Leslie Stephen

“ Had Tierney been the contemporary of men less brilliant than Pitt, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, his reputation as a debater would have stood very high. His logic was strong, his wit ready, and his sagacity great. His sarcasms and sneers, uttered in tones and phrases equally cutting, were much dreaded by his opponents, and for years he fought the uphill battle of hopeless opposition, and fought it admirably, when his more famous contemporaries retired from it. ”

“ By constant study of nature and his affinity for all that was pure and beautiful in older art (especially the Elgin marbles and the designs of Raphael and Rubens) he formed a style of his own which, in spite of some mannerism, has exercised an unabated charm from his own day to the present. He illustrated almost the whole range of English literature with a taste that seldom failed and a sympathy that was often remarkable. He was deficient in vigour and passion, but he had an exquisite sense of beauty; and his drawing, if not always accurate in detail, was of exceeding grace. ”

“ His earliest productions dealt chiefly with Scottish landscape, but in the neighbourhood of London he found homely rustic scenes better suited to his brush. He delighted to render nature in her humbler aspects, painting hedgerow subjects with great care and delicacy, his favourite tree being the dwarfed oak. He also closely studied the Dutch landscape-painters, and imitated their manner with such success that he has been styled ‘the English Hobbema,’ so precise and spirited is his touch, so brilliant are the skies that appear above the low-toned fields and foliage in his pictures. ”

“ Simple in his habits, plain in his tastes, methodical in all his ways, quaint and terse in conversation, uniformly gentle in his demeanour, Sharpe spent his later days in tranquil retirement. His house was the resort of his literary friends, and of younger men whom he delighted to imbue with his own enthusiasm for his favourite pursuits. ”

“ It is the versatile working of Shakespeare's intellect that renders his supremacy unassailable. His mind, as Hazlitt suggested, contained within itself the germs of every faculty and feeling. He knew intuitively how every faculty and feeling would develop in every conceivable change of fortune. Men and women—good or bad, old or young, wise or foolish, merry or sad, rich or poor—yielded their secrets to him, and his genius illumined in turn every aspect of humanity that presents itself on the highway of life. ”

“ He exercised a special charm over younger men, who found him sympathetic and inspiring. Eager by nature, he trained himself to a singular degree of calmness and self-possession. Greatness of soul enabled him to rise above calamity and, conscious of his powers, to remain undismayed by defeat. His temper was rarely ruffled, but he did not easily forgive those who offended him. While he retained through life his delight in Greek and Roman literature, and appreciated elegant English writing, he did not approach Fox either in classical scholarship or knowledge of literature generally. ”

“ Richard's short life contains all the elements of tragedy. Neither by natural disposition nor youthful training was he well fitted to come through the troubles bequeathed to him by his grandfather. With the pleasure-loving temperament which he inherited from the ‘Fair Maid of Kent’ along with her physical beauty, Richard united a firmness of will and capacity for sustained action when roused which, under a more fortunate star, might have done England good service. He deserves the credit, at least, of seeing that her men and money were better expended in Ireland than in France. ”

“ In politics, if Selden did not exhibit the character of a hero, a martyr, or a saint, he played the part of an honest man. The fact that he was consulted alike by the commons on their rights and by the lords on their privileges is a remarkable testimony not only to his learning, but to his freedom from party bias. He seems in all cases to have maintained what he believed to be the right, and to have been diverted from this course neither by the hope of popular applause nor by the favour of the court, nor by resentment for wrongs by which many men would have been soured. ”

“ Napier could not leave this desperate conflict. He saw the struggle could not last much longer, and, judging that the supreme moment had come, he sent orders to his cavalry on the left to charge on the enemy's right. He himself rode up and down his infantry line, holding, as it seemed, a charmed life, while urging his men to sustain the increasing fury of the enemy. The British cavalry swept down on the enemy's right, dashed through their guns, rode over the high bank of the river, crossed its bed, gained the plain beyond, and charged into the enemy's rear with irresistible fury. ”

“ Field sports did not attract him, though he practised shooting at birds when a boy, and killed a boar when attending Queen Victoria in Germany in 1860.
As a statesman he was a sincere but not a demonstrative patriot; he wrote of England as ‘the country whose freedom I have worshipped.’ Proud of his country and jealous of its honour, he nobly upheld the whig motto of civil and religious liberty throughout the world. Every movement for freedom had his hearty support. He championed every measure that he believed would increase the happiness of the people. ”

“ It was of her character and fortunes, which move every just critic to enthusiasm, that Charles Lamb wrote: ‘To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit; this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may “upon horror's head horrors accumulate,” but they cannot do this. They mistake quantity for quality, they “terrify babes with painted devils,” but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved ”

“ Consummate actress though she occasionally proved herself to be, nature in all the great emergencies of her life asserted its supremacy. Her heart, in almost every variation of its moods, has been bared to the world; and if the views of both classes of extremists, blinded by religious or political prepossessions, be set aside, there is a pretty general consensus of opinion as to her main aims and characteristics. She cared comparatively little for the mere trappings of state, and her tastes were simple and natural, yet without question her ruling passion was the passion for sovereignty. ”

“ Tyndall's single-hearted devotion to science and indifference to worldly advantages were but one manifestation of a noble and generous nature. A resolute will and lofty principles, always pointing to a high ideal, were in him associated with great tenderness and consideration for others. His chivalrous sense of justice led him not unfrequently—irrespective of nationality or even of personal acquaintance, and often at great cost of time and trouble to himself—to take up the cause of men whom he deemed to have been unfairly treated or overlooked in respect to their scientific merits. ”

“ No portrait of Savage exists. Johnson describes him as 'of middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien,which on a nearer acquaintance softened into an engaging easiness of manners. His walk was slow and his voice tremulous and mournful; he was easily excited to smiles, but very seldom provoked to laughter.' Savage was a brilliant conversationalist, and, like Johnson, was always eager for society. ”

“ Stanfield attained a great reputation as a marine-painter, and was called the English Vandevelde. Professor Ruskin regarded him as ‘the leader of the English realists,’ and averred that he was ‘incomparably the noblest master of cloud-form of all our artists.’ He was a manly, sincere, and accomplished painter, with a keen sense of the picturesque and knowledge of sea, and sky, but he looked at nature with the eyes of a scene-painter, having too special regard to its spectacular qualities, so that few of his works, except ‘The Abandoned,’ are imbued with much poetical feeling. ”

“ Scott was a man of undoubted genius and spiritual imagination, perpetually setting himself tasks beyond his grasp. Unfortunately, even when he reached a high measure of success, as in his illustrations to ‘The Ancient Mariner’ and ‘The Architecture of the Heavens,’ he failed to reap the appreciation which his soul desired. In many respects like Benjamin Haydon, though of finer fibre and less robust physique, he was the victim of his own temperament, and his life was a series of disappointments, the result of restless and ill-judged ambition. ”

“ The unerring instinct with which he detected and the unfailing felicity with which he exposed a fallacy, united to no small powers of sarcasm and invective, made him formidable in reply, while the effect of his easy and impressive elocution was enhanced by a tall and graceful figure, a melodious voice, and features of classical regularity. As an adept not only in the art of the advocate, but in the whole mystery of law and equity, he was without a superior, perhaps without a rival, in his day. ”

“ So mighty a faculty sets at naught the common limitations of nationality, and in every quarter of the globe to which civilised life has penetrated Shakespeare's power is recognised. All the world over, language is applied to his creations that ordinarily applies to beings of flesh and blood. Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth, Falstaff, Brutus, Romeo, and Shylock are studied in almost every civilised tongue as if they were historic personalities, and the chief of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are rooted in the speech of civilised humanity. ”

“ Yet if Lancaster had any political ideal at all, it was the revival of Simon de Montfort's abortive scheme for government by a council of magnates with himself, in the place of Simon, as the chief and most powerful member. The only thing in which he was consistent was the unrelenting hatred with which he pursued those who offended him. Popular idealism, however, made him into a saint and a martyr. All the misfortunes which befell the country were laid at Edward's door, though Thomas's futile policy was quite as much to blame for them. ”

“ Barclay's great book, ‘The Apology,’ is remarkable as the standard exposition of the principles of his sect, and is not only the first defence of those principles by a man of trained intelligence, but in many respects one of the most impressive theological writings of the century. In form it is a careful defence of each of the fifteen theses previously published. It is impressive in style; grave, logical, and often marked by the eloquence of lofty moral convictions. ”

“ For fifty years he served Henry II, his three sons, and his grandson, and to each in the hour of his bitterest need proved himself the most faithful of friends. In his youth and to his contemporaries he was the most perfect type of chivalry; in his old age and in history he appears as one of the noblest of medieval soldier-statesmen. From the time that he acquired his earldom he filled the foremost place in England and Ireland, but while he never faltered in his loyalty he never, even in the worst days of John, compromised his honour. ”

“ The keynote of his whole life was his art—whether consciously or not he acted up to the ideal of a perfect portrait-painter—whose business was not to criticise but to observe, not to direct but to reflect the currents of society. ‘I go,’ he said, ‘with the great stream of life.’ For the purpose of such a career the hours which he spent in his painting-room were not more profitable than those he spent out of it. ”

“ In physique, intellect, and morale, Thomson was an ideal explorer. At first sight he did not impress the observer as peculiarly muscular or robust; but there was an almost boyish ease in his gait, and his powers of endurance were often without parallel. Seventy miles was no infrequent record at the end of a day's march. While his work was mainly that of a geographical pioneer, yet in his most rapid passages through a country he had such a genius for observing that his notebooks were filled with material that most men would have taken months to collect. ”

“ In the battle that ensued the bulk of Stephen's men ‘betrayed him and fled,’ and he was left with a mere handful of comrades in the midst of a host of enemies. The little band, all on foot, stood firm against charge after charge of the horsemen; and the life and soul of their resistance was the king himself, who ‘stood like a lion,’ cutting down every man who came within reach of his sword, or, when that was broken, of a battle-axe which a citizen of Lincoln gave him in its stead. ”

“ Trollope is a master of humour and pathos. His best novels keep the reader for pages together in a round of delighted amusement, and when he chooses to be pathetic he affects the reader with sympathy and compassion. His favourite situation of this kind, the agony of some erring man who has from weakness deeply compromised himself, but who still trembles on the verge between ruin and redemption, appeals to the sympathies with much tragic power. Talent such as this almost amounts to genius, and yet Trollope was no genius; he never creates—he only depicts. ”

“ Scott's sympathetic reproduction of the national characteristics was of course combined with the power, which distinguished his novels from all previous works, of giving life to history and to the picturesque and vanishing forms of society. His ‘feudalism’ and toryism were other aspects of his intense interest in the old order broken down by the revolution. He was also pouring out the stores of anecdote and legend and the vivid impressions of the scenery which he had been imbibing from his early childhood while rambling through the country in close and friendly intercourse with all classes. ”