"Has life and movement ; has what we might be allowed to call ' go,' in speaking of a work of a different character. . . Has secured what is absolutely essential in Homeric translation, something that answers to the ' bright speed ' of the hexameter. . . Scarcely a safe book to give to an imaginative boy, for he would shout his favourite passages about the house as loudly as Walter Scott, when a child, shouted ' Hardyknute.' . . Truly inspired by the Odyssey." — Athenaum.
"An achievement of considerable distinction, and one for which his readers who cannot read the Greek should be grateful, while those who can will be glad to see the Greek and the English idiom so happily recon- ciled. . A very spirited translation." — Daily News.
"Passage after passage of true poetic power, and of genuine appreci- ation of the spirit of the great original was presented to us, and we were led on from passage to passage with a keen sense of enjoyment which is very unusual in the student of such productions. . . It is difficult by any extracts to give an adequate idea of the general level of excellence attained, and the great charm of his poem is to be found in the well-sustained power and melody of whole books, not of isolated passages. . . The most successful attempt made of late years to re- produce the vigorous ring of the original. The task of selection is no easy one, as almost every page contains some happy rendering of the Greek or some passage instinct with the true Homeric spirit." — John Bull.
"Took the literary world by a surprise that soon ripened into admiration." — British Weekly.
"Has already taken a high place amongst English versions of Homer." — Cambridge Review.
"Sounding Saxon such as no previous translator of Homer into verse has employed. . . We are unwilling to mention particular parts of the work for fear of intimating that some may be better than others. . . This fine, bold work is a literary achievement." — Public Opinion.
"The volume is a poem of more than average beauty, when considered apart from any original." — Literary World.
"No one can fail to recognise in many of the passages the grace and feeling of a true poet." — Notes and Queries.
"Its greatest recommendations, to those who are able to read and appreciate Homer in his native language, will be its wonderfully stricc closeness, not only to the sense, but even to the very forms of expression made use of by Homer, and the happy art which the translator has of finding exact English equivalents for Homeric words. English read- ers, again, will be no less charmed with the purely English verbiage into which he has contrived to convert the grand rolling lines of the grand old poet, thus preserving much of the poetical spirit which is so apt to evaporate in the process of translation, and much of which did, in point of fact, evaporate under Pope's more conventional treatment." — Scotsman.
"We have been most agreeably surprised and pleased ... a vigorous flow and ' lilt ' that seems as near an approach as the genius of our language is likely to make to the ' grand old rolling verse ' of Homer." — Guardian,
"We have said enough to prove that this is no ordinary work. It shows power as well as grace and literalness . . . his work is not a paraphrase but a real translation, very literal and yet full of poetic beauty." — London Quarterly Review.
