SOME CRITICISMS OF THE FIRST EDITION

Mr. Edmund Gosse, in THE WORLD: `We may find it hard to realise that Max may become a classic, but I see no other essayist who seems to have more chance of it.... There is no question of "reserved places" on Parnassus, but it is my individual conviction that where La Bruye`re and Addison and Stevenson are, there Max will be.... It is perhaps his final charm as an essayist that, underneath a ceremonious style, an exquisite demeanour and advance, a low voice, a graceful hearing, a polished cadence, there exists a powerful, sometimes what almost seems a furious independence of character.'

THE TIMES: `So few men can trifle without being silly or be intimate without being tiresome, so few have either the mental power or the unity of vision necessary for a decent transition from mood to mood, that essayists fit to be ranked with Steele, Addison, Stevenson, are still few. Mr. Max Beerbohm has proved his title.... There, where every idea is the author's, and every phrase is scrupulously adapted to the best expression by the author of his own idea, we get the true originality in art. Through all the play of fancy, the wit and humour, the swift transitions, the caprice and jesting, that ultimate sincerity shines; and it is that which lights Mr. Beerbohm's fine taste and knowledge of his craft to beauty.'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: `As an artist whose medium is the essay, Mr. Max Beerbohm should stand for this generation as Lamb stands for the first generation of the nineteenth century.'

THE DAILY NEWS: `He has wit, and charm, and good humour--and these are the qualities which characterise this completely delightful volume of essays.'

THE MORNING LEADER: `Max sees himself in a hundred different ways. In any capacity he is unique. He remains our best essayist.'

THE OBSERVER: `Charles Lamb a` la Max is never obtrusive. It is only the ghost of him that stalks in and about. We soon fall away from the reminiscence; and the caricaturist becomes a personality.'

Mr. Sidney Dark in THE DAILY EXPRESS: `Max is always delightful in his dainty, leisurely tolerance of everybody and everything. No other living writer could have produced "Yet Again." It is individual--and thoroughly good to read.'

THE EVENING STANDARD: `Mr. Beerbohm is always in holiday mood; and this we gradually catch from him. We begin by enjoying him; we end by enjoying life and ourselves.'

THE NATION: `Blessed are they who possess the gift of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers.... The simplicity of Mr. Beerbohm's themes serves but to enhance the elegance of his mind.'

Mr. G. S. Street in THE ENGLISHWOMAN: `I trust sincerely I shall not damage his reputation if I say that the play of his fancy is never inconsistent with two strong qualities of his mind and temperament, a sound judgment and a kindly heart.'

Mr. W. H. Chesson in THE DAILY CHRONICLE: `He is undoubtedly one of our benefactors. He excels in the humour which creates humour.'

THE GLOBE: `In their different ways, all these essays will delight the appreciative reader, and we can only bid him or her buy, beg, borrow, or steal Max's latest volume immediately.'

Mr. James Douglas in LONDON OPINION: `The style of these essays is not eccentric, and yet it is dyed with the hues of a personality as rich and rare as Elia's own, There is no contemporary prose which is so uncorrupted by current influences, and which is so sure to defy the corrosion of time. In a hundred years it will not be a dated or derelict thing. Its colour and its cadence will delight the connoisseur then as the colour and cadence of Lamb's prose delights him now.'

THE MORNING POST: `He is naturally gifted with something that is called talent in life and genius after death.'