"Clever and incisive squib." - Scotsman . "It is hard to say whether this little volume is most clever or amusing. Certainly it unites the two qualities in no ordinary degree.... The author's satire is never bitter, while his sketches of the different shades of clerical opinion are genuinely humorous. 'The Prig' is perfectly acquainted with the weakness of the position held up to ridicule, and the book is written with real ability." - Morning Post . . "The delicate suggestiveness of the wit is admirable.... Who but the ...
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"Clever and incisive squib." - Scotsman . "It is hard to say whether this little volume is most clever or amusing. Certainly it unites the two qualities in no ordinary degree.... The author's satire is never bitter, while his sketches of the different shades of clerical opinion are genuinely humorous. 'The Prig' is perfectly acquainted with the weakness of the position held up to ridicule, and the book is written with real ability." - Morning Post . . "The delicate suggestiveness of the wit is admirable.... Who but the Prig would bring the idea of the new saints to birth at a meat tea! Or, &c, &c. Long live the Prig." - Western Morning News . . "Genuine fun to the last page. We have left ourselves space only to send our readers to the book itself. . . . We feel quite sure that wherever these capital little books are read, there too will be laughter holding its sides." - Dublin Review . . "There are some smart hits.... Very excellent fooling, and the 'Prig' cannot be charged with unfairness in his selections of the names he assumes to be proposed for canonization." - Church Times . . "Smartly written." - Saturday Review . . "Whether the reader does or does not enjoy the Prig's lively "skit" will depend a good deal on his theological predilections. It relates how the Rev. Kentigern Maniple is impressed by the anomaly that every saint in the Prayer-Book was a Roman Catholic, and that the Roman Church has gone on enriching her calendar with saints who lived in modern times, while the English Church has never canonized a saint since the Reformation. So he organizes the Society for the Promotion of Anglican Saints and sets about supplying the deficiency. There is considerable wit in the account of the trial that followed Mr. Maniple's attempt at canonization, and in the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to whom the question finally came for settlement, that while the term "saint" was inadmissible as a posthumous title, the term "poor" was entirely proper. So it was ordered that from the statues of the subjects for canonization the word "poor" should be substituted for "saint" -" Poor Richard Hooker, Poor William Laud, Poor Samuel Johnson, and Poor Hannah More," because "members of the Church of England had been in the habit of speaking of their departed friends as 'poor so-and-so' with impunity from time immemorial." But the Prig might be in better business. - The Literary World .
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