THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER,

AND OTHER VERSES.

* "The immediate success of this book of bush ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting Mr. Rudyard Kipling."

* "These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent and ardent verses."

* "Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, and crowding adventure. . . . Stirring and entertaining ballads about great rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses."

* "At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of 'Barrack-Room Ballads'."

* Mr. A. Patchett Martin (London): "In my opinion, it is the absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character of these new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity, such wide vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation."

* "Australia has produced in Mr. A. B. Paterson a national poet whose bush ballads are as distinctively characteristic of the country as Burns's poetry is characteristic of Scotland."

* "A book like this . . . is worth a dozen of the aspiring, idealistic sort, since it has a deal of rough laughter and a dash of real tears in its composition."

* "These ballads . . . are full of such go that the mere reading of them make the blood tingle. . . . But there are other things in Mr. Paterson's book besides mere racing and chasing, and each piece bears the mark of special local knowledge, feeling, and colour. The poet has also a note of pathos, which is always wholesome."

* "He gallops along with a by no means doubtful music, shouting his vigorous songs as he rides in pursuit of wild bush horses, constraining us to listen and applaud by dint of his manly tones and capital subjects . . . We turn to Mr. Paterson's roaring muse with instantaneous gratitude."

RIO GRANDE'S LAST RACE, AND OTHER VERSES.

* "There is no mistaking the vigour of Mr. Paterson's verse; there is no difficulty in feeling the strong human interest which moves in it."

* "Every way worthy of the man who ranks with the first of Australian poets."

* "At once naturalistic and imaginative, and racy without being slangy, the poems have always a strong human interest of every-day life to keep them going. They make a book which should give an equal pleasure to simple and to fastidious readers."

* "Now and again a deeper theme, like an echo from the older, more experienced land, leads him to more serious singing, and proves that real poetry is, after all, universal. It is a hearty book."

* "Mr. Paterson has powerful and varied sympathies, coupled with a genuine lyrical impulse, and some skill, which makes his attempts always attractive and usually successful."

* "These are all entertaining, their rough and ready wit and virility of expression making them highly acceptable, while the dash of satire gives point to the humour."

* "He catches the bush in its most joyous moments, and writes of it with the simple charm of an unaffected lover."

* "Will be welcome to that too select class at home who follow the Australian endeavour to utter a fresh and genuine poetic voice."

* "Mr. Paterson now proves beyond question that Australia has produced at least one singer who can voice in truest poetry the aspirations and experiences peculiar to the Commonwealth, and who is to be ranked with the foremost living poets of the motherland."

* "Fine, swinging, stirring stuff, that sings as it goes along. The subjects are capital, and some of the refrains haunt one. There is always room for a book of unpretentious, vigorous verse of this sort."

* "These ballads make bright and easy reading; one takes up the book, and, delighted at the rhythm, turns page after page, finding entertainment upon each."