are displayed, and a person who writes because his heart wills it, sooner or later wins the heart of the public."
Bangor Whig
"There is no one of the poems the book contains that has not running through it a sort of realism that at once takes possession of the reader's mind, and he looks upon it, as it were, as an actual event."
Mr. Newell (Orpheus C. Kerr) in The Catholic Review.
"Judged in all the phases of his talent presented by this book, Mr. O'Reilly is unquestionably a man of true poetic verve and temperament, with too much reverence for the noble gift of song to sophisticate it with mawkish affectations or conceited verbal ingenuities. No obscure line patches his page; no fantastic mannerism accentuates his style; no pretendedly metaphysical abstraction egotizes what he thinks worthy of gift to mankind."
Utica Herald.
"In the leading poem of Mr. O'Reilly's collection, entitled, 'The King of the Vasse,' there are novelties of scene and legend which alone claim the attention. . . . The poem is in many respects a wonderful one, and contains many subtleties of thought and expression, which it is impossible to reproduce in scanty extract "
Literary World, Boston.
..." Mr. O'Reilly unquestionably possesses poetical talent of a high and rare order. He excels in dramatic narrative, to which his natural intensity of feeling lends a peculiar force. His verse is sometimes careless, and often lacks finish; but writers are few, nowadays, who have a better capital in heart or hand for successful poetical work than that which is evidenced in this volume."
