reformed, as far
as gallantry goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian
lady, who is as much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly to his
intercourse with you, for his creed to become as pure as he thinks his
conduct is. He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker
of aristocracy wants to be cut out.

JOHN KEATS

1795-1821

To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS

_Burns's cottage_

Maybole, 11 _July_ [1818].

MY DEAR REYNOLDS,

... 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 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 to the town of Ayr, which will be a nine miles' walk
to tea.

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--Oh, 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 eg