Liverpool Daily Post.—"The humour of them is the airy, well-bred humour of the man of the world."
Sheffield Weekly Telegraph.—"Quaint and droll, perfect in design and diction, light, bright, and musical, these poems are the most cheerful verses we can meet with in latter-day literature."
Liverpool Mercury.—"A delightful little book, delightful to read and not less delightful to look upon."
Brighton Herald.—"Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry is past-master in the art of manufacturing dainty verses, little bubbles of song that, like bubbles of another kind, are delightful because they are so fragile and pretty."
Liverpool Courier.—"It is a pleasure to meet with verses so vivacious; to come in contact with a humorous fancy so fresh and individual."
Publishers' Circular.—"It lightens and brightens one's heart to read Mr. Sterry's charming songs and carols; their good humour and delicious style, so free from anything like care or worldly taint, seems to be infectious."
Yorkshire Post.—"Here and there 'The Lazy Minstrel' becomes sentimental, but there is always a touch of gay insouciance about his sentiment, and a consistent absence of the mawkishness too often found in the drawing-room ballad."
Sheffield Independent.—"Quaint, melodious, finished with marvellous care, and full of unexpected oddities of form and expression."
Liverpool Review.—"He infuses a sunshine and breeziness into his descriptions of scenes and people which make them live before us. His laziness never degenerates into languor, or his sentiment into insipidity."
Wakefield Free Press.—"The Lazy one is master of his art—he chooses all that is fair, serene, and summer-like for his subjects, and treats them with a soft colour and a musical rhythmic flow that leaves nothing to be desired."