AustLit

'We are always inclined to treat such efforts as tenderly as possible, but sometimes the leniency is a mistake which is almost a fault... The author appeals to the public for clement consideration on the grounds that his verses are the production of 'one who has been his own teacher...' Mr Wetherspoon is not a poet, and education would not have made him one... We cannot encourage Mr Wetherspoon to go on. Owing to his habit of dating his verses, we learn that he has been rhyming since 1867. This book is, consequently, the result of 23 years of poetic excogitation. It contains the best that the author is likely to write, and of this best we may conscientiously say that we have seen verse not nearly so modestly offered to the world which was very much worse.'