It can be said of him, when he departed he took a Man's life with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881): Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.

  This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.