Patrick Henry as a Lawyer. trepid speaker, glowing with a fiery elo quence, and possessed of a mind capable of the highest flights of fancy. Never before in the annals of Virginia, of America, perhaps never in the world, was there so sudden and so brilliant a success. His was an eloquence taught in no school, learned in no college, caught from no master. It was original, spontaneous, natural. It was his own, and he was the people's advocate; through life, he boasted that he "bowed to the majesty of the people." The great fame which he won in the "Par sons' Case," as it was called, did not send Patrick Henry to his law books, in order to acquire the necessary learning of his profes sion, in which he was so sadly deficient. He had an unconquerable dislike to the old black letter of the law books, and he never had re course to them except as a preparation in a particular case. His indolence was too great, too invincible to allow him to submit to a regular course of reading, without which no man can ever become a great lawyer, and a great lawyer Patrick Henry never became; he was a great orator—perhaps the greatest America has produced. From the obscurity of Hanover County he was called, the next year after his first great triumph at the bar, to plead the case of Na thaniel W. Dandridge, petitioner for a seat in the House of Burgesses which had been given to James Littlepage, the charge being bribery and corruption. He spoke before the committee of privileges and elections on the subject of the right of suffrage in a style of eloquence never before heard in the pro vincial capital of Virginia. Upon the subject of his eloquence, even in the most trivial mat ter, one of his contemporaries at the bar, Judge Lyons, said that "he could write a let ter, or draw a declaration or plea at the bar, with as much accuracy as he could in his office, under all circumstances, except TC/IOI Patrick rose to speak; but that whenever he rose, although it might be on so trifling a
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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." In 1865 Patrick- Henry took his seat as a member of the House of Burgesses, a body which numbered such distinguished men as Peyton Randolph, the King's attorney gen eral; Richard Bland, the most accomplished writer in Virginia; Edmund Pendleton, the silver-voiced orator and profound Parlia mentary tactician; George Wythe, the ac complished scholar, lawyer and antiquarian; Richard Henry Lee, the polished speaker— these were some of the men among whom the rustic lawyer, Patrick Henry, was now called upon to take part in public life. In 1769, after serving four years in the House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry came to the bar of the General Court, where he en countered all the legal luminaries of Virginia, gentlemen not only learned in the law, but variously accomplished. In mere questions of the law, he could not cope with those "masters of the learning of their profession." No genius, however brilliant, no eloquence however splendid, can supply the want of legal learning, in which he was woefully de ficient. Rut on questions regarding the laws of nations he was peerless among the law yers of Virginia. Before a jury none could approach him. His profound knowledge of the human heart and his unerring reading of the human countenance taught him just what language to use to excite their sympathies and sway their minds. Especially was he irre sistible in criminal cases. His inductive mind took in and absorbed everything that was presented to it, and enabled him to seize every hint, grasp every situation and employ them with all the vigor of his penetrating in tellect, embellished with all the beauty of his brilliant imagination, in language simple, but powerful, and with a voice of marvellous sweetness and astonishing power. Patrick Henry was called away from his
