[Quotes _Address to the Deil_, from the _Epistle to a Brother Bard_, from _Description of a Sermon in the Fields_, and from _Hallowe'en_.]--_The Edinburgh Magazine_. _Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect_. _By Robert Burns._ Printed at Kilmarnock. We have had occasion to examine a number of poetical productions, written by persons in the lower rank of life, and who had hardly received any education; but we do not recollect to have ever met with a more signal instance of true and uncultivated genius, than in the author of these Poems. His occupation is that of a common ploughman; and his life has hitherto been spent in struggling with poverty. But all the rigours of fortune have not been able to repress the frequent efforts of his lively and vigorous imagination. Some of these poems are of a serious cast; but the strain which seems most natural to the author, is the sportive and humorous. It is to be regretted, that the Scottish dialect, in which these poems are written, must obscure the native beauties with which they appear to abound, and renders the sense often unintelligible to an English reader. Should it, however, prove true, that the author has been taken under the patronage of a great lady in Scotland, and that a celebrated professor has interested himself in the cultivation of his talents, there is reason to hope, that his distinguished genius may yet be exerted in such a manner as to afford more general delight. In the meantime, we must admire the generous enthusiasm of his untutored muse; and bestow the tribute of just applause on one whose name will be transmitted to posterity with honour.--_The Critical Review_. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH _Descriptive Sketches_, in Verse. Taken during a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss and Savoyard Alps. By W. WORDSWORTH, B.A. of St. John's, Cambridge. 4to. pp. 55. 3s. Johnson. 1793. More descriptive poetry! (See page 166, &c.) Have we not yet enough? Must eternal changes be rung on uplands and lowlands, and nodding forests, and brooding clouds, and cells, and dells, and dingles? Yes; more, and yet more: so it is decreed. Mr. Wordsworth begins his descriptive sketches with the following exordium: 'Were there, below, a spot of holy ground, By Pain and her sad family _un_found, Sure, Nature's God that spot to man had giv'n, Where murmuring _rivers join_ the song of _ev'n_! Where _falls_ the purple morning far and wide _In flakes_ of light upon the mountain side; Where summer suns in ocean sink to rest, Or moonlight upland lifts her hoary breast; Where Silence, on her night of wing, o'er-broods Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods; Where rocks and groves the _power_ of waters _shakes_ In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.'