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They owe it to their honour and good name

       To furnish better proof of such a claim

       Than is revealed by the abortiveness

       Of this thing called an Act for our Defence.

       To the great gifts of its artificer

       No member of this House is more disposed

       To yield full recognition than am I.

       No man has found more reason so to do

       Through the long roll of disputatious years

       Wherein we have stood opposed....

       But if one single fact could counsel me

       To entertain a doubt of those great gifts,

       And cancel faith in his capacity,

       That fact would be the vast imprudence shown

       In staking recklessly repute like his

       On such an Act as he has offered us—

       So false in principle, so poor in fruit.

       Sir, the achievements and effects thereof

       Have furnished not one fragile argument

       Which all the partiality of friendship

       Can kindle to consider as the mark

       Of a clear, vigorous, freedom-fostering mind!

       [He sits down amid lengthy cheering from the Opposition.]

      SHERIDAN

       My summary shall be brief, and to the point.—

       The said right honourable Prime Minister

       Has thought it proper to declare my speech

       The jesting of an irresponsible;—

       Words from a person who has never read

       The Act he claims him urgent to repeal.

       Such quips and qizzings [as he reckons them]

       He implicates as gathered from long hoards

       Stored up with cruel care, to be discharged

       With sudden blaze of pyrotechnic art

       On the devoted, gentle, shrinking head

       O' the right incomparable gentleman! [Laughter.]

       But were my humble, solemn, sad oration [Laughter.]

       Indeed such rattle as he rated it,

       Is it not strange, and passing precedent,

       That the illustrious chief of Government

       Should have uprisen with such indecent speed

       And strenuously replied? He, sir, knows well

       That vast and luminous talents like his own

       Could not have been demanded to choke off

       A witcraft marked by nothing more of weight

       Than ignorant irregularity!

       Nec Deus intersit—and so-and-so— Is a well-worn citation whose close fit None will perceive more clearly in the Fane Than its presiding Deity opposite. [Laughter.] His thunderous answer thus perforce condemns him! Moreover, to top all, the while replying, He still thought best to leave intact the reasons On which my blame was founded! Thus, them, stands My motion unimpaired, convicting clearly Of dire perversion that capacity We formerly admired.— [Cries of “Oh, oh.”] This minister Whose circumventions never circumvent, Whose coalitions fail to coalesce; This dab at secret treaties known to all, This darling of the aristocracy— [Laughter, “Oh, oh,” cheers, and cries of “Divide.”] Has brought the millions to the verge of ruin, By pledging them to Continental quarrels Of which we see no end! [Cheers.] [The members rise to divide.]

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       It irks me that they thus should Yea and Nay

       As though a power lay in their oraclings,

       If each decision work unconsciously,

       And would be operant though unloosened were

       A single lip!

      SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       There may react on things

       Some influence from these, indefinitely,

       And even on That, whose outcome we all are.

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Hypotheses!—More boots it to remind

       The younger here of our ethereal band

       And hierarchy of Intelligences,

       That this thwart Parliament whose moods we watch—

       So insular, empiric, un-ideal—

       May figure forth in sharp and salient lines

       To retrospective eyes of afterdays,

       And print its legend large on History.

       For one cause—if I read the signs aright—

       To-night's appearance of its Minister

       In the assembly of his long-time sway

       Is near his last, and themes to-night launched forth

       Will take a tincture from that memory,

       When me recall the scene and circumstance

       That hung about his pleadings.—But no more;

       The ritual of each party is rehearsed,

       Dislodging not one vote or prejudice;

       The ministers their ministries retain,

       And Ins as Ins, and Outs as Outs, remain.

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Meanwhile what of the Foeman's vast array

       That wakes these tones?

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Abide the event, young Shade:

       Soon stars will shut and show a spring-eyed dawn,

       And sunbeams fountain forth, that will arouse

       Those forming bands to full activity.

       [An honourable member reports that he spies strangers.]

       A timely token that we dally here!

       We now cast off these mortal manacles,

       And speed us seaward.

       [The Phantoms vanish from the Gallery. The members file out

       to the lobbies. The House and Westminster recede into the

       films of night, and the point of observation shifts rapidly

       across the Channel.]

      SCENE IV

       THE HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE

       [The morning breaks, radiant with early sunlight. The French

       Army of Invasion is disclosed. On the hills on either side

       of the town and behind appear large military camps formed of

       timber huts. Lower down are other camps of more or less

       permanent kind, the whole affording accommodation for one

       hundred and fifty thousand men.

       South of the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays,

       the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recent

       excavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowded

       with the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundry

       kinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats of

       one mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and a

      

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