[Sidenote: Sir John Rigby.]
Then came hand-shakings and clappings on the back, and a light in the
eyes of Irish members that told of a great step forward in the progress
of their cause. To a house thinned by the endless rhodomontade of a dull
Orangeman--with a style of elocution to which the House is unaccustomed,
and which has almost every fault delivery could have--the speech of Sir
John Rigby, the Solicitor-General, was one of the finest and weightiest
utterances delivered on the Bill. The massive head, the fine face, the
rugged sense and leonine strength in face and figure, lent force to a
criticism of extraordinary effectiveness on the attacks levelled against
the Bill. First, the Solicitor-General took up the wild and whirling
statement of one of the opponents of the Bill, and then coolly--as
though it were a pure matter of business--he put in juxtaposition the
enactments of the Bill, and the contrast was as laughter provoking with
all its deadly seriousness, as the conflict between the story of
Falstaff and the contemptuously quiet rejoinder of Prince Hal. Lord
Randolph was taken in hand; he was soon disposed of. Then Mr. Dunbar
Barton was crumpled up and flung away.
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