Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/137

 not impossible that, for the times in which he lived, and for the more immediate purpose of the American revolution, the popular opmion may be correct. The people seem to have admired him the more for his want of discipline. “His genius,” they say, “was unbroken, and too full of fire to bear the curb of composition. He delighted to swim the flood, to breast the torrent, and to scale the mountain: and supported as he was, in all public bodies, by masters of the pen, they insist, that it was even fortunate for the revolution, that his genius was left at large, to revel in all the wildness and boldness of nature; that it enabled him to infuse, more successfully, his own intrepid spirit into the measures of the revolution; that it rendered his courage more contagious, and enabled him to achieve, by a kind of happy rashness, what perhaps, had been lost by a better regulated mind.”

But, to resume our narrative: congress rose in October, and Mr. Henry returned to his native county. Here, as was natural, he was surrounded by his neighbours, who were eager to hear not only what had been done, but what kind of men had composed that illustrious body. He answered their enquiries with all his wonted kindness and candour; and havmg been asked by one of them, “whom he thought the greatest man in congress,” he replied—“If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, is by far the greatest orator; but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, colonel Washington, is unquestionably, the greatest man on that floor.” Such was the penetration which, at that early period of Mr. Washington’s life, could pierce through his retiring modesty and habitual reserve; and estimate so correctly, the unrivalled worth of his character.