base and degrading passions. They have sometimes tarnished characters otherwise the most bright; but they will find no advocate or apologist in any virtuous bosom. In relation to Mr. Henry, however, we may be permitted to doubt whether the facts on which these censures (so inconsistent with his general character) are grounded, have not been misconceived; and whether so much of them as is really true, may not be fairly charged to the common account of human imperfection. Mr. Henry's great. intellectual defect was his indolence. To this it was owing, that he never possessed that admirable alertness and vigouros versatility of mind, which turns promptly to everything, attends to everything, arranges everything, and by systematizing its operations, despatches each in its proper time, and place and manner. To the same cause it is to be ascribed, that he never possessed that patient drudgery, and that ready, neat, copious, and masterly command of details, which forms so essential a part of the duties both of the statesman and the lawyer.

Hence, too, he did not avail himself of the progress of science and literature, in his age. He had not, as he might have done, amassed those ample stores of various, useful, and curious knowledge, which are so naturally expected to be found in a great man. His library (of which an inventory has been furnished to the author) was extremely small; composed not only of very few books, but those, too, commonly odd volumes. Of science and literature, he knew little or nothing more than was occasionly gleaned from conversation. It is not easy to conceive, what a mind like his might have achieved in either, or both of these walks, had it been properly trained at first, or industriously occupied in those long intervals of leisure which he threw away.

One thing, however, may be safely pronounced; that had that mind of Herculean strength been either so trained, or so occupied, he would have left behind him some written monument, compared with which, even statutes and pillars would have been but the ephemeræ of a day. But he seems to have been of Hobbes's opinion, who is reported to have said of himself, that "if he had read as much as other men, he should have been as ignorant as they were."* Mr. Henry's book was the great volume of human nature. In this, he was more deeply read than any of his countrymen. He knew men thoroughly; and hence arose his great power of persuasion.t Bayle: article Hobbes.

"It is in vain," says the Chancellor D'Aguesseau," that the orator flatters himself with having the talent to persuade men, if he has not acquired that of knowing them." Discourse i., p. 1.

His preference of this study, is manifested by the following incident-he met once, in a bookstore, with the late Mr. Ralph Wormley, who, although a great bookworm, was infinitely more remarkable for his ignorance of men, than Mr. Henry was for that of books.-"What, Mr. Wormley," said he, "still buying books?" "Yes," said Mr. Wormley, "I have just heard of a new work, which I am extremely anxious to peruse." "Take my word for it," said he, "Mr. Wormley, we are too old to read books: read men-they are the only volumes that we can peruse to advantage." But Mr. Henry might have perused both with infinite advantage, not only to himself, but to his country, and to the world; and that he did not do it, may, it is believed, be fairly ascribed, rather to the indolence of his temper, than the deliberate decision of his judgment.

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Judge Winston says, that "he was, throughout life, negli gent of his dress:" but this, it is apprehended, applied rather to his habits in the country, than to his appearance in public. At the bar of the general court, he always appeared in a full suit of black cloth, or velvet, and a tie wig, which was dressed and powdered in the highest style of forensic fashion; in the winter season, too, according to the costume of the day, he wore over his other apparel an ample cloak of scarlet cloth; and thus attired, made a figure bordering on grandeur. While he filled the executive chair, he is said to have been justly attentive to his dress, and appearance; "not being disposed to afford the occasion of humiliating comparisons between the past and present government."

He had long since, too, laid aside the offensive rusticity of his juvenile manners. His manners, indeed, were still unostentatious, frank, and simple; but they had all that natural ease and unaffected gracefulness, which distinguish the circles of the polite and wellbred. On occasions, too, where state and ceremony were expected, there was no man who could act better his part. I have had a description of Mr. Henry, entering, in the full dress which I have mentioned, the hall of delegates, at whose bar he was about to appear as an advocate, and saluting the house, all around, with a dignity and even majesty, that would have done honour to the most polished courtier in Europe.

This, however, was only on extraordinary occasions, when such a deportment was expected, and was properly in its place. In general, his manners were those of the plain Virginian gentleman-kind-open-candid-and conciliating-warm without insincerity, and polite without pomp-neither chilling by his reserve, nor fatiguing by his loquacity-but adapting him

"He

self, without an effort, to the character of his company. would be pleased and cheerful," says a correspondent, "with persons of any class or condition, vicious and abandoned persons only excepted; he preferred those of character and talents, but would be amused with any who could contribute to his amusement."

He had himself a vein of pleasantry, which was extremely amusing, without detracting from his dignity. His companions, although perfectly at their ease with him, were never known to treat him with degrading familiarities. Their love and their respect for him equally forbade it. Nor had they any dread of an assault upon their feelings; for their was nothing cruel in his wit.

The tomahawk and scalping-knife were no part of his colloquial apparatus. He felt no pleasure in seeing the victim writhe under his stroke. The benignity of his spirit could not have borne such a sight without torture. He found himself happiest in communicating happiness to others. His conversation was instructive and delightful; stately where it should be so, but in general, easy, familiar, sprightly, and entertaining; always, however, good-humoured, and calculated to amuse without wounding.

As a specimen of this light and good-natured pleasantry, the following anedote has been furnished: Mr. Henry, together with Mr. Richard H. Lee, and several other conspicuous members of the assembly, were invited to pass the evening and night at the house of Mr. Edmund Randolph, in the neighbourhood of Richmond. Mr. Lee, who was as brilliant and copious in conversation as in debate, had amused the company to a very late hour, by descanting on the genius of Cervantes, particu larly as exhibited in his chef d'œuvre, Don Quixote.

The dissertation had been continued rather too long: the company began to yawn, when Mr. Henry, who had observed it, although Mr. Lee had not, rose slowly from his chair, and remarked as he walked across the room, that Don Quixote was certainly a most excellent work, and most skilfully adapted to the purpose of the author: "but," said he, "Mr. Lee," stopping before him, with a most significant archness of look, "you have overlooked in your eulogy, one of the finest things in the book." "What is that?" asked Mr. Lee. "It is," said Mr. Henry, "that divine exclamation of Sancho, Blessed be the man that first invented sleep: it covers one all over, like a cloak.'" Mr. Lee took the hint; and the company broke up

6

in good humour. His quick and true discernment of characters, and his prescience of political events, were very much admired. The

following examples of each, have been furnished by Mr. Pope:

Mr. Gallatin came to Virginia when a very young man: he was obscure and unknown, and spoke the English language so badly, that it was with difficulty he could be understood. He was engaged in some agency which made it necessary to present a petition to the assembly, and endeavoured to interest the leading members in its fate, by attempting to explain, out of doors, its merits and justice. But they could not understand him well enough to feel any interest either for him or his petition. In this hopeless condition he waited on Mr. Henry, and soon felt that he was in different hands.

Mr. Henry, on his part, was so delighted with the interview, that he spoke of Mr. Gallatin everywhere in raptures—“he declared him, without hesitation or doubt, to be the most sen sible and best informed man he had ever conversed with—he is to be sure," said he, "a most astonishing man!” The reader well knows how eminently Mr. Gallatin has since fulfilled this character; and considering the very disadvantageous circumstances under which he was seen by Mr. Henry, is certainly a striking proof of the superior sagacity of the observer.

In relation to his political foresight, the following anecdote is in Mr. Pope's own words :-"In the year 1798, after Bonaparte had annihilated five Austrian armies, and, flushed with victory, was carrying away everything before him, I heard Mr. Henry in a public company observe, (shaking his head after his impressive manner)—' It won't all do! the present generation in France is so debased by a long despotism, they possess so few of the virtues that constitute the life and soul of republicanism, that they are incapable of forming a correct and just estimate of rational liberty.

Their revolution will terminate differently from what you expect their state of anarchy will be succeeded by despotism; and I should not be surprised, if the very man at whose victories you now rejoice, should, Cesar-like, subvert the liberties of his country. All who know me,' continued Mr. Henry, 'know that I am a firm advocate for liberty and republicanism; I believe I have given some evidences of this. I wish it may not be so, but I am afraid the event will justify this prediction.'

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The following is the fullest description which the author has been able to procure of Mr. Henry's person. He was nearly six feet high; spare, and what may be called rawboned, with a slight stoop of the shoulders-his complexion was dark, sunburnt, and sallow, without any appearance of blood in his cheeks-his countenance grave, thoughtful, penetrating, and strongly marked with the lineaments of deep reflection-the

earnestness of his manner, united with an habitual contraction or knitting of his brows, and those lines of thought with which his face was profusely furrowed, gave to his countenance, at some times, the appearance of severity-yet such was the power which he had over its expression, that he could shake off from it in an instant, all the sternness of winter, and robe it in the brightest smiles of spring.

His forehead was high and straight; yet forming a sufficient angle with the lower part of his face-his nose somewhat of the Roman stamp,though like that which we see in the bust of Cicero, it was rather long, than remarkable for its Cesarean form. Of the colour of his eyes, the accounts are almost as various as those which we have of the colour of the chameleon-they are said to have been blue, gray, what Lavater calls green, hazel, brown, and black-the fact seems to have been that they were of a bluish-gray, not large; and being deeply fixed in his head, overhung by dark, long, and full eyebrows, and farther shaded by lashes that were both long and black, their apparent colour was as variable as the lights in which they were seen-but all concur in saying that they were, unquestionably, the finest feature in his face-brilliant-full of spirit, and capable of the most rapidly-shifting and powerful expression-at one time piercing and terrible as those of Mars, and then again soft and tender as those of Pity herself-his cheeks were hollow-his chin long, but well formed, and rounded at the end, so as to form a proper counterpart to the upper part of his face.

"I find it difficult," says the correspondent from whom I have borrowed this portrait, "to describe his mouth; in which there was nothing remarkable, except when about to express a modest dissent from some opinion on which he was commenting-he then had a sort of half-smile, in which the want of conviction was perhaps more strongly expressed, than the satirical emotion, which probably prompted it. His manner and address to the court and jury might be deemed the excess of humility, diffidence, and modesty.

"If, as rarely happened, he had occasion to answer any remark from the bench, it was impossible for Meekness herself to assume a manner less presumptuous-but in the smile of which I have been speaking, you might anticipate the want of conviction, expressed in his answer, at the moment that he submitted to the superior wisdom of the court, with a grace that would have done honour to Westminster hall. In his reply to counsel, his remarks on the evidence, and on the conduct of the parties, he preserved the same distinguished deference and politeness, still accompanied, however, by the never-failing index of this skeptical smile, where the occasion prompted."