University of Virginia Library

"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 Cæsarean 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, grey, what Lavater calls green,
hazel, brown, and black—the fact seems to have been that they were of a
bluish grey, not large; and being deeply fixed in his head, overhung by
dark, long, and full eye-brows, 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 sceptical smile, where the occasion
prompted.' In short, his features were manly, bold, and well
proportioned, full of intelligence, and adapting themselves intuitively
to every sentiment of his mind, and every feeling of his heart.
His voice was not remarkable for its sweetness; but it was firm, of
full volume, and rather melodious than otherwise. Its charms consisted
in the mellowness and fulness of its note, the ease and variety of
its inflections, the distinctness of its articulation, the fine effect of its
emphasis, the felicity with which it attuned itself to every emotion, and
the vast compass which enabled it to range through the whole empire of
human passion, from the deep and tragic half-whisper of horror to the
wildest exclamation of overwhelming rage. In mild persuasion, it was
as soft and gentle as the zephyr of spring; while in rousing his countrymen
to arms, the winter storm that roars along the troubled Baltic, was
not more awfully sublime. It was at all times perfectly under his command;
or rather, indeed, it seemed to command itself, and to modulate
its notes, most happily to the sentiment he was uttering. It never exceeded,
or fell short of the occasion. There was none of that long continued
and deafening vociferation, which always takes place when an ardent
speaker has lost possession of himself—no monotonous clanguor, no discordant
shriek. Without being strained, it had that body and enunciation
which filled the most distant ear, without distressing those which
were nearest him; hence it never became cracked or hoarse, even in his
longest speeches, but retained to the last all its clearness and fulness of
intonation, all the delicacy of its inflection, all the charms of its emphasis
and enchanting variety of its cadence.

"His delivery was perfectly natural and well timed. It has indeed
been said, that on his first rising, there was a species of sub-cantus very
observable by a stranger, and rather disagreeable to him; but that in a
very few moments even this itself became agreeable, and seemed, indeed,
indispensable to the full effect of his peculiar diction and conceptions.
In point of time, he was very happy; there was no slow and
heavy dragging, no quaint and measured drawling, with equidistant pace,
no stumbling and floundering among the fractured members of deranged
and broken periods, no undignified hurry and trepidation, no recalling and
recasting of sentences as he went along, no retraction of one word and
substitution of another not better, and none of those affected bursts of
almost inarticulate impetuosity, which betray the rhetorician rather than
display the orator. On the contrary, ever self-collected, deliberate, and
dignified, he seemed to have looked through the whole period before he
commenced its delivery; and hence his delivery was smooth, and firm,
and well accented; slow enough to take along with him the dullest hearer,
and yet so commanding, that the quick had neither the power nor the disposition
to get the start of him. Thus he gave to every thought its full
and appropriate force; and to every image all its radiance and beauty.

No speaker ever understood better than Mr. Henry the true use and
power of the pause; and no one ever practiced it with happier effect.
His pauses were never resorted to for the purpose of investing an insignificant
thought with false importance; much less were they ever resorted to
as a finesse, to gain time for thinking. The hearer was never disposed to
ask, `why that pause?' nor to measure its duration by a reference to his
watch. On the contrary, it always came, at the very moment when he
would himself have wished it, in order to weigh the striking and important
thought which had just been uttered; and the interval was always
filled by the speaker with a matchless energy of look, which drove the
thought home through the mind and through the heart.

His gesture, and this varying play of his features and voice, were so
excellent, so exquisite, that many have referred his power as an orator principally
to that cause; yet this was all his own, and his gesture, particularly,
of so peculiar a cast, that it is said it would have become no other man. I
do not learn that it was very abundant; for there was no trash about it; none
of those false motions to which undisciplined speakers are so generally
addicted; no chopping nor sawing of the air; no thumping of the bar to
express an earnestness, which was much more powerfully, as well as more
elegantly, expressed by his eye and his countenance. Whenever he
moved his arm, or his hand, or even his finger, or changed the position of
his body, it was always to some purpose; nothing was inefficient; every
thing told; every gesture, every attitude, every look, was emphatic; all
was animation, energy, and dignity. Its great advantage consisted in this

—that various, bold, and original as it was, it never appeared to be studied
affected, or theatrical, or `to overstep,' in the smallest degree, `the modesty
of nature'; for he never made a gesture, or assumed an attitude,
which did not seem imperiously demanded by the occasion. Every look,
every motion, every pause, every start, was completely filled and dilated
by the thought which he was uttering, and seemed indeed to form a part
of the thought itself. His action, however strong, was never vehement.
He was never seen rushing forward, shoulder foremost, fury in his countenance,
and frenzy in his voice, as if to overturn the bar, and charge his
audience sword in hand. His judgment was too manly and too solid,
and his taste too true, to permit him to indulge in any such extravagance.
His good sense and his self-possession never deserted him. In the loudest
storm of declamation, in the fiercest blaze of passion, there was a dignity
and temperance which gave it seeming. He had the rare faculty of imparting
to his hearers all the excess of his own feelings, and all the violence
and tumult of his emotions, all the dauntless spirit of his resolution,
and all the energy of his soul, without any sacrifice of his own personal
dignity, and without treating his hearers otherwise than as rational beings.
He was not the orator of a day; and therefore sought not to build his fame
on the sandy basis of a false taste, fostered, if not created, by himself.
He spoke for immortality; and therefore raised the pillars of his glory on
the only solid foundation, the rock of nature."

"He ever had, I am informed, a very great abhorrence of infidelity,
and actually wrote an answer to `Paine's Age of Reason,' but destroyed
it before his death. His widow has informed me that he received the
communion as often as an opportunity was offered, and on such occasions
always fasted until after he had communicated, and spent the day in
the greatest retirement. This he did both while Governor and afterward."

"I have now disposed of all my property to my family; there is one
thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.
If they have that and I had not given them one shilling, they would be
rich; and if they have not that and I had given them all this world, they
would be poor."

"The account of Patrick Henry's death, written by his grandson,
Patrick Henry Fontaine, not only shows the Christian character of the
man, but is a beautiful piece of writing. The doctor had given him a last
dose of medicine, telling him at the same time, `You can live only a very
short time without it, and it may possibly relieve you.' Then Patrick
Henry said, `Excuse me, doctor, for a few minutes!' and drawing over
his eyes a silken cap which he usually wore, and still holding the vial in
his hand, he prayed in clear words a simple, childlike prayer for his
family, for his country, and for his own soul, then in the presence of
death. Afterwards in perfect calmness, he swallowed the medicine. * *
* * * * Dr. Cabell went out upon the lawn, but soon came back to his
patient, whom he found * * speaking words of love and peace to his
family, who were weeping around his chair. Among other things he told
them that he was thankful for that goodness of God which, having blessed
him all his life, was then permitting him to die without any pain. Finally,
fixing his eyes with much tenderness on his dear friend, Dr. Cabell, with
whom he had formerly held many arguments respecting the Christian
religion, he asked the doctor to observe how great a reality and benefit
that religion was to a man about to die. And after Patrick Henry had
spoken to his beloved physician those few words in praise of something
which having never failed him in all his life before, did not then fail him
in his very last need of it, he continued to breathe very softly for some
moments, after which they who were looking upon him saw that his life
had departed."

"Whereas on the late change which hath of necessity been introduced
into the form of government in this country, it is become also necessary

to make corresponding changes in the laws heretofore in force, many of
which are inapplicable to the powers of government as now organized,
others are founded on principles heterogeneous to the Republican spirit,
others which, long before such change, had been oppressive to the people,
could yet never be repealed while the regal power continued, and others,
having taken their origin while our ancestors remained in Britain, are not
so well adapted to our present circumstances of time and place; and it is
also necessary to introduce certain other laws, which, though proved by
the experience of other states to be friendly to liberty and the rights of
mankind, we have not heretofore been permitted to adopt; and whereas a
work of such magnitude, labor, and difficulty may not be effected during
the short and busy term of a session of Assembly: Be it therefore enacted
by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and it is
hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That a committee, to consist
of five persons, shall be appointed by joint ballot of both houses (three of
whom to be a quorum), who shall have full power and authority to revise,
alter, amend, repeal, or introduce all or any of the said laws, to form the
same into bills and report them to the next meeting of the General
Assembly."