Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/63

 Littlepage was bribery and corruption. The parties were heard by their counsel, before the committee ot* privileges and elections, and Mi*. Henry was on this oc- casion employed by Mr. Dandridge.

WiUiamsburg, then the seat of government, was the focus of fashion and high life. The residence of the governor, (the immediate representative of the sove- reign,) the royal state in which he livedo the polite and brilliant circle which he always had about him, diffused their influence through the city and the circumjacent country, and filled Williamsburg with a degree of emu- lation, taste, and elegance, of which we can form no conception by the appearances of the present day. During the session of the house of burgesses, too, these stately modes of life assumed their richest forms; the town, was filled with a concourse of visitors, as well as citizens, attired in their gayest colours; the streets, exhibited a continual scene of animated and glittering tumult; the houses, of costly profusion.

Such was the scene in which Mr. Henry was now called upon, for the first time, to make his appearance. He made no preparation for it, but went down just in the kind of garb which he had been accustomed to ex- hibit all his life, and is said to have worn, on this occa- sion particularly, a suit which had suffered very consi- derably in the service. The contrast which he exhi- bited, with the general elegance of the place, was so striking, as to call upon him the eyes of all the curious and the mischievous; and, as he moved awkwardly about, in his coarse and threadbare dress, with a coun- tenance of abstraction and total unconcern as to what was passing around him, (interesting as it seemed to every one else,) he was stared at by some as a prodigy, and regarded by others as an unfortunate being, whose

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