Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/440

 416 SKETCHES OF THE

any such extravagance. His good sense and his self- possession never deserted him. In the loudest storm of declamation, in the fiercest blaze of passion, there was a dignity and temperance v^hich gave it seeming. He had the rare faculty of imparting to his hearers all the excess of his own feelings, and all the violence and tumult of his emotions, all the dauntless spirit of his resolution, and all the energy of his soul, without any sacrifice of his own personal dignity, and without treat- ing his hearers otherwise than as rational beings. He was not the orator of a day; and therefore sought not to build his fame on the sandy basis of a false taste, fostered, if not created, by himself. He spoke for im- mortality; and therefore raised the pillars of his glory on the only solid foundation — the rock of nature.

So much has been already said, incidentally, of his attainments, and the character of his mind, both as a statesman and an orator, that little remains to be added in a general way. As a statesman, the quality which strikes us most is his political intrepidity: and yet it has sometimes been objected to him, that he waited on every occasion, to see which way the popular current was setting, when he would artfully throw himself into it, and seem to guide its course. Nothing can be more incorrect: it would be easy to multiply proofs to refute the charge: — but I shall content myself with a few which are of general notoriety.

1. The American revolution is universally admitted to have begun in the upper circles of society. It turned on principles too remote and abstruse for vulgar appre- hension or consideration. Had it depended on the un- enlightened mass of the community, no doubt can be entertained at this day, that the tax imposed by parlia- ment would have been paid without a question. Since,

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