Cowper stands almost alone among English poets as an instance of late manifestation of poetic power. He was over fifty years of age when he offered his first volume of _Poems_ (1782) to the public. This collection, which included _Table-Talk_ and other didactic poems, appeared at the beginning of the most prosaic age in the history of modern English literature; yet the critics did not find it sufficiently striking in quality to differentiate it from the level of contemporary verse, or to forecast the success of _The Task_ and _John Gilpin's Ride_ three 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-même_ (ed. 1762), cap. xii.
11. _There needs no ghost, etc._ See _Hamlet_, I, 5. 110.
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_.