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ness of intellect, keenness of sensibility, and intensity of feeling to be found; and this was the mainspring of his extraordinary brilliancy of talents as well as oratorical powers.

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No. 20. PATRICK HENRY.

The distinguishing feature of his cerebral organization depended on that extraordinary fullness and projection at and above the root of his As extraordinary a development of Individuality, Form, Locality, Eventuality, Comparison, and Human Nature all combined, the editor has rarely, if ever, seen. Individuality, Eventuality, Form, and Locality are as large in Burritt, yet not Comparison, Human Nature, and Language. In a steel engraving of Henry, which the editor saw several years ago, copied from a portrait by one of the most eminent artists of his day, these organs appeared to be much larger than represented in the accompanying

engraving-beyond anything else he ever beheld; and this was doubtless the case.

This was also his character. His extraordinary powers, those of eloquence in particular, were imparted by these organs in connection with his exalted temperament. Exactly how they contribute to the creation of just such faculties as he possessed, we have not now room to show, and can be learned from an analysis of these organs.* That he possessed an extraordinary development of these organs, the accompanying engraving fully attests; and that the faculties they impart shone with commensurate power and lustre in his character, his rise from perfect obscurity, and his whole public career, fully evince. The following quotations, from Wirt's Life of Henry-a work with which every American youth should be familiar-at the same time that they show that Henry possessed the faculties imparted by these organs in a most remarkable degree, also give a happy practical illustration of the talents they confer.

"His propensity to observe and comment upon the human character was, so far as I can learn, the only circumstance which distinguished him, advantageously, from his youthful companions. This propensity seems to have been born with him, and to have exerted itself, instinctively, the moment that a new subject was presented to his view. Its action was incessant, and it became at length almost the only intellectual exercise in which he seemed to take delight. To this cause may be traced that consummate knowledge of the human heart which he finally attained, and which enabled him, when he came upon the public stage, to touch the springs of passion with a master-hand, and to control the resolutions and decisions of his hearers, with a power almost more than mortal.

"From what has been already stated, it will be seen how little education had to do with the formation of this great man's mind. He was, indeed, a mere child of nature, and nature seems to have been too proud and too jealous of her work, to permit it to be touched by the hand of art. She gave him Shakespeare's genius, and bid him, like Shakespeare, to depend on that alone."

The faculties here evinced were great Individuality to observe, directed by great Human Nature, which turned his observations upon character, both aided by great Comparison, which analyzed all his fellow-men did and said. See analysis of these three faculties acting in concert, in the last three numbers of the preceding volume.

In his sixteenth year, his father set him and his brother up in a store. How he managed in this sphere the following extracts show:

"He found another relief, too, in the frequent opportunities now afforded him of pursuing his favourite study of the human character. The character of every customer underwent this scrutiny; and that, not with reference either to the integrity or solvency of the individual, in which one would suppose that Mr. Henry would feel himself most interested, but in relation to the structure of his mind, the general cast of his opinions, the motives and principles which influenced his actions, and what may be called the philosophy of character.

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In pursuing these investigations, he is said to have resorted to arts, apparently so far above his years, and which looked so much like an afterthought, resulting

* All of which were analyzed in the preceding volume, and will be found still more fully delineated in "Memory."

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from his future eminence, that I should hesitate to make the statement, were it not attested by so many witnesses, and by some who cannot be suspected of the capacity for having fabricated the fact. Their account of it, then, is this :that whenever a company of his customers met in the store, (which frequently happened on the last day of the week,) and were themselves sufficiently gay and animated to talk and act as nature prompted, without concealment, without reserve, he would take no part in their discussion, but listen with a silence as deep and attentive as if under the influence of some potent charm. If, on the contrary, they were dull and silent, he would, without betraying his drift, task himself to set them in motion, and excite them to remark, collision, and exclamation. He was peculiarly delighted with comparing their characters, and ascertaining how they would severally act in given situations. With this view he would state a hypothetic case, and call for their opinions one by one, as to the conduct which would be proper in it. If they differed, he would demand their reasons, and enjoy highly the debates in which he would thus involve them. But multiplying and varying those imaginary cases at pleasure, he ascertained the general course of human opinion, and formed for himself, as it were, a graduated scale of the motives and conduct which are natural to man. Sometimes he would entertain them with stories, gathered from his reading, or, as was more frequently the case, drawn from his own fancy, composed of heterogeneous circumstances, calculated to excite, by turns, pity, terror, resentment, indignation, contempt; pausing in the turns of his narrative, to observe the effect; to watch the different modes in which the passions expressed themselves, and learn the language of emotion from those children of nature."

As might be expected he failed in mercartile pursuits, married at eighteen, tried agriculture, failed here, again tried trade and failed, and finally studied law-scarcely more weeks than most students do years. Of his examination for license, Wirt says:

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"At first, he (Mr. Randolph) was so much shocked by Mr. Henry's very ungainly figure and address, that he refused to examine him; understanding, however, that he had already obtained two signatures, he entered with manifest reluctance on the business. A very short time was sufficient to satisfy him of the erroneous conclusion which he had drawn from the exterior of the candidate. With evident marks of increasing surprise, (produced no doubt by the peculiar texture and strength of Mr. Henry's style, and the boldness and originality of his combinations,) he continued the examination for several hours, interrogating the candidate, not on the principles of municipal law, in which he, no doubt, soon discovered his deficiency, but on the laws of nature and of nations, on the policy of the feudal system, and on general history, which last he found to be his stronghold."

Barely passing examination, he remained in obscurity till drawn out by that celebrated trial called, "The Parson's case," of which Wirt gives the following account:

"And now came on the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat.

"But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others, of a very different character. For now were those wonderful faculties which he possessed, for the first time developed; and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in him. For as his mind rolled along

and began to glow from its own action, all the EXUVIE of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously.

"His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eyes which seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and commanding; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which no one can give any adequate description. They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart, IN A MANNER WHICH LANGUAGE CANNOT TELL. Add to all these, his wonderworking fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its images; for he painted to the heart with a force that almost petrified it. In the language of those who heard him on this occasion, he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end.'

"It will not be difficult for any one who ever heard this most extraordinary man, to believe the whole account of this transaction, which is given by his surviving hearers; and from their account, the courthouse of Hanover county must have exhibited on this occasion, a scene as picturesque as has been ever witnessed in real life.

"They say that the people, whose countenance had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up; then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses; then, attracted by some strong gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, and the varied and commanding expression of his countenance, they could look away no more.

"In less than twenty minutes, they might be seen in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, stooping forward from their stands, in deathlike silence; their features fixed in amazement and awe; all their senses listening and riveted upon the speaker, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. The mockery of the clergy was soon turned into alarm; their triumph into confusion and despair; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming invective, they fled from the bench in precipitation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstacy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them.

"The jury seem to have been so completely bewildered, that they lost sight, not only of the act of seventeen hundred and forty-eight, but that of seventeen hundred and fifty-eight also; for thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar when they returned with a verdict of ONE PENNY DAMAGES. A motion was made for a new trial; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by a unanimous vote. The verdict and judgment overruling the motion were followed by redoubled acclamations from within and without the house.

"The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and in spite of his own exertions, and the continued cry of 'order' from the sheriffs and the court, they bore him out of the courthouse, and raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard in a kind of electioneering triumph.

"O! what a scene was this for a father's heart! so sudden; so unlooked for; so delightfully overwhelming! At the time he was not able to give utterance to any sentiment; but, a few days after, when speaking of it to Mr. Winston, (the present Judge Winston,) he said, with the most engaging modesty, and with a tremor of voice which showed how much more he felt than he expressed, Patrick spoke in this cause near an hour! and in a manner that surprised me! and showed himself well-informed on a subject of which I did not think he had any knowledge!'

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"I have tried much to procure a sketch of this celebrated speech. But those of Mr. Henry's hearers who survive, seem to have been bereft of their senses. They can only tell you, in general, that they were taken captive; and so delighted with their captivity, that they followed implicitly whithersoever he led them; that, at his bidding, their tears flowed from pity, and their cheeks flushed with indignation; that when it was over, they felt as if they had just awakened from some ecstatic dream of which they were unable to recall or connect the particulars. It was such a speech as they believe had never before fallen from the lips of man; and to this day the old people of that county cannot conceive that a higher compliment can be paid to a speaker than to say of him, in their own homely phrase 'HE IS ALMOST EQUAL TO PATRICK, WHEN HE PLEAD AGAINST THE PARSONS."

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That Henry owed all his renown to the extraordinary powers of his MIND, and none to fashionable dress or airs of gentility, is rendered evident by the following paragraphs from the same biographer:—

"After his removal to Louisa,' says my informant, ‘he has been known to hunt deer, frequently for several days together, carrying his provision with him, and at night encamping in the woods. After the hunt was over, he would go from the ground to Louisa court, clad in a coarse cloth coat, stained with all the trophies of the chase, greasy leather breeches, ornamented in the same way, leggings for boots, and a pair of saddle-bags on his arm. Thus accoutred, he

would enter the courthouse, take up the first of his causes that chanced to be called; and if there was any scope for his peculiar talent, throw his adversary into the back-gronnd, and astonish both court and jury, by the powerful effusions of his natural eloquence.'

"There must have been something irresistibly captivating in Mr. Henry's mode of speaking even on the most trivial subjects. The late Judge Lyons has been heard to say of himself, while practising with Mr. Henry, that he could write a letter, or draw a declaration or plea at the bar, with as much accuracy as he could in his office, under all circumstances, EXCEPT WHEN PATRICK ROSE TO SPEAK; but that whenever HE rose, although it might be on so trifling a subject as a summons and petition for twenty shillings, he was obliged to lay down his pen, and could not write another word, until the speech was finished.' Such was the charm of his voice and manner, and the interesting originality of his conception!"

These unequalled powers of forensic eloquence ushered him into a new field for their exercise in the defence of the election returns of Mr. Danbridge. Of this scene his biographer gives the following account, quoted from the narration of Judge Tyler:—

"Mr. Henry was dressed in very coarse apparel; no one knew anything of him; and scarcely was he treated with decent respect by any one except the chairman, who could not do so much violence to his feelings and principles, as to depart, on any occasion, from the delicacy of the gentleman. But the general contempt was soon changed into as general admiration; for Mr. Henry distinguished himself by a copious and brilliant display on the great subject of the rights of suffrage, superior to anything that had been heard before within those walls. Such a burst of eloquence, from a man so very plain and ordinary in his appearance, struck the committee with amazement, so that a deep and perfect silence took place during the speech, and not a sound but from his lips was to be heard in the room.'

แ "Judge Winston relating the same incident, says: Some time after, a member of the house, speaking to me of this occurrence, said, he had, for a day or two, observed an ill-dressed young man sauntering in the lobby; that he seemed to be a stranger to everybody, and he had not the curiosity to enquire

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