"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."