'This is a contribution to Australian literature, about which perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the author should have been too modest to put his name on the title-page...That he has read much poetry is clear from the vast quantity he has remembered; and if battering out other men's gold pieces into the thinnest possible flakes, with a considerable amount of native alloy, be a fair way of making poetry, then "Alpha Crucis" may be cordially congratulated on his success.'