years later.

The notice in the _Critical Rev._, LIII (287-290), appeared in April,
1782. While the same poems are but slightly esteemed to-day, it must be
recognized that the attitude of the reviewer was severe for his time.
The age had grown accustomed to large draughts of moralizing and
didacticism in verse, and the quality of Cowper's contribution was
assuredly above the average. The _Monthly Rev._, LXVII, p. 262, gave the
_Poems_ a much more favorable reception.

10. _Non Dii, non homines, etc._ Properly, _non homines, non di_,
Horace, _Ars Poetica_, l. 373.

10. _Caraccioli_. _Jouissance de soi-meme_ (ed. 1762), cap. xii.

11. _There needs no ghost, etc._ See _Hamlet_, I, 5. 110.

ROBERT BURNS

The Kilmarnock edition (1786) of Burns' _Poems_ was published during the
most eventful period of the poet's life; the almost universally kind
reception accorded to this volume was the one source of consolation amid
many sorrows and distractions. Two reviews have been selected to
illustrate both the Scottish and English attitude toward the newly
discovered "ploughman-poet." The _Edinburgh Magazine_, IV (284-288), in
October, 1786, gave Burns a welcome that was hearty and sincere; though
we may smile to-day at the information that he has neither the "doric
simplicity" of Ramsay, nor the "brilliant imagination" of Ferguson.
Besides the poems mentioned in brackets, the magazine published further
extracts from Burns in subsequent numbers. The _Critical Review_, LXIII
(387-388), gave the volume a belated notice in May, 1787, exceeding even
the Scotch magazine in its generous appreciation. With the generally
accepted fact in mind that all of Burns' enduring work is in the
Scottish dialect, and that his English poems are comparatively inferior,
it is interesting to note the _Critical Review's_ regret that the
dialect must "obscure the native beauties" and be often unintelligible
to English readers. The same sentiment was expressed by the _Monthly
Review_, LXXV, p. 439, in the critique reprinted (without its curious
anglified version of _The Cotter's Saturday Night_) in Stevenson's
_Early Reviews_.

There is perhaps no other English poet whose fame was so suddenly and
securely established as Burns'. At no time since the appearance of the
Kilmarnock volume has the worth of his lyrical achievement been
seriously questioned. The _Reliques_ of Burns, edited by Dr. Cromek in
1808, were reviewed by Walter Scott in the first numb