“Mr Smith, in his entirely laudable anxiety to write unlike Swinburne, has written the greater part of his book with too much caution. The biography is all crowded into the first fifty pages and the remaining two hundred and fifty are left wholly free for criticism: the easiest arrangement, perhaps, but in this case not the best. It is only in the last two chapters, those on Jonson’s literary criticism and influence, that Professor Smith, himself an authority on sixteenth and seventeenth century poetical theory, comes into his own and does his author the fullest justice.” Mark Van Doren
+ − Nation 110:206 F 14 ’20 1100w
“The new ‘Ben Jonson’ is generously written, but Mr Gregory Smith has kept Ben’s secret. It was, of course, impossible to quote much in the limits of space set by the conditions of the series; the more’s the pity that it came out in a series at all. The book is too big for it; it is so rich a harvest that one could wish the master of it had pulled down his barns and built greater; cancelled his contract, and made ‘Ben Jonson’ his magnum opus.”
+ Nation [London] 26:608 Ja 31 ’20 1950w
“Mr Smith is constantly on the defensive; he is often arrogant and peevish in his attitude towards other critics. Under his handling Jonson becomes not only dull but a source of dullness in other men, to wit in Mr Smith himself.” S. C. C.
− + New Repub 23:342 Ag 18 ’20 500w
“Professor Smith has done full justice to Ben’s robust character without minimizing [his] grave faults. His plays are analysed with much ability, and their peculiar qualities are admirably explained and illustrated with reference to the theory upon which they were constructed. Insight and accuracy are the chief essentials in a short account of Ben Jonson, and Professor Smith possesses both.”
+ Spec 124:279 F 28 ’20 550w
“For the critical study in the Men of letters series which Mr Gregory Smith has just produced there is a place; it satisfies curiosity, it supplies many just observations, it provides valuable matter on the neglected masques; it only fails to remodel the image of Jonson which is settled in our minds.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p637 N 13 ’19 2100w