University of Virginia Library

“The author was careless of his fame, though he sent forth nothing from his pen without
the stamp of his exquisite taste and elaborate finish. The poems in this collection
are just those to read aloud in the drawing-room, when sentiment must be tempered
with sprightliness, and pathos with wit. It is a charming book.”

“A timely publication is this volume. A more charming companion (in the shape of
a book) can scarcely be found for the summer holydays.”

“They are amusing sketches, gay and sprightly in their character, exhibiting great
facility of composition, and considerable powers of satire.”

“His poems are generally very sprightly and pungent. The humor and satire so far
as they pervade his lines are chastened by good taste and kindly feeling. The book will
doubtless command much attention.”

“As a writer of vers de societe he is pronounced to be without an equal among English
authors.”

“The author of this volume was one of the most fluent and versatile English poets that
have shone in the literary world within the last century. His versification is astonishingly
easy and airy, and his imagery not less wonderfully graceful and aerial.”

“Many of his poems are of a high order—indeed, unsurpassed in their peculiar style
and classification.”

“The versification is graceful, fluent, and eloquent. Praed resembles Halleck at times
in a humorous blending of the romantic and practical; and it is ever his habit to clothe
grave thoughts in gay careless language, like one who presents truth in the garb of jest.”

“There is a brilliant play of fancy in `Lillian,' and a moving tenderness in `Josephine,'
for which it would be hard to find equals. We welcome, therefore, this first collected
edition of his works.”

“The volume is one of the most interesting of the recently published collections of
poems, and will find many admirers. Its beautiful appearance is well deserved by the
contents.”

“Almost every line shows that Mr. Praed was a master in the use of our language, and
was gifted in a high degree with good sense and poetical conceptions. He is never lost
in sentiment so far as to forget how his subject would be received by common sense.
This sometimes gives his verses the appearance of wanting earnestness, indeed makes
them sound almost flippant. But it gives them, on the other hand, a character of universality
that will please more readers than the most pleasing abandonment to sentiment.
We can freely recommend it to a place in every library.”

“How poems like these could have so long escaped the notice of the leading English
booksellers, is somewhat curious, for they certainly deserve a place in the best libraries,
and no poet's library can be complete without them.”

“The poems are full of fancy and of refinement; with the man of sentiment continually
peeping out of the man of the world; and with a strange mixture of natural beauty,
with the most delicate art. Praed might, with more ambition, have been a great poet.
He was contented with being a popular one; writing only for occasion, and more generally
from an impulse of fun than one of feeling.”

“His literary reputation was truly an enviable one, and we are glad that the public
are afforded the possession and reading of some of his very superior productions.”

“Though not a voluminous, he certainly was a true poet, as every tolerable judge
will find on a persual of but a few pages of this work. Many admirers of the poet will
hail this publication with pleasure.”

“Lillian, with the accompanying productions of its author, forms therefore a most delightful
volume, and the lovers of the poetic in thought, in feeling and expression, will
feel under obligations to the compiler and the publisher for having so much contributed
to their intellectual enjoyment.”

“Praed was an agreeable companion, an excellent man, a dashing, off-hand writer, and
a pleasant rhymer.”