nd competent critics
are said to have acknowledged themselves as impressed "not less by the
matter than the manner" of his speeches.[427] Moreover, though not
expressly mentioned, Patrick Henry's argument is pointedly referred to
in the high compliment pronounced by Judge Iredell, when giving his
opinion in this case:--

"The cause has been spoken to, at the bar, with a degree of
ability equal to any occasion.... I shall, as long as I
live, remember with pleasure and respect the arguments which
I have heard in this case. They have discovered an
ingenuity, a depth of investigation, and a power of
reasoning fully equal to anything I have ever witnessed; and
some of them have been adorned with a splendor of eloquence
surpassing what I have ever felt before. Fatigue has given
way under its influence, and the heart has been warmed,
while the understanding has been instructed."[428]

It will be readily understood, however, that while Patrick Henry's
practice included important causes turning, like the one just
described, on propositions of law, and argued by him before the
highest tribunals, the larger part of the practice to be had in
Virginia at that time must have been in actions tried before juries,
in which his success was chiefly due to his amazing endowments of
sympathy, imagination, tact, and eloquence. The testimony of
contemporary witnesses respecting his power in this direction is most
abundant, and also most interesting; and, for obvious reasons, such
portions of it as are now to be reproduced should be given in the very
language of the persons who thus heard him, criticised him, and made
deliberate report concerning him.

First of all, in the way of preliminary analysis of Henry's genius and
methods as an advocate before juries, may be cited a few sentences of
Wirt, who, indeed, never heard him, but who, being himself a very
gifted and a very ambitious advocate, eagerly collected and keenly
scanned the accounts of many who had heard him:--

"He adapted himself, without effort, to the character of the
cause; seized with the quickness of intuition its defensible
point, and never permitted the jury to lose sight of it. Sir
Joshua Reynolds has said of Titian, that, by a few strokes
of his pencil, he knew how to mark the image and character
of whatever object he attempted; and produced by this means
a truer representation than a