My head is
sometimes in such a whirl in considering the million likings and
antipathies of our Moments--that I can get into no settled strain in my
Letters. My Wig! Burns and sentimentality coming across you and Frank
Fladgate in the office--O scenery that thou shouldst be crushed between
two Puns--As for them I venture the rascalliest in the Scotch Region--I
hope Brown does not put them punctually in his journal--If he does I must
sit on the cutty-stool all next winter. We went to Kirk Alloway--"a
Prophet is no Prophet in his own Country"--We went to the Cottage and
took some Whisky. I wrote a sonnet for the mere sake of writing some lines
under the roof--they are so 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 fuz, 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. O 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