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He was impatient of bigotry and narrowness and any attempt to stir up in Ulster the ashes of old hatreds and animosities. Once appealing to Ulstermen to forego their enthusiasm for William of Orange, he said with effect: “Why let us quarrel over a dead Dutchman?” His famous reply to Kipling, who by his doggerel tried to fan the flames of civil war, is worth quoting—

“The poet, for a coin,

Hands to the gabbling rout

A bucketful of Boyne

To put the sunrise out.”

In Parliament, he was an instant success. He was a born orator and spoke with all the intensity that passionate conviction lends. In his book on Irish Orators, he wrote: “Without knowledge, sincerity, and a hearty spiritual commitment to public causes, the crown of oratory, such as it is, is not to be won.” He had those requisites abundantly. In this book he gives a definition of an orator than which nothing could be finer: “The sound and rumour of great multitudes, passions hot as ginger in the mouth, torches, tumultuous comings and goings, and, riding through the whirlwind of it all, a personality, with something about him of the prophet, something of the actor, a touch of the charlatan, crying out not so much with his own voice as with that of the multitude, establishing with a gesture, refuting with a glance, stirring ecstasies of hatred and affection—is not that a common, and far from fantastic, conception of the orator?”