“ His best work is found in the volume of odes called The Unknown Eros, which is full not only of passages but of entire poems in which exalted thought is expressed in poetry of the richest and most dignified melody. The animating spirit of love, moreover, has here deepened and intensified into a crystalline harmony of earthly passion with the love that is divine and transcending; the outward manifestation is regarded as a symbol of a sentiment at once eternal and quintessential. Spirituality informs his inspiration; the poetry is of the finest elements, glowing and alive. ”

“ The obvious sincerity which underlies this statement, combined with a certain lack of humour which peers through its naïveté, points to two of the principal characteristics of Patmore’s earlier poetry; characteristics which came to be almost unconsciously merged and harmonized as his style and his intention drew together into unity. In the higher flights, to which he arose as his practice in the art grew perfected, he is always noble and often sublime. ”

“ What chiefly wounded him was a cruel review in Blackwood, written in the worst style of unreasoning abuse; but the enthusiasm of private friends, together with their wiser criticism, did much to help him and to foster his talent. Indeed, the publication of this little volume bore immediate fruit in introducing its author to various men of letters, among whom was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, through whose offices Patmore became known to Holman Hunt, and was thus drawn into the eddies of the pre-Raphaelite movement, contributing his poem “The Seasons” to the Germ. ”