Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/436

 412 SKETCHES OF THE

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 counter- part to the upper part of his face. " I find it difficult," says the correspondent from whom I have borrowed tliis 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 ex- pressed, 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 impossi- ble for meekness herself, to assume a manner less pre- sumptuous — 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 unsdoni 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 dis- tinguished 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 adopting themselves intuitively to every sentiment of his mind, and every feeling of his

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