inety winters:--

"The impressions made by the powerful arguments of Madison
and the overwhelming eloquence of Henry can never fade from
my mind. I thought them almost supernatural. They seemed
raised up by Providence, each in his way, to produce great
results: the one by his grave, dignified, and irresistible
arguments to convince and enlighten mankind; the other, by
his brilliant and enrapturing eloquence to lead
whithersoever he would."[388]

Those who had heard Patrick Henry on the other great occasions of his
career were ready to say that his eloquence in the convention of 1788
was, upon the whole, fully equal to anything ever exhibited by him in
any other place. The official reports of his speeches in that
assemblage were always declared to be inferior in "strength and
beauty" to those actually made by him there.[389] "In forming an
estimate of his eloquence," says one gentleman who there heard him,
"no reliance can be placed on the printed speeches. No reporter
whatever could take down what he actually said; and if he could, it
would fall far short of the original."[390]

In his arguments against the Constitution Patrick Henry confined
himself to no systematic order. The convention had indeed resolved
that the document should be discussed, clause by clause, in a regular
manner; but in spite of the complaints and reproaches of his
antagonists, he continually broke over all barriers, and delivered his
"multiform and protean attacks" in such order as suited the workings
of his own mind.

In the course of that long and eager controversy, he had several
passages of sharp personal collision with his opponents, particularly
with Governor Randolph, whose vacillating course respecting the
Constitution had left him exposed to the most galling comments, and
who on one occasion, in his anguish, turned upon Patrick Henry with
the exclamation: "I find myself attacked in the most illiberal manner
by the honorable gentleman. I disdain his aspersions and his
insinuations. His asperity is warranted by no principle of
parliamentary decency, nor compatible with the least shadow of
friendship; and if our friendship must fall, let it fall, like
Lucifer, never to rise again."[391] Like all very eloquent men, he was
taunted, of course, for having more eloquence than logic; for "his
declamatory talents;" for his "vague discourses and mere sports of
fancy;" for discarding "solid argument;" and