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