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