Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/430

 406 SKETCHES OP THE

ture, in his age. He had not, as he might have done, amassed those ample stores of various, useful, and curious knowledge, which are so naturally expected to be found in a great man. His library (of which an in- ventory has been furnished to the author) was extremely small; composed not only of very few books, but those too, commonly odd volumes. Of science and literature, he knew little or nothing more than was occasionally gleaned from conversation. It is not easy to conceive, what a mind like his might have achieved in either, or both of these wallcs, had it been properly trained at first, or industriously occupied in those long intervals of leisure which he threw away. One thing however, may be safely pronounced; that had that mind of Herculean strength, been either so trained, or so occupied, he would have left behind him some written monument, compared with which, even statues and pillars would have been but the ephemerae of a day. But he seems to have been of Hobbes^s opinion, who is reported to have said of himself, " that if he had read as much as other men, he should have been as ignorant as they were.^^* Mr. Henry^s book was the great volume of human nature. In this, he was more deeply read than any of his countrymen. He knew men thoroughly; and hence arose his great power of persuasion.f His preference of this study, is manifested by the following incident: — he met once, in a book store, with the late Mr. Ralph Wormley, who, although a great book- worm, was infinitely more remarkable for his ignorance


 * Bayle: article Hobbes.

f " It is in vain," says the chancellor D*Agiiesseau, " that the orator flat- ters himself with liaving the talent to persuade men, if he has not acquired that of knowing them." Discourse i. p. 1.

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