W. B. Kempling

“ Whatever else may transpire it is certain that labour such as his bears the assurance of unsullied happiness and overflowing joy. It is quaint, simple, unassuming; without affectation, full of pathos, and gently sensitive. He was a man who knew no guile, and his sweet and artless nature is faithfully portrayed in the outpourings of an impressionable, poetic soul. ”

“ To be sure, his best and earlier work has all of that delightful extravagance and amorous colouring peculiar to the age. But there is reflected a homely dignity and mobile, felicitous vein in which the poet seems endowed with every attribute of a melodist. Exquisite, graceful and diverse he, at times, would soar to flights of highest inspiration and bedeck the page with gems of rarest worth. In the heptasyllabic couplet he is decidedly successful.
And lastly William Browne, than whom we have not a more modest and retiring singer, here makes his bow with a slender portfolio of excerpts. ”