"There is not one of these 'Songs Unsung' which does not deserve to be read and re-read."--_Glasgow Herald_, November 16th, 1883.
"In Mr. Morris's new volume we recognize the old qualities which are so dear to his wide circle of admirers."--_Daily News_, December 4th, 1883.
"We may safely predict as warm a welcome for the new volume as has been accorded to its predecessors."--_Ecclesiastical Gazette_, November 15th, 1883.
"Those who have followed Mr. Morris's career will be pleased to find that his poetic grasp, his argumentative subtlety, his tenderness of sympathetic observation, his manly earnestness, are as conspicuous and impressive as before."--MR. BAYNE, _in the Helensburgh Times._
"The reputation earned by the author's books has been such as few men in a century are permitted to enjoy. Beginning with the first volume, it has gone on increasing."--_Liverpool Mercury_, November 9th, 1883.
"For ourselves we dare hardly say how high we rank Mr. Morris.
This last volume is deserving of highest praise. In some of its contents no living poet, to our mind can surpass him."--_Oxford University Herald_, March 8th, 1884.
"The gems of this volume, to our mind, are some of the shorter poems, which are full of melody and colour, saturated with lyrical feeling, and marked by that simplicity without which no poem of this class can be called great."--_British Quarterly Review_, January, 1884.
"The writer is never diffuse or vague or pointless, both his road and the end of it are always in view."--_New York Critic_, January 19th, 1884.
"In one sense 'Songs Unsung' is more typical of Mr. Morris's genius than any of his previous works. There is in them the same purity of expression, the same delicate fancy, the same mastery of technique, and withal the same loftiness of conception."--_Scotsman_, December 22nd, 1883.
"In some respects we must award him the distinction of having a clearer perception of the springs of nineteenth-century existence than any of his contemporaries.... What could be more magnificent than the following conception of the beginning of things...."--_Whitehall Review_, October, 1883.
"Mr. Morris has always that picturesque power which limns in a few words a suggestive and alluring picture of nature or of life evoking the imagination of the reader to supplement the clear and vigorous work of the poet."--_New York Christian Union_, February, 1884.
"No lover of poetry will fail to make himself possessed of this volume from the pen of one who has made for himself so high and distinctive a place among modern writers."--_Manchester Examiner_, January 31st, 1884.
"After making every possible deduction, 'Songs Unsung' is a noble volume, and ought to be received by those who, like ourselves, believe in the necessary subordination of art to morality with profound gratification."--_Freeman_, April 18th, 1884.
"We have quoted enough to show that this book has genuine merit in it, merit in poetry, merit in philosophy, and, we may add, merit in religion. Lewis Morris takes the 'new and deeper view of the world' of which Carlyle now and then caught sunny glimpses.
He sings in sweet and measured Tennysonian strains of philosophy what Darwin and Herbert Spencer teach in prose; without the informing glow of the imagination. There are living poets greater than Lewis Morris, but of the younger race of poets he is foremost."--_The Inquirer_, April 5th, 1884.
"The hold which a poet who writes with such intense seriousness of purpose and such passionate earnestness gains upon his generation is far stronger and more lasting than if his sole attempt were to stimulate or to satisfy the sense of the beautiful. All the things of which we wish that poetry should speak to us, have voice given to them in the song of this glorious singer."--_South Australian Advertiser_, March 24th, 1884.
"As a whole this volume, while charming anew the poet's former admirers, should win for his genius a wider acquaintance and appreciation."--_Boston Literary World_, February 23rd, 1884.
"Mr. Morris has the invaluable gift of recognizing and being in full sympathy with the current ideas and feelings of the time.
The broad humanitarianism, the genuine sympathy with the sufferings of the poor and unfortunate, characteristic of our age, is one of the most attractive features of his poetry, and to the revival of the feeling for classical beauty, which may be looked upon as a collateral branch of the 'aesthetic' movement, he owes more than one charming inspiration.... To sum up. Mr.
Morris's volume is likely to add to his reputation. It is healthy in tone, and shows no decline of the varied qualities to which the author owes his widespread reputation."--_Times_, June 9, 1884.