SOURCE: "Two Latter-Day Lyristis: II. Mr. Austin Dobson," in Pen and Ink, C. Scribner's Sons, 1902, pp. 109-39.

In the following essay, Matthews provides a critical overview of Dobson's work and reputation as a poet.

As Mr. Lang told us in his sympathetic paper on M. Théodore de Banville, some literary reputations are like the fairies in that they cannot cross running water. Others again, it seems to me, are rather like the misty genii of the Arabian Nights, which loom highest when seen from afar. Poe, for example, is more appreciated in England than at home; and Cooper is given a more lofty rank by French than by American critics. In much the same manner, we note, Carlyle gained the ear of an American audience when he was not listened to with attention in Great Britain; and the scattered verses of Praed were collected together for American...