Charles Whibley

"The poet of England, he gave to the love of country, to patriotism as nowadays we call it, a voice which never shall be stilled. His histories are, and will ever be, the epic of our race."

"It is in Henry V. that Shakespeare fashioned for us the true epic of England. The dramatic form sits very loosely upon it. It is epic in shape as in spirit. Splendid in eloquence, swift in narrative, it is a pæan sung in our country's praise. Its noble lines sound in our ears like a trumpet-call, and it has lost not a jot of its force and energy by the passage of three hundred years."

"For Shakespeare, as I have said, was above and before all things a lover of England. With how bitter a contempt would he have lashed those friends of every country but their own, who nowadays unpack what they have of souls to strangers, and believe that flat treason is a mark of superiority! And Shakespeare, being a patriot, was a Tory also. He loved not those who disturbed the peace of England. He believed firmly in the established order, and in the great traditions of his native land. He was a firm supporter of Church and State."

"Again Shakespeare proves himself a gentleman in his moderation. He does not insist. He harbours no inapposite desire to make us better. Some of his critics have been saddened by the thought that his plays solve no moral problems and preach no obvious sermons—that, in fact, he is content to be a mere master of the revels, a purveyor of joy and pleasure. His refusal to preach is but another title of honour."

"How far is patriotism necessary to the equipment of a statesman? Now patriotism, out of fashion though it be to-day, should be the first and plainest of the virtues. It is but an extension of the feeling for family, which is the foundation of all society. A man who insults his father and despises his mother is a bad son. He is a bad citizen, who despises and insults his country. And a bad citizen, though he has every right to exist, is not likely to prove the wisest ruler."

"Genius transcends the common rules of life and blood."

"Like most Radicals, he [Richard Cobden] lived in a fool's paradise where facts are of no account, and where, if principles prove fallacious, it is not the fault of the optimist who frames them, but of some vile conspirator against the common good."

"The political game, as it is played in England, bears this resemblance to the game of fives, that you must get your adversary out before you may begin to score yourself."

"Genius transcends the boundaries and frontiers of race, and makes its happy possessor an understanding citizen in whatever state he inhabits."

"He gives always the impression of fearless sincerity, and that is more important than being always right. One always feels that he is ready to say bluntly what every one else is afraid to say. Thus a feeling of apprehensiveness, conducive to attention, is aroused in the reader. And, in fact, he was, when he chose to be, a master of invective."

"The “Musings Without Method” which Whibley contributed once a month to Blackwood's for thirty years, excepting two months, one of which was the last, are the best sustained piece of literary journalism that I know in recent times."

"A bare record of his work can give but little idea of Whibley's place in the estimation of his contemporaries, which is attributable at least as much to the effect of his personality on those who came into contact with him as to his literary eminence. The warmth of his human sympathies, his brilliant wit, his love of good cheer, of good talk, and of all that was vital and sincere made him the best of companions. He had his prejudices, to which he would sometimes give alarming expression; but his impeccable intellectual honesty and the courageous vigour of mind and spirit which shone out in his conversation made him an acknowledged leader among his intimates. In this, as in some of his other qualities, including his unbending toryism, he resembled Dr. Johnson; and it may well be that like Johnson he will rather live through the influence which he exerted on those who were privileged to know him than through the written word. Nevertheless, he was a great master of the written word. He maintained throughout his life the loftiest standards of his craft: his literary style was in the highest degree chaste and austere. His most ephemeral work—and much of it was ephemeral—was always that of a scholar; and although as a writer he was critical rather than constructive, he was a power in his time."

"He was intolerant of fools and humbugs, and did not conceal his opinions; he had a real hatred of whiggery and indeed of liberalism in any form; and his unmeasured denunciation of all that he considered vulgar and insincere doubtless made him enemies. But he was fond of the society of his intellectual equals, whether at University dining societies or the Beefsteak Club, and his death removes a forceful and forthright character from the English literary world. Both he and his opinions would perhaps have been more at home in London somewhere between the Restoration and the French Revolution; but we may be glad that there was at least one of his sort among us in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."