“Without being in any sense of the word a great essayist, Mr. Augustine Birrell is a brilliant and lucid writer.”
+ Lond. Times. 4: 426. D. 8, ’05. 1520w.
“It would be a limited taste indeed that could not extract from [these essays] several half-hours of entertainment.”
+ + Nation. 82: 41. Ja. 11, ’06. 640w.
“None of them will seem really trivial to lovers of ‘Obiter dicta’ and its successors. For they are all marked with the good-humored acuteness, the animated nonchalance, which engaged us in him long ago.” H. W. Boynton.
+ N. Y. Times. 10: 879. D. 9, ’05. 1400w.
“This volume is more fragmentary and discursive than the earlier books from the same hand, and the papers are, on the whole, less valuable.”
+ Outlook. 82: 46. Ja. 6, ’06. 120w.
“These essays, aside from the Arnold fling, are charming in tone and in their literary quality, which ranges from Baconian formality to a very effective use of modern slang.”
+ + – Reader. 7: 566. Ap. ’06. 450w. R. of Rs. 33: 256. F. ’06. 40w.