ad. Moreover, in trying to form a just idea of Patrick Henry,
it is never safe to forget that we have to do with a man of genius,
and that the ways by which a man of genius reaches his results are
necessarily his own,--are often invisible, are always somewhat
mysterious, to the rest of us. The genius of Patrick Henry was
powerful, intuitive, swift; by a glance of the eye he could take in
what an ordinary man might spend hours in toiling for; his memory
held whatever was once committed to it; all his resources were at
instant command; his faculty for debate, his imagination, humor, tact,
diction, elocution, were rich and exquisite; he was also a man of
human and friendly ways, whom all men loved, and whom all men wanted
to help; and it would not have been strange if he actually fitted
himself for the successful practice of such law business as was then
to be had in Virginia, and actually entered upon its successful
practice with a quickness the exact processes of which were
unperceived even by his nearest neighbors.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Wirt, 16.

[19] Curtis, _Life of Webster_, i. 584.

[20] First printed in the Philadelphia _Age_, in 1867; and again
printed, from the original manuscript, in _The Historical Magazine_,
August, 1867, 90-93. I quote from the latter.

[21] Jefferson's memorandum, _Hist. Mag._ for August, 1867, 90.

[22] Wirt, 16, 17.

[23] Curtis, _Life of Webster_, i. 584.

[24] McMaster, _Hist. of U. S._ i. 489.

[25] I have carefully examined this testimony, which is still in
manuscript.

[26] Judge Winston, MS.

[27] Wirt, 18, 19.

[28] These fee-books are now in the possession of Mr. William Wirt
Henry, of Richmond.

[29] Wirt, 18.

[30] _Hist. Mag._ for 1867, 93.

[31] Randall, _Life of Jefferson_, i. 47, 48.

[32] William Wirt Henry, _Character and Public Career of Patrick
Henry_, 3.

CHAPTER IV

A CELEBRATED CASE

Thus Patrick Henry had been for nearly four years in the practice of
the law, with a vigor and a success quite extraordinary, when, late in
the year 1763, he became concerned in a case so charged with popular
interest, and so well suited to the display of his own marvellous
genius as an advocate, as to make both him and his case immediately
celebrated.

The side upon which he was retained happened to be the wrong
side,--wrong both in law and in equity; having only this element of
strength in it, namely, that by a combination of circumstances there
were