| + + + | Critic. 47: 95. Jl. ‘05. 60w. |
“The author has consulted most of the available authorities on Benton, and has gathered much material from hitherto unknown sources. The work is the best life of Benton yet produced.”
| + + + | Dial. 38: 239. Ap. 1, ‘05. 600w. |
“It is a highly praiseworthy study of the great Missourian, sincere, thorough and judicial.”
| + + | Ind. 59: 214. Jl. 27, ‘05. 170w. |
“Lacking in dramatic arrangement and wanting in painstaking accuracy of statement.”
| + — | Ind. 59: 1156. N. 16, ‘05. 60w. |
“Mr. Meigs’s narrative is diffuse but vivacious, and abounds in anecdote and illustration. It gives an unusually clear and comprehensive survey of a signally useful and pure-minded man.”
| + + — | Lit. D. 21: 94. Jl. 15, ‘05. 640w. |
“There was distinctly room for a one-volume biography of Senator Benton. [Mr. Roosevelt’s biography in the American statesmen series] gives a picture of Benton superior to any which can be found in Mr. Meigs’s book. The greatest praise that we can award the latter is to say that it is the result of painstaking and laborious investigation and it will be of considerable value to students of history. The material, unfortunately, is put together with very little literary skill, and the style is certainly not such as to attract the general reading public. It is highly regrettable that Mr. Meigs cannot make us take the interest in the character of his picturesque subject which he tells he himself feels.”