Then came his brother Rab and then

Young Peggy's Mither

And Peggy too-adown the glen

They went togither—

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

'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 varying— sometimes 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-it' 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

1 In the original, hight—is was &c.

are in comfortable Quarters. The Rain we feared held up bravely and it has been "fu fine this day.”—Tomorrow we sh[all be] at Ayr.'

[11 July 1818.]

'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 refer[r]ed 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

1 Here follows the Sonnet to Ailsa Rock, with the remark" This is the only Sonnet of any worth I have of late written-I hope you will like it." I presume from the opening of the paragraph that the 10th of July was the date on which the sonnet, given at pages 295-6 of Volume II, was written "in the inn at Girvan."

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. Since breakfast we have come only four Miles to dinner, not merely, for we have examined in the way t[wo] Ruins, one of them very fine, called Crossraguel Abbey-there is a winding Staircase to the top of a little Watch Tower.

July 13 [1818]. Kingswells. 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 Ayrthe 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 Annan. 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 sawoverhung with fine trees as far as we could see-We stood some time on the Brig across it, over which Tam o' Shanter

1 The patronymic was variously spelt Burns, Burnes, and Burness by various members of the family.

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 Burnsdamn 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.2

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

1

By this time he was cross the ford,

Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd ;
And past the birks and meikle stane,

Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane ;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,

Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ;

And near the thorn, aboon the well,

Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.-Tam O'Shanter.

Lord Houghton gives this paragraph omitting the references to "drunken Charlie" and "Mungo's mither", as an extract from a letter to Haydon; and I have referred to it as such in Volume II, pages 297-8; but when that Volume passed through the press I had not seen this letter to Tom Keats in Haydon's journal, or I should have suspected, as I now do, that the extract, having been furnished by Haydon, was assumed to be from a letter to himself. Keats might of course have written the identical paragraph twice to different correspondents; but it will, I think, be rash to expect another letter to Haydon containing it to come to the surface.