PATRICK HENRY.

PATRICK HENRY, the remarkable | out of the clear sky which so terrified orator of the Revolution, and a re- the Roman poet. Who was this markable man still in the eyes of prophet? posterity, though criticism has been busy in scrutinizing the justness of his fame, was a worthy herald, coming like a voice from the wilderness, to proclaim the American Revolution. There is something startling in this man and the scene of his labors. We are not surprised at the early voice of remonstrance from James Otis or Samuel Adams, for they lived and grew in the midst of a society the natural language of which was dissent. They were questioners and recusants, in virtue of their very birthright. Massachusetts was a protest from its first foundation. But Virginia was by habit and education loyal a land of submission, fondly relying upon the paternal arm, where we might have looked for stability and repose. There was no lack of essential independence of character in her people, but there were two elements in the State, which will to the last produce acquiescence, an established church and a settled order of society. The Old Dominion seemed to repose in the very lap of loyalty. The lesson of the biography of men of voice of Henry sounding the impend-genius to look to the traits of the ing Revolution, came like the thunder mother.

Patrick Henry was the son of respectable parents of the yeoman or middle class of Virginia landed society. His father, John Henry, was a native of Scotland, of good connections, who emigrated to Virginia before the year 1730. He became an inmate of the family of Colonel Syme, of Hanover, probably in consequence of his per sonal qualities, for he was a man of education; and upon the death of his friend, married the widow, and continued to reside upon the estate. He was attached to the Church of England, of which his brother, who became settled in Hanover in charge of a parish, was a minister, and was a zealous royalist. His wife belonged to a family of Virginia, the Winstons, celebrated for many virtues, and, as is recorded by Wirt, the indefatigable historian of Patrick Henry, whose diligence has left subsequent writers little beyond following his researches, distinguished for their "correct understanding and easy elocution." It is the constant

.

Patrick Henry, the second son of a call him, youth developing its capacity family of nine children, was born May by the secret influences of woods and 29, 1736, at the family seat named fields and the quiet receptivity of its Studley, in the county of Hanover. patient, open heart. That at least was His education appears to have been kept fresh. Indolence brought with desultory. He was taught in his early her no vice to him; his purity was years the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic at a country school, and then acquired a "little Latin and less Greek," so little of the latter, in his case, that he learnt only the character, in which he was instructed by his father, who turned the acquirements which he had brought with him from the old world to account by keeping a grammar-school in his own house. It is said that the son had some fondness for the mathematics, a trait worthy of notice in reference to his future development, for he appears always to have been of a wary, calculating turn of mind, though his early life showed little fruits of it. Indeed, idleness, if we may trust the traditions which enter so largely into his biography, was his predominant characteristic. He loved those patient, laborious sports of the field, hunting and fishing, which the busy men of the world are accustomed to set down, especially in the case of a youth who has his fortune to make, as the perfection of indolence. He loved idleness, we are told, "for its own sake." It will not do to justify every vagabond by the example of Henry; but reading his life backward, we may interpret much of this in his own favor. Nature was his preceptor rather than the schoolmasters. A philosophic critic may see in "the lazy, idle boy," as that master of human nature Thackeray would delight to

always preserved. Certainly good Izaak Walton would have claimed him for his own on the testimony of these sapient observers as chronicled by his biographers. "They have frequently observed him," we are told, "lying along under the shade of some tree that overhung the sequestered stream, watching for hours, at the same spot, the motionless cork of his fishing-line, without one encouraging symptom of success, and without any apparent source of enjoyment, unless he could find it in the ease of his posture, or in the illusions of hope, or, which is most probable, in the stillness of the scene and the silent workings of his own imagination." Truly a very pregnant "unless." Your idle boys who neglect their books are frequently of the scapegrace order, and the charitable interpretation of them by the village gossips, is that they will live to be hanged; but there was no prognostic of this kind in the case of Henry. He neither robbed orchards nor afflicted the neigh borhood with his practical jokes. He did not read, he did not riot. He was clumsy and unkempt. In fact, he showed no spirit at all, and was looked upon, if thought of in any way, as a cypher in the community. If he had exhibited any taste for books, he would probably have been shown the way to the church. As it was, he was placed at the age of fifteen with a

country store-keeper. The next year read in English, and-something to the purpose at last-made acquaintance with the charters and history of the colony.

insight somewhat extra professional. planters were the gainers. Three years Mr. John Randolph, afterwards the king's attorney-general for the colony, though at first repulsed by the uncouthness of the applicant, engaged in argument with him, and recognized the natural force of his intellect. Henry was admitted. He found a royal road to at least one portion of the duties of the profession, that in which mother wit may serve a man, but he long felt his deficiency in practical detail. He knew literally nothing of proceedings and practice at the start, and some time after, when he had been employed in important questions, is said to have quoted cases so recklessly as to furnish precedents against himself.

after came another short crop; the act was reenacted, but this time the clergy, led by the Rev. John Camm, a vigor ous pamphleteer, rebelled. A war of these printed missives ensued, which amused, aroused, and finally exaspe rated the people, as the question got wind. The legislative acts had never received the royal sanction, and were now expressly rejected by the king. The clergy took heart and brought suits to recover the stipend in tobacco. The Rev. James Maury commenced the litigation in Henry's county of Hanover. Of the legal merits of the question, there could be no doubt. The legality of the tax was as well estab Three years were now passed by lished as the illegality of the forced Henry with his father-in-law, Shelton, commutation. The court sustained the the keeper of the tavern at Hanover claim of the clergy, and Mr. Lewis, Court-house, years in which the young who had been retained by the people, lawyer, in the absence of practice, assist- threw up the case as utterly hopeless. ed in the duties of the inn. At the end No jury, he thought, could resist such of this time, a case of public interest ruling. At this moment of apparently reached a crisis which afforded him the inevitable defeat, Patrick Henry was opportunity for distinction. It was the thought of, and the management of the famous "Parsons' Cause," as it came to jury trial in the defence intrusted to be known when Henry had made it cele- him. The question came up, so far | brated. The clergy, according to the was the case gone, on an assessment of legal provisions of the colony, were an damages at the Hanover Court-house, established body, entitled to payment which, on the opening of the term in from their parishioners of a certain December, 1763, was thronged within stipend of tobacco. This staple article and without on the occasion. A powerof Virginia produce bore for a long ful array of the clergy was present. time a fixed value, and it became usual Henry's father was the presiding to commute the payment at the rate of magistrate. The powerful Mr. Lyons two pence in the pound. A year of presented the case for the clergy. It scarcity, in 1755, came on, and the was clear as day. Henry now rose for short crop was commuted by the legis- the first time before the public. His lature for the customary valuation. beginning was awkward and embar The clergy acquiesced, though the rassed; but as he proceeded, he ac

all impediments, and boldly stretching forth his hand, he cut "the Gordian knot of policy" at a single blow.

quired force, and threw off every semblance of rusticity. The fire within him broke out and consumed all impediments. His action became graceful, Opportunity was not long wanting his voice sweet and persuasive, and, if to bring him in the presence of the we may trust to tradition, he carried legislative councils. His first appear his hearers at will on the tide of the ance at Williamsburg was made the most resistless eloquence. He cer- following year, in the question of a tainly succeeded with his jury, which, contested election, between the Hanin bewilderment, gave a verdict of one over members, Littlepage and Danpenny damages. What is more con- dridge, which had arisen in the vincing of the effect of this popular House of Burgesses, and which had speech, the court refused a motion for been referred to a Committee of a new trial. No report of Henry's Privileges and Elections, before which speech is left; but it must have had counsel could be heard. Henry was some argumentative force, and it was undoubtedly strong in ministering to the popular feeling. One string upon which he played sounded a prelude to the coming Revolution. He boldly censured the royal indifference or opposition in neglecting to confirm the popular will expressed in the act of commutation, and argued that the king having abandoned his duty of consideration in the matter, the people were left to the rightful enjoyment of their own decision. This was taking the law and fact into their hands in an extraordinary manner.

retained by Mr. Dandridge, and repeated on this more distinguished stage his triumph of the Hanover Court-house.

In 1765, Henry was elected a member of the House of Burgesses for the county of Louisa, in which he had now taken up his residence. The house, at that time, possessed some noble members, whose names will live in history. Richard Bland, the accomplished antiquarian; George Wythe, the refined classical scholar, a man of powerful mind; Edward Pendleton; Peyton Randolph; the speaker, John Robinson; Richard Henry Lee, the consum mate orator-such were the men whom Wirt fondly and justly pauses to dwell upon in his narrative, among whom Henry was introduced. George Washington, too, it should not be forgotten, was a member of this body.

The people were now ready to bear Henry upon their shoulders. He was the popular champion. Moreover, in a colony where aristocratic caste more or less prevailed, he was a man of the people, ate, drank, dressed and talked, with all his eloquence, in their homely fashion. He had no troublesome ante- The aggressive measures of England, cedents in his way, no powerful asso- which led to the Revolution, had ciations to disengage himself from; already commenced. The preliminary the very unprofitableness of his early pretensions of the British crown to life was in his favor; he was free from taxation had been feebly resisted in