Page:Poetical sketches reprint (1868).djvu/5



"The songs only require to be known to be loved with a tenderness and enthusiasm which it is not given to many poets to arouse … Montesquieu said that he had never known any care which was not removed by an hour's reading. One may say of the Songs fo [sic] Innocence that there are few cares which they are not sure to lighten, and few minds in which they will fail to breed happier and brighter moods."—Saturday Review, Jan. 5th, 1867.

"The admirers of W. Blake as a poet—and they are a rapidly increasing number—owe much to Mr. Pickering for this reprint." Notes and Queries, Jan. 26th, 1867.

"Of all enthusiasts, the painter Blake seems to have been the most remarkable. With what a hearty faith he believed in his faculty of seeing spirits and conversing with the dead! and what a delightful vein of madness it was—!"—Lord Lytton.

"A good and readable book."—See long notice in Saturday Review, Feb. 15th, 1868.

"Don Juan was a soldier and statesman, no less than a writer of tales and anecdotes, and his compositions have that air of the camp, the court, and the world, which nothing but practical dealing with the affairs of men can give an author."—Athenæum.

"All are lively and entertaining, and singularly free from all such grossness as we find in Boccaccio's, and most other kindred writing of the middle ages, fit for everyone's reading, and worth everyone's reading, by reason of their wit and humor"—Examiner.

"We cannot fairly dispose of this important book in a few lines."—London Review.

"In one of them the reader will find the source of Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew.' In many he will recognize the original of modern stories told by Herder, by Christian Anderson, and others. The style of these little tales is quaint, shrewd, and very attractive."—Morning Star.

"Wise and witty."—Observer.

"Vastly entertaining."—Globe.