“Excellent critical life.” Royal Cortissoz.
+ Atlan. 97: 273. F. ’06. 70w.
“His whole aim seems to be to belittle and disparage Sir Joshua as a man, and as a result to lessen the potentiality of his art.” Charles Henry Hart.
– Dial. 40: 226. Ap. 1, ’06. 1160w.
“It is probably the best book that has yet been written about Sir Joshua.... His presentment of Reynolds’s character is, perhaps, more just than the pæans of the hero worshippers; and his critical opinions on Reynolds’s art are worthy of the most careful attention.”
+ + Ind. 60: 459. F. 22, ’06. 130w.
Armstrong, William Jackson. Heroes of defeat. $3. Clarke, R.
Six heroes who thru no fault of bravery failed to attain their hoped for success “are here described with all the vivid and picturesque power of a Froude, a Macaulay or a Hugo.” (Arena.) They are Schamyl, the soldier priest and hero of Caucasus; Abdel Kader, the Sultan of Algeria who for fifteen years kept France from any stronghold in Algeria; Scanderbeg, the Albanian who saved Europe from the Turk’s dominion; Tecumseh, our own Shawnoe hero; Vercingetorix, King of Gaul, who fought against Julius Caesar; and Kosiuszko, the hero of Polish freedom.
“It is a real acquisition to our literature, a work of permanent value.”