Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/115

 as was the fashion of the day. When pointed out to. me, as the orator of the assembly, I looked at him with no great prepossession. On the opposite side of the house sat the graceful Pendleton, and the harmo- nious Richard Henry Lee, whose aquiline nose and Ro- man profile, struck me much more forcibly than that of Mr. Henry, his rival in eloquence. The distance from the gallery to the chair, near which these distinguished members sat, did not permit me to have such a view of their features and countenances, as to leave a strong im- pression, except of Mr. Lee's, whose profile was too re- markable not to have been noticed at an even greater distance. I was then between nineteen and twenty, had never heard a speech in public, except from the pul- pit — had attached to the idea I had formed of an orator, all the advantages of person which Mr. Pendleton pos- sessed, and even more — all the advantages of voice, which delighted me so much in the speeches of Mr. Lee — the fine polish of language, which that gentleman united with that harmonious voice, so as to make me sometimes fancy, that I was listening to some being in- spired with more than mortal powers of embellishment, and all the advantages of gesture which the celebrated Demosthenes considered as the first, second, and third qualifications of an orator. I discovered neither of these qualifications in the appearance of Mr. Henry, or in the few remarks I heard him deliver during the ses- sion. It was at this time that Mr. Dabney Carr made a motion for appointing a standing committee of corre- spondence with the other colonies. I was not present when Mr. Henry spoke on this question; but was told by some of my fellow-collegians, that he far exceeded Mr. Lee, whose speech succeeded the next day. Never before had I heard what I thought oratory; and if his

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