Editing Staffa (section)

===19th and 20th centuries===
Subsequently, a stream of famous visitors came to view Staffa's wonders including [[Robert Adam]], [[Sir Walter Scott]] (1810), [[John Keats]] (1818), [[J. M. W. Turner]], whose 1830 visit yielded an oil painting exhibited in 1832, [[William Wordsworth]] (1833), [[Jules Verne]] (1839), [[Alice Liddell]] (the inspiration for [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland|Alice in Wonderland]]) in 1878, [[David Livingstone]] (1864), [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] (1870) and Mendelssohn himself in 1829.<ref name=Keay/><ref>Cooper (1979) pp. 52&ndash;54</ref> Wordsworth, however, found the volume of tourism disappointing.
[[File:Boat Cave.JPG|thumb|upright=1.25|Boat Cave]]
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right
|quote=We saw, but surely in the motley crowd
:Not one of us has felt, the far-famed sight:
:How could we feel it? Each the others blight,
:Hurried and hurrying volatile and loud.
|source= [[William Wordsworth]], Cave of Staffa. Poems Composed or Suggested During a Tour in the Summer of 1833. No 28.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww832.html "Poems Composed or Suggested During A Tour In The Summer Of 1833 XXVIII. Cave Of Staffa"] Bartleby.com. Retrieved 3 May 2007.</ref>}}
Writing more than a century later the writer [[W. H. Murray]] agreed, complaining that the visitors spoiled the "character and atmosphere", and suggesting that "to know Staffa one must go alone".<ref>Murray, W.H. (1966) ''The Hebrides''. London. Heinemann. p. 109</ref>

Others were more enthusiastic, despite the presence of numerous others. [[Queen Victoria]] and [[Albert, Prince Consort|Prince Albert]] were rowed into the cave in the royal barge in 1847,<ref>Cooper (1979) p. 100</ref><ref>Keay & Keay (1994) state 1836, which is unlikely.</ref> and ''The Times'' correspondent recorded:
{{Blockquote|
As the Royal Squadron cleared out of the Sound of Mull, and round the northern extremity of the island, a noble prospect lay before it, the steep and barren headlands of [[Ardnamurchan]] stretching away into the Atlantic on the right, on the left the precipitous cliffs of the Mull coast, and far away and embosomed in the ocean, the fantastic and varied forms of the adjacent islands. The horizon toward the north was a good deal obscured by haze, but, notwithstanding, [[Skye]] was distinctly visible... The deserted and solitary aspect of the island was brought out with a strange and startling effect by the presence of so many steamers; and as Her Majesty's barge with the Royal Standard floated into the cave, the crew dipping their oars with the greatest precision, nothing could be more animated and grand than the appearance which the vast basaltic entrance, so solemn in its proportions, presented.<ref>''The Times'' correspondent writing in the ''Illustrated London News'' (1847), quoted in Bray (1996) p. 244</ref>
}}

[[File:Scotland-Staffa-Fingals-Cave-1900.jpg|thumb|left|Fingal's Cave around 1900]]
Keats complained about the expense of the ferry, but was captivated by what he saw nonetheless. Displeased with his first efforts to describe this "cathedral of the sea" he finally settled on:
{{Blockquote|
Not Aladdin magian/Ever such a work began, Not the wizard of the Dee, Ever such a dream could see; Not St John, in Patmos Isle, In the passion of his toil, When he saw the churches seven, Golden Aisl'd, built up in heaven, Gazed at such a rugged wonder.
--[[John Keats]], Staffa<ref>Cooper (1979) p. 53</ref><ref>Bray (1996) p. 88, suggests that both Keats's and Wordsworth's attempts are "rather poor verse".</ref>}}