been carefully compiled by his biographer, Wirt,, have been eminently endowed with amiability, inand are freely copied in the historical portion of telligence, and the fascinations of a graceful elothe following sketch: cution. She had a brother who was one of the most effective orators of that day.

Patrick Henry, the second son of John and Sarah Henry, and one of nine children, was born It is seldom or never that we meet with a man on the 29th of May, 1736, at the family seat called distinguished in any intellectual pursuit who had a Studley, in the county of Hanover, and colony of numbskull for a mother. How much does EngVirginia. In his early childhood his parents re-land and the world owe to Alfred? Liberty, propmoved to another seat in the same county, then erty, laws, literature; all that makes the Anglocalled Mount Brilliant, now the Retreat; at which Saxon people what they are, and political society latter place, Patrick Henry was raised and educa- so nearly what it ought to be. And who made ted. His parents, though not rich, were in easy Alfred all that he became to his own age, all that circumstances; and, in point of personal character, he is destined perpetually to be? She who nursed were among the most respectable inhabitants of his first thought and moulded his regal mind. the colony. "The words which his mother taught him," the

And to 6. Mary the mother of Washington," whose incomplete monument at Fredericksburg lies shamefully neglected, we owe all the mighty debt due from mankind to her immortal son. He has himself declared that to her influence and early instruction he was indebted for all that was boman in the direction of his fortunes.

Curran's mother was comparatively an obscure woman, but one of strong original understanding and glowing enthusiasm. In her latter years, rendered her the ob

His father, Col. John Henry, was a native of lessons of wisdom she instilled into his aspiring Aberdeen in Scotland. He was, it is said, a first soul, were the germs of thought, genius, entercousin to David Henry, who was the brother-in-prise, action, every thing to the future father of law and successor of Edward Cave in the publi- his country. cation of that celebrated work, the Gentleman's Magazine, and himself the author of several literary tracts: John Henry is also said to have been a nephew, in the maternal line, to the great historian, Dr. William Robertson. He came over to Virginia, in quest of fortune, some time prior to the year 1730, and the tradition is that he enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Dinwiddie, afterward the governor of the colony. By this gentleman, it is reported that he was introduced to the elder Col. Syme of Hanover, in whose family, it is certain, the celebrity of her son that he became domesticated during the life of that|ject of increased attention; and critical observers gentleman, after whose death he intermarried with could easily discover, in the irregular bursts his widow, and resided on the estate which he had of her eloquence, the primitive gushings of the left. It is considered as a fair proof of the per- stream which, expanding as it descended, at length sonal merit of Mr. John Henry, that, in those days, attained a force and majesty that excited unboundwhen offices were bestowed with peculiar caution, ed admiration. Mr. Curran himself felt his inhe was the Colonel of his regiment, the principal debtedness for hereditary talent. Said he, surveyor of the county, and for many years the only inheritance that I could boast of from my presiding magistrate of the county court. His poor father, was the very scanty one of an unatsurviving acquaintances concur in stating, that he tractive face and person, like his own; and if the was a man of liberal education; that he possessed world has ever attributed to me something more a plain, yet solid understanding; and lived long a valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, life of the most irreproachable integrity and exem- it was that another and a dearer parent gave her child plary piety. His brother Patrick, a clergyman of a portion from the treasure of her mind." He attribthe Church of England, followed him to this coun- uted much of his subsequent success to the early try some years afterward; and became, by his in- influence of such a mother, and to his latest hour fluence, the minister of St. Paul's parish in Han- would dwell with grateful recollection upon the over, the functions of which office he sustained wise counsel, upon the lessons of honorable ambithroughout life with great respectability. Both tion, and of thorough piety, which she enforced the brothers were zealous members of the estab- upon the minds of her children. The mother of lished church, and warmly attached to the reign- the Schlegels is said to have contributed greatly ing family. Col. John Henry was conspicuously to form the character of her accomplished sons. SO: "there are those yet alive," said a correspon- We know that Canning, and Brougham, and Guident in 1805," who have seen him at the head of zot are indebted mainly to the same source of suchis regiment, celebrating the birthday of George cess. III. with as much enthusiasm as his son Patrick afterwards displayed, in resisting the encroach

ments of that monarch."

the

The Scotch "guinption" and Virginia ardor inherited from his parents and so finely blended in his own mental organization, constituted a richer The mother of this "forest-born Demosthenes," patrimony for Patrick Henry, than all the splendurs was a native of Hanover county, and is said to of remote pedigree and ancestral fame.

The basis of Mr. Henry's character was acute he was himself, a man self-developed, he thought His insight into the workings of more than he read.

common sense.

human nature was early exercised to an extraor- By this kind of severe self-tuition amid the beaudinary degree. In the common acceptation of the ties and sublimities of nature, he cultivated a flexword, he was not educated; like Shakspeare, ac-ile majesty, a natural grandeur of soul. It was not cording to Ben Jonson, he knew little Latin and the artificial groves of the Academy, the polished less Greek." But in the best sense of the term, pavements of the Portico, nor Grecian steeds conhe was superlatively disciplined for the mission he strained with bit and curb, that listened to the harp was destined to fulfil. His principal book was the of Orpheus, but the wild trees of unfrequented great volume of human nature. In this he was haunts, the rocks of deserts unadorned, and the undeeply read; and hence arose his great power of per- tamed tigers of the wood. suasion. The habit of critical observation formed When fifteen years old, Mr. Henry was placed in early youth went with him through life. Meet- behind the counter of a country store; but the ing, in a bookstore, with his friend, Ralph Worm- hands destined to forge thunderbolts, were unskilley, who, although a great book-worm, was infi-ful in measuring tape and hoarding worldly gains. nitely more remarkable for his ignorance of men Pegasus chafed in the contracted sphere, and strugthan Mr. Henry was for that of books-" What, gled for escape. By enlarging the domain of more Mr. Wormley," said he, still buying books ?" exalted excursions, however, he ruined the petty "Yes," said Mr. Wormley, "I have just heard of a profits of the shop. At the early age of eighteen, new work, which I am extremely anxious to peruse." he was married. This apparently indiscreet act "Take my word for it," said he, " Mr. Wormley, was probably an advantage in fact. It furnished we are too old to read books; read men-they are him a secluded home of his own, a solace in pecuthe only volumes that we can peruse to advan-niary trials, and a restraint on vicious indulgence. tage." But Mr. Henry neglected neither. From Thus in lonely studies, healthful toils and domestic his earliest youth he studied both with care, though joys, he cultivated in deep obscurity the giant fachis education was desultory in the extreme. As ulties of his soul. early as most boys he had learned to read, write, and perform the ordinary tasks in arithmetic. At ten years of age he was taken home, and under the instruction of his father learned the elements" of Latin and Greek.

Men of rare genius are generally fond of the extremes of existence-profound solitude or boisterous glee. Such was the case with Henry.

"There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night, and fastnesses, below
The stormy clashing of the ocean-waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nursed
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time, and burst
On the bright day, like wakeners from their graves!"

Fortunately for our hero, he was endowed with While yet a youth, he would spend protracted sea- a fine flow of elastic spirits; with a noble fortitude sons in silent meditation, and then with phrenzied he braced himself boldly against every disaster of zeal would abruptly plunge into the greatest hi-life. Mr. Jefferson made his acquaintance in the larity. He was much addicted to field sports, but winter of 1759-60, and has left us the following these were employed as the occasions of mental impressions respecting him. "On my way to the discipline, rather than for purposes of dissipation. college, I passed the Christmas holydays at Col. He was habitually frugal, though constitutionally Dandridge's in Hanover, to whom Mr. Henry was sanguine and impetuous. If he freely used the a near neighbor. During the festivity of the seaangle and the gun for pastime, he assiduously pon-son, I met him in society every day, and we bedered some great theme, or deduced an argument came well acquainted, although I was much his while a superficial observer would scarcely have junior, being then in my seventeenth year, and he supposed him to be at the same time employed in a married man. His manners had something of pursuits so widely diversified. His violin, his flute, coarseness in them; his passion was music, dan. a few favorite books, habitual and critical study of cing, and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and mankind, frequent ramblings in the wild woods, and it attached every one to him. He had, a little beprofound meditations by flowing streams, occupied fore, broken up his store, or rather it had broken the early years of his youth. The only science him up; but his misfortunes were not to be traced, he loved was mathematics, and the book he most either in his countenance or conduct." Says anoread, among uninspired authors, was a translation ther cotemporary, "He would be pleased and cheerof "the pictured Livy." With respect to reading, ful with persons of any class or condition, vicious his motto seems to have been, "much, but not and abandoned persons only excepted; he prefermany." He might have adopted Hobbes' opin-red those of character and talents, but would be "that if he had read as much as other men, amused with any who could contribute to his amusehe should have been as ignorant as they were." ment." Habitual cheerfulness is doubtless a mighty But the books he did peruse, he digested thorough- auxiliary to the mind, and happy is he who can ly. He was not a thing made up of fragmen's, rise above lowering storms and say,

ion,

"I will dash these fond regrets to earth, E'en as an eagle shakes the cumbering rain From his strong pinion."

rage, superior to any thing that had been heard before within those walls. It 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."

Let us at this point dwell a little on his personal appearance and modes of address.

In his youth, Mr. Henry was exceedingly indifferent to both costume and style, but as he rose in

After a six weeks preparation, he obtained a license to practice the law, being then twenty-four years of age, and almost entirely ignorant of the simplest forms of the profession he had embraced. For these facts we are also indebted to Mr. Jefferson. In the Spring of 1760, he says, Mr. Henry came to Williamsburg to obtain a license as a experience and influence, he became more refined. lawyer, and he called on me at college. He told Through all vicissitudes, however, his personal me he had been reading law only six weeks. Two appearance was wonderfully impressive. He was of the examiners, however, Peyton and John Ran- nearly six feet high; spare and raw-boned, with a dolph, men of great facility of temper, signed his slight stoop of his shoulders. His complexion was license with as much reluctance as their disposi- dark and sallow; his natural expression grave, tions would permit them to show. Mr. Wythe ab- thoughtful and penetrating. He was gifted with solutely refused, Robert C. Nicholas refused also a strong and musical voice, often rendered doubly at first; but, on repeated importunities and prom- fascinating by the mild splendors of his brilliant ises of future reading, he signed. These facts I blue eyes. When animated, he spoke with the had afterwards from the gentlemen themselves; greatest variety of manner and tone. It was nethe two Randolphs acknowledging he was very cessary to involve him in some great emergency ignorant of the law, but that they perceived him to in order to arouse his more sterling qualities, and be a young man of genius, and did not doubt that then, to the surprise of himself as well as every he would soon qualify himself.” body else, he would in the most splendid manner

"A treasure all undreampt of :-as the night
Calls out the harmonies of streams that roll
Unheard by day."

Henry was one of those who are "victory-or-develop, ganized," and will ever find a way or make one." The same rule applies to all such, as it was announced to the Directory by the principal in command, when young Napoleon first began to display his astonishing power,-" Promote this young man, or he will promote himself."

He could be ve

and intellect, action and utterance which have inhighest class, combining all those traits of figure dissolubly linked his brilliant name with the history of his country's emancipation.

The true orator is not the actor of his subject,

Gleams of passion interpenetrating the masses of his logic, rendered him a spectacle of delight to For some time he was entirely unnoticed, but in He was careless in dress, and sometimes intentionthe friendly spectator, or of dread to his antagonist. his famous speech in the parson's cause, he at ally and extravagantly awkward in movement; but length began to engross public attention. As coun- always, like the phosphorescent stone at Bologna, sel for Mr. Dandridge, in a contested election, he he was less rude than glowing. made a brilliant harrangue on the rights of suff-hement, insinuating, humorous, and sarcastic by rage. Such a burst of eloquence from so plain turns, and to every sort of style he gave the highand humble a man, struck the popular mind with est effect. He was an orator by nature, and of the amazement, and at once made the speaker an object of universal respect. The incident is described as follows, from the pen of Judge Tyler. It was the young advocate's first appearance in the dignified and refined society at Williamsburg, then the seat of lordly arrogance and colonial power. but its organ. His spontaneous thunders burst "The proud airs of aristocracy, added to the dig-forth from elements surcharged with the electric nified forms of that truly august body, were enough fire of intellectual enthusiasm. to have deterred any man possessing less firmness has something to say, under the importance of With him who and independence of spirit than Mr. Henry. He which he trembles, and is anxious to disburden his was ushered with great state and ceremony into soul in the most direct and forcible manner, there the room of the committee, whose chairman was Col. Bland. Mr. Henry was dressed in very coarse apparel; no one knew any thing 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 suff

will be no hollow wordiness, no gaudy decoration,
no rhetorical sophisms, but a profound and mani-
fest feeling of truth and honesty will gleam all over
the speaker's person and fork the lightnings of his
eloquence. The inspiration will be profound, the
thought will be lucid, and the action natural; looks,
gestures, and tones will be such

"As skill and graceful nature might suggest
To a proficient of the tragic muse."

The ethereal splendors whieh burned through

Patrick Henry's words, were not elaborated, spark | him to make the most successful use of such reby spark, in the laboratory of pedantic cloisters. sources as he possessed. His great forte lay in It was in the open fields, under the wide cope of arguing questions of law, or in the defence of heaven, full of free, healthful and livid atmosphere, criminals before a jury. "There, his intimate this oratorical Franklin caught his lightnings from knowledge of human nature, and the rapidity as well gathering storms as they passed over him; and he as justness of his inferences, as to what was passing communicated his charged soul with electrical in the hearts of his hearers, availed him fully. The swiftness and effect. He was the incarnation of jury might be composed of entire strangers, yet he revolutionary zeal. He had absorbed into his sus- rarely failed to know them, man by man, before ceptible nature the mighty inspiration which breath- the evidence was closed. There was no studied ed throughout the newly awakened and arousing fixure of features that could long hide the character world. He tempered and retempered his soul in from his piercing and experienced view. The boiling premeditations against tyranny, as the cutler slightest unguarded turn of countenance or motion tempers a sword by plunging it into water while yet red hot from the furnace. The popular orator must be lucid if he would be influential. He must not be a metaphysician, an antiquarian, nor a pedant

"Plunged to the hilt in musty tomes and rusted in."

ont a rival.

of the eye let him at once into the soul of the man whom he was observing. Or, if he doubted whether his conclusions were correct from the exhibitions of countenance during the narration of evidence, he had a mode of playing a prelude as it were upon the jury, in his exordium, which never failed to 'wake into life each silent string,' and show him the whole compass as well as pitch of the instruHe cannot have too much learning, but he must ment: and, indeed, (if we may believe all the conshow the edifice and not the scaffolding; or rather current accounts of his exhibitions in the general he must show nothing, but let all be seen without court,) the most exquisite performer that ever effort. He may possess subtle schemes and recon-swept the sounding lyre,' had not a more soverdite erudition, but these must be dragged from their eign mastery over its powers than Mr. Henry had obscurity into a full blaze of light. He may be over the springs of feeling and thought that belong skilful in fine theories and cumbered with much to a jury. There was a delicacy, a taste, a felicity learning, but they must be rendered plain and promi- in the touch that was perfectly original, and withnent to common sense, or they have no claims to His style of address, on these occathe honors of eloquence. That which cannot be sions, is said to have resembled very much that of invested with a blaze of imagination and made pal. the scriptures. It was strongly marked with the pable to the public gaze is not a fit subject for the same simplicity, the same energy, the same pathos. orator. It is not meant by this that in order to be He sounded no alarm; he made no parade to put comprehended by the general mind one must be the jury on their guard. It was all so natural, so superficial; on the contrary, nothing so soon palls humble, so unassurning, that they were carried im on the popular taste as shallowness, and nothing so perceptibly along, and attuned to his purpose, until soon disgusts as flippant uniformity. Affectation some master touch dissolved them into tears. His and commnon-place are as loathsome to the masses language of passion was perfect. There was no as to the most refined individuals; and nothing will word of learned length or thundering sound,' to long interest them but deep thought in clear ex-break the charm. It had almost all the stillness pression, a compound of untameable vigor, and daring originality. Assembled multitudes are enthralled by a style that is rich in meaning, vivid in color, and varied in tone; its combinations must be bold, unexpected, clearly significant, pertinent to the topic in hand, and powerfully directed to one great end. Then will be realized the poet's vis

jon

، Words potent as the fabled wizard's oils,
With the terrific smoothness of their fire
Wide sheeting the hush'd ocean;
-they spread

Beyond the sphere of sound, th' indignant brow,
The stately waving of the arm discoursed,
Flow'd argument from every comely limb;
And the whole man was eloquence."

of solitary thinking. It was a sweet reverie, a delicious trance. His voice, too, had a wonderful effect. He had a singular power of infusing it into a jury and mixing its tones with their nerves in a manner which it is impossible to describe justly; but which produced a thrilling excitement in the happiest concordance with his designs. No man knew so well as he did what kind of topics to urge to their understandings, nor what kind of simple imagery to present to their hearts. His eye, which he kept rivetted upon them, assisted the process of fascination, and at the same time informed him what theme to press, or at what instant to retreat, if by rare accident he touched an unpropitious string. And then he had such an exuberance of appropriate thoughts, of apt illustrations, of apposite images, and such a melodious and varied roll

Mr. Henry's knowledge of legal science was of the happiest words, that the hearer was never quite limited, but his great natural sagacity enabled' wearied by repetition, and never winced from an

apprehension that the intellectual treasures of the bate indicated new features in Mr. Henry's ora.speaker would be exhausted. "

torical character. A remarkable instance proved After Mr. Henry's death there was found among that his power of self-control was as great as that his papers one sealed, and endorsed as follows in his of his habitual impetuosity. Like as a courser of own hand-writing: "The within resolutions passed high mettle and pure blood suddenly reined in, the house of burgesses in May, 1765. They formed stands on his haunches with every nerve trembling, the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and the so he could arrest the impetuous course of his eloscheme of taxing America by the British Parlia-quence and turn in a moment to reply to any perment. All the colonies, either through fear, or tinent or impertinent interruption. The following want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from illustration of this point is preserved to us by Mr. influence of some kind or other, had remained si- Jefferson. "I well remember the cry of treason' lent. I had been for the first time elected a burgess by the speaker, echoed from every part of the a few days before, was young, inexperienced, unac- House, against Mr. Henry. I well remember his quainted with the forms of the House, and the pause, and the admirable address with which he members that composed it. Finding the men of recovered himself, and baffled the charge thus voweight opposed to the opposition, and the com- ciferated." The allusion here is to that memorable inencement of the tax at hand, and that no person exclamation of Mr. Henry: "Cæsar had his Bruwas likely to step forth I determined to venture, tus, Charles I. his Cromwell, and George III.and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on the blank“ Treason,” cried the speaker, “treason! treason!” leaf of an old law book, wrote the within. Upon echoed the House" may profit by the example," offering them to the House violent debates eusued. promptly replied the orator, "if this be treason, Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast make the most of it." on me by the party for submission. After a long It seems to be a fundamental law, that moral and warm contest the resolutions passed by a very courage should constitute the true basis of oratorsmall majority, perhaps of one or two only. The ical success as well as personal honor. "No slave alarm spread throughout America with astonishing can be eloquent," says Longinus, and all literary quickness, and the ministerial party were over-history shows that the highest attainments can be whelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader, whosoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others.

P. HENRY."

The speech made by James Otis, in Boston, against "Writs of Assistance" made John Adams the orator. The eloquence of Patrick Henry, in the Colonial Assembly at Williamsburg, May 1765, created another college student, Thomas Jefferson, the patriot. This great statesman was young when the orator whom he styled "the magnificent child of nature" first appeared in public with his famous resolutions against the stamp act, referred to in his own record just quoted. "The debate," to use Jefferson's strong language, was most bloody," but torrents of indomitable eloquence from Henry prevailed, and the resolutions were carried.

secured only by the union of the most unshackled and uncorrupted qualities of head and heart. To think, vigorously and fearlessly to say what you think is the only way to be effective in the use of speech. The faculty of profound and penetrating thought was a distinguishing feature in Henry's mental character, and the boldness with which he expressed his opinions at the hazard of personal convenience was equally remarkable. Exalted sentiment was the informing soul which invested his person with an imposing grandeur; but the nobleness of his mien was enhanced by the perfect independence with which he employed his resources in defence of whatever he deemed essential to individual integrity or the public weal. His mind was ardent and prolific of illustrations; it threw off a profusion of beauties in its progress as naturally as a current of molten iron glows and sparkles as it issues from the furnace. His eloquent soul was one of that elevated class that revels in the luxu riance of splendid imagery, in every succeeding sentence changing its hue and form with Protean facility, throwing out something original at each remove, and generally terminating the brilliant chain with a link more magnificent than all the rest.

Jefferson was present during the whole of the occasion alluded to above. He stood in the door of communication between the House and the lobby, Incidents which occurred during this famous de- where he heard the whole of the violent discussion.

* This outline, drawn by Mr. Wirt, is a fine sketch of his own wonderful abilities, as well as those of his admired predecessor at the bar.

Like the boy, John Adams, he thenceforth consecrated himself to the service of his country. Scipio Africanus, while yet in his early youth, stood one day on a hill near Carthage and looked