continues
this narrator,

"he hit upon something that struck his fancy; and never did
I witness so sudden, so perfect a change of the human
countenance. That which was before dull and heavy in a
moment became animated, and flashed with the brightest beams
of intellect. He stepped up to the old gray-headed gentleman
(his companion), and giving him a thundering slap on the
shoulder, said, 'Jack, look at this!'"

Thus was he described at twenty-three. At twenty-six he was half a
head taller, and quite as slender as before. His light hair was then
combed back into an elegant queue. His eye of hazel was bright and
restless. His chin was still beardless. He wore a frock-coat of light
blue cloth, yellow breeches, silk stockings, and top-boots. Great was
the love he bore his horses, which were numerous, and as good as
Virginia could boast. It is amusing to notice that the horse upon
which this pattern aristocrat used to scamper across the country, in
French-Revolution times, was named _Jacobin_!

It was in March, 1799, the year before the final victory of the
Republicans over the Federal party, that the neighbors of John
Randolph and John Randolph himself discovered, to their great
astonishment, that he was an orator. He had been nominated for
Representative in Congress. Patrick Henry, aged and infirm, had been
so adroitly manipulated by the Federalists, that he had at length
agreed to speak to the people in support of the hateful administration
of John Adams. John Randolph, who had never in his life addressed an
audience, nor, as he afterwards declared, had ever imagined that he
could do so, suddenly determined, the very evening before the day
named for the meeting, to reply to Patrick Henry. It was an open-air
meeting. No structure in Virginia could have contained the multitude
that thronged to hear the transcendent orator, silent for so many
years, and now summoned from his retirement by General Washington
himself to speak for a Union imperilled and a government assailed. He
spoke with the power of other days? for he was really alarmed for his
country; and when he had finished his impassioned harangue, he sunk
back into the arms of his friends, as one of them said, "like the sun
setting in his glory." For the moment he had all hearts with him. The
sturdiest Republican in Virginia could scarcely resist the spell of
that amazing oratory.

John Randolph rose to reply. His first sentence