“One of the cleverest productions of the present day.”—_Morning Herald_.
“Mr Ritchie is just the man to dash off a series of portraits, bold in outline, strikingly like the originals in feature and expression, and characterized by bright and effectual colouring. We have here photographed a group of the most distinguished pulpit orators of the metropolis, of all religious denominations and sects.”—_Civil Service Gazette_.
“The style of Mr Ritchie is always lively and fluent, and oftentimes eloquent. It comes the nearest to Hazlitt’s of any modern writer we know. His views and opinions are always clear, manly, and unobjectionable as regards the manner in which they are set forth. Many, no doubt, will not agree with them, but none can be offended at them. As we have already remarked, Mr Ritchie does not write as a sectarian, and it is impossible to collect from the treatise to what sect he belongs. The tendency of these sketches is to introduce into the pulpit a better style of preaching than what we have been accustomed to.”—_Critic_.
“Mr Ritchie has written in a graphic, nervous, and most just spirit.”—_Court Circular_.
“Written in a fluent and easy style.”—_Weekly Times_.
“The personal sketches will engage attention; for the author has evidently been a close and attentive observer.”—_News of the World_.
“Mr Ritchie’s pen-and-ink sketches of the popular preachers of London are as life-like as they are brilliant and delightful. The thought of producing them was a happy one, and has been carried out in the volume before us with much agreeable animation. The collection of silhouettes herein presented to our contemplation will be especially acceptable, we conjecture, to our country cousins, as a guide among the more generally known of the metropolitan ecclesiastics. It will be perceived at a glance that the writer has familiarized himself with the subject, before undertaking its treatment. Chapter after chapter brings the popular preachers of the Capital before our mind’s eye in a sort of stately clerical procession.”—_The Sun_.
“Without going so far as the late Sir Robert Peel, and saying that there are three ways of viewing this as well as every other subject, it will be allowed that the clerical body may be contemplated either from within one of their special folds, and under the influence of peculiar religious views, or in a purely lay historical manner, and, so we suppose we ought to say, from the ‘platform of humanity’ at large. The latter is the idea developed in Mr Ritchie’s volume, and cleverly and amusingly it is done. One great merit is, that his characters are not unnecessarily spun out. We have a few rapid dashes of the pencil, and then the mind is relieved by a change of scene and person . . . He displays considerable discrimination of judgment, and a good deal of humour.”—_The Inquirer_.