SOURCE: “Lyrical Ballads.” The Athenæum 95 (May 10, 1890): 599-600.

In the following review, the anonymous author notes that Lyrical Ballads did not meet with the critical response it deserved when originally published and recommends a closer study of the poems to highlight their merit.

This reprint should be received as a welcome gift by the poor scholar. It is not called by the much-abused name of “facsimile,” but it possesses all the advantages which could attach to that unattainable ideal. The little book is simply a neat, well-edited reprint, following its original line for line and page for page. The chief virtue of a reprint is to be correct, and how faithfully Prof. Dowden has endeavoured in this direction is indicated by his offering a sort of apology for venturing to leave the proper space between two words which the printer of the original had inadvertently run together in...