He was the noblest Roman of them all.

The author who is capable of writing Mr. Whibley’s character-study of Fox does not understand enough about the splendour and the miseries of human nature to write well on Shakespeare.  Of Fox Mr. Whibley says: 

He put no bounds upon his hatred of England, and he thought it not shameful to intrigue with foreigners against the safety and credit of the land to which he belonged.  Wherever there was a foe to England, there was a friend of Fox.  America, Ireland, France, each in turn inspired his enthusiasm.  When Howe was victorious at Brooklyn, he publicly deplored “the terrible news.”  After Valmy he did not hesitate to express his joy.  “No public event,” he wrote, “not excepting Yorktown and Saratoga, ever happened that gave me so much delight.  I could not allow myself to believe it for some days for fear of disappointment.”

It does not seem to occur to Mr. Whibley that in regard to America, Ireland, and France, Fox was, according to the standard of every ideal for which the Allies professed to fight, tremendously right, and that, were it not for Yorktown and Valmy, America and France would not in our own time have been great free nations fighting against the embattled Whibleys of Germany.  So far as Mr. Whibley’s political philosophy goes, I see no reason why he should not have declared himself on the side of Germany.  He believes in patriotism, it is true, but he is apparently a patriot of the sort that loves his country and hates his fellow-countrymen (if that is what he means by “the people,” and presumably it must be).  Mr. Whibley has certainly the mind of a German professor.  His vehemence against the Germans for appreciating Shakespeare is strangely like a German professor’s vehemence against the English for not appreciating him.  “Why then,” he asks,

should the Germans have attempted to lay violent hands upon our Shakespeare?  It is but part of their general policy of pillage.  Stealing comes as easy to them as it came to Bardolph and Nym, who in Calais stole a fire-shovel.  Wherever they have gone they have cast a thievish eye upon what does not belong to them.  They hit upon the happy plan of levying tolls upon starved Belgium.  It was not enough for their greed to empty a country of food; they must extract something from its pocket, even though it be dying of hunger....  No doubt, if they came to these shores, they would feed their fury by scattering Shakespeare’s dust to the winds of heaven.  As they are unable to sack Stratford, they do what seems to them the next best thing:  they hoist the Jolly Roger over Shakespeare’s works.

    Their arrogance is busy in vain.  Shakespeare shall never be theirs. 
    He was an English patriot, who would always have refused to bow the
    knee to an insolent alien.

This is mere foaming at the mouth—­the tawdry violence of a Tory Thersites.  This passage is a measure of the good sense and imagination Mr. Whibley brings to the study of Shakespeare.  It is simply theatrical Jolly-Rogerism.