Liverpool Albion, June 18, 1875.
“The articles are written in a very readable manner, and will be found interesting even by those who have no special knowledge of natural history or interest in it. The Gipsies are competitors with the snakes for Mr. Simson’s regards, and several papers are devoted to these mysterious nomadic tribes. Perhaps the most curious paper in the volume is written to prove that John Bunyan was a Gipsy, and a very fair case is certainly made out, principally from Bunyan’s own autobiographical statements. With the exception of the papers on John Stuart Mill, to which we have already alluded, and which are far worse than worthless, the book is one which we can recommend.”
Newcastle Courant, June 11, 1875.
“The bulk of these Contributions appeared in Land and Water. We think the author has done well to give them to the public in the more enduring form of a well got up volume. The book contains, also, a critical sketch of the career of John Stuart Mill; some gossip about Gipsies; and the Duke of Argyll’s notions about the preservation of the Jews. Altogether, the book is very readable.”
Northern Whig, June 17, 1875.
“This volume consists of Contributions to Land and Water by a writer well-known as the author [editor] of a standard book on the Gipsies, and is evidently the production of a clear, intelligent, and most observant mind. Mr. Simson adds a number of miscellaneous papers, including a masterly, though severe, criticism of John Stuart Mill—‘his religion, his education, a crisis in his history, his wife, Mill and son,’—as well as several desultory papers on the Gipsies, elicited, for the most part, by criticisms on his work on that singular race.”
Western Times, June 29, 1875.
“The preface to this volume is dated from New York, and the contents bear marks of the free, racy style of transatlantic writers. The volume closes with a paper on the ‘Preservation of the Jews.’ The writer deals with his several subjects with marked ability, and his essays form a volume which will pay for reading, and therefore pay for purchasing.”
Daily Review, June 11, 1875.
“We need only mention the other subjects—Waterton as a Naturalist, Romanism, John Stuart Mill, Simson’s History of the Gipsies, Borrow on the Gipsies, the Scottish Churches and the Gipsies, Was John Bunyan a Gipsy? and, of course, the literary ubiquitous Duke of Argyll on the Preservation of the Jews. The only paper we have not ventured to look at is the last, in the dread that on this question the versatile Duke might be found, as in the matter of the Scottish Church, verifying the French proverb—Il va chercher midi à quatorze heures—a work in which the author of this volume is an adept in quiet, quaint, and clever ways, however, which make it interesting.”