I am always happy to meet persons who perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakespeare over all other writers.
R. W. Emerson (1803-1882). “Culture.” Conduct of Life, 1860.
We may consider Shakespeare, as an ancient mythologist would have done, as “enskied” among “the invulnerable clouds,” where no shaft, even of envy, can assail him. From this elevation we may safely predict that he never can be plucked.
Cardinal Wiseman (1802-1856). William Shakespeare, 1865, p. 28.
To say truth, what I most of all admire are the traces he shows of a talent that could have turned the History of England into a kind of Iliad, almost perhaps into a kind of Bible.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). “Shooting Niagara: and After?” Macmillan’s Magazine, August, 1867.