Leeds Mercury, 21 August 1906, p. 2

Sonnets While You Wait. There is something appalling about Canon Rawnsley’s prolific output of sonnets. It would be no exaggeration to say that he could—we do not know if he would—supply a sonnet at a moment’s notice on any subject, whether of things that are in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. His printed sonnets in book form, include “Sonnets at the English Lakes,” “Sonnets Round the Coast,” “Valete and other Sonnets,” and “Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy.

His addition to this extensive collection is now given to the public under the title “A Sonnet Chronicle, 1900-1906.” The Canon explains—was it was scarcely necessary, perhaps, to mention—that it had been his custom for some years past to keep in sonnet form a calendar of events “that stirred one or seemed of interest to others; and I have ventured to publish a selection of these, in the hope that readers—if there be any found (the words are Canon Rawnsley’s)—may care to have their minds recalled to the events they commemorate.”

The subjects [of his new book] are of all kinds. To each is given its sonnet of monotonous mediocrity. There is no reason, of course, why Canon Rawnsley should not do this thing, but, in the interests of peace and good-will among men, it is to be hoped that he will endeavour to subject himself to a self-denying ordinance in the matter of sonnets in the future—that, in a word, he will recognise the necessity for what sportsmen call a close time.