Many and warm thanks will greet this volume; a gift of one who, retired from the regular labors of the ministerial profession, which has been for so many years his life and glory, yet finds time and disposition, with his industrious pen, to remind his former hearers and present friends of the preacher's welcome and familiar voice. He appears indeed in no new character, but in one he has worn from his youth up, when serving the cause of good literature. Of all that have borne among us the sacred office, we know of no one to whom more fitly belongs the honorable appellation of Christian scholar. Admirably has he combined the faithful discharge of all the duties of his holy calling with continual devotion to the entire breadth of liberal studies, ever uniting the stamp of learning with the seal of religious faith. This work, bringing together the genial tasks he has set himself at widely different periods and on diverse occasions, is like a collection of flowers arranged so that each lighter and more sober tint may contribute to the harmonious beauty of color in the whole. The translations add to the fidelity which the author's conscience requires, an exquisite ease and grace rarely blended with the true meaning of an original piece. For keeping to English ears the music of poetry from a foreign tongue, some of these selections seem to us never to have been surpassed. We wish our space allowed us to quote such a one as the "Song of the Parcæ" from Goethe, or the "Sioux Death-Song" from Schiller, by way of illustration. But Dr. Frothingham needs not to resort to a foreign tongue, or to any other writer, for first conceptions or completed poems. His own invention is ready and rich, and his thoughts are always clothed in beautiful and felicitous forms. One of the most uncommon of faculties is to write a good hymn. Such a composition, embalmed in the devotions of churches, and coming often on the breath of music, not only to the outer ear, but, with a sound in silence, to the listening soul, has immediate fame, while it lasts for ages, and is sure to witness the downfall of many a now notable reputation in the kingdom of letters. Such blessed fate, we doubt not, awaits some of his contributions to the sanctuary. Well do we remember how his hymn, beginning, "O Lord of life, and truth, and grace, Ere nature was begun," rang through the chambers of our mind amid some of the grandest scenes of the material world. Throughout these pages we observe the same appearance of careful finish, of governed inspiration, of a laborious polish on the solid substance which the poet chooses, as the sculptor does the marble block for his statue. May the bright fancyings with which, in prose and verse, our friend cheers the advancing time, long continue to be multiplied; and may the lamp, fed with holy oil, which he carries lustrous over his own path, shed comfortable beamings on the way of many pilgrims, and thus the benedictions of his ministry, though not now formally spoken, yet never fail. –The North American Review, Vol. 82 [1856]