I think that any old Member
of Parliament will agree with me when I place David Plunkett,
afterwards Lorth Rathmore, who represented for many years Trinity
College, Dublin, in the very front rank as an orator. Plunkett was
an indolent man, and spoke very rarely indeed. When really roused,
and on a subject which he had genuinely at heart, he could rise to
heights of splendid eloquence. Plunkett had a slight impediment in
his speech; when wound up, this impediment, so far from detracting
from, added to the effect he produced. I heard Mr. Gladstone's
last speech in Parliament, on March 1, 1894. It was frankly a
great disappointment. I sat then on the Opposition side, but we
Unionists had all assembled to cheer the old man who was to make
his farewell speech to the Assembly in which he had sat for sixty
years, and of which he had been so dominating and so unique a
personality, although we were bitterly opposed to him politically.
The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of
being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it
was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it
that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition
side very hard to produce.
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