“ The appeal is rather to the intellect, and the touches of subdued pathos in the “Gentleman” and “Gentlewoman of the Old School” are addressed directly to the heart. We are in the 18th century, but see it through the glasses of to-day; and the soft intercepting sense of change which hangs like a haze between ourselves and the subject is altogether due to the poet’s sympathy and sensibility. At the Sign of the Lyre (1885) was the next of Mr Dobson’s separate volumes of verse, although he has added to the body of his work in a volume of Collected Poems (1897) . ”

“ It is particularly noticeable that Mr Dobson in his prose has always added something, and often a great deal, to our positive knowledge of the subject in question, his work as a critic never being solely aesthetic. ”

“ His official career was industrious though uneventful, but as poet and biographer he stands among the most distinguished of his time. The student of Mr Austin Dobson’s work will be struck at once by the fact that it contains nothing immature: there are no juvenilia to criticize or excuse. ”