From king to king, from cardinal to
cardinal, from the earliest in date of subject to the latest of his
histories, we find the same thread running, the same link of honourable
and righteous judgment, of equitable and careful equanimity, connecting
and combining play with play in an unbroken and infrangible chain of
evidence to the singleness of the poet's eye, the identity of the
workman's hand, which could do justice and would do no more than justice,
alike to Henry and to Wolsey, to Pandulph and to John. His typical
English hero or historic protagonist is a man of their type who founded
and built up the empire of England in India; a hero after the future
pattern of Hastings and of Clive; not less daringly sagacious and not
more delicately scrupulous, not less indomitable or more impeccable than
they. A type by no means immaculate, a creature not at all too bright
and good for English nature's daily food in times of mercantile or
military enterprise; no whit more if no whit less excellent and radiant
than reality. _Amica Britannia, sed magis amica veritas_. The master
poet of England--all Englishmen may reasonably and honourably be proud of
it--has not two weights and two measures for friend and foe.
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