between the two armies, general Washington addressed a let ter to general Heath, expressing his thanks for his meritorious services, and his real affection and esteem, and on the same day they took their final leave.

General Heath was corpulent and bald headed, which occasioned some of the French officers to observe that he resembled the marquis of Granby, and he appeared always pleased with the comparison. As an officer of parade and discipline, he was respectable.

Immediately after the close of the war, general Heath was called again into public service in civil life, and continued to hold a seat, either in the legislature, or in the council of Massachusetts, till the county of Norfolk was established, in 1793, when he was appointed by governor Hancock, judge of probate, and a justice of the court of common pleas, the latter office he did not accept. In the former he continued till his death. He was also a member of the state convention. which ratified the federal constitution. All these offices he discharged with assiduity, affability and impartiality, and to the general satisfaction of his fellow citizens.

He had formed his opinion of human nature on the most favourable examples, and to the close of life had a strong regard to popular opinion. He repeatedly allowed himself to be held up and voted for, for the office of governor and lieutenant governor of the commonwealth, and at one period, had, no doubt, a willingness and desire to hold one of these offices.

In 1806, he was elected lieutenant governor, but he refused to serve. He was more than once an elector of president and vice president of the United States.

He died at Roxbury, Massachusetts, January 24, 1814, aged 77 years.

HENRY, PATRICK, governor of Virginia, and a most eloquent and distinguished orator, took an early and active part in support of the rights of his country, against the tyranny of Great Britain. He was born at Studley, in the county of Hanover, and state of Virginia, on the 29th May, 1736. He descended from respectable Scotch ancestry, in the paternal line; and his mother was a native of the county in which he was born. On the maternal side, at least, he seems to have descended from a rhetorical race.

Her brother William, the father of the present Judge Winston, is said to have been highly endowed with that peculiar cast of eloquence, for which Mr. Henry became, afterwards, so justly celebrated. Of this gentleman I have an anecdote from a correspondent, which I shall give in his own words. I have often heard my father, who was intimately acquainted with this William Winston, say, that he was the greatest ora

tor whom he ever heard, Patrick Henry excepted; that during the last French and Indian war, and soon after Braddock's defeat, when the militia were marched to the frontiers of Virginia, against the enemy, this Mr. Winston was the lieutenant of a company; that the men, who were indifferently clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigour and inclemency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the service, and were anxious and even clamorous to return to their families; when this William Winston, mounting a stump. (the common rostrum of the field orators in Virginia,) addressed them with such keenness of invective, and declaimed with such force of eloquence, on liberty and patriotism, that when he concluded, the general cry was, let us march on; lead us against the enemy:' and they were now willing, nay, anxious to encounter all those difficulties and dangers, which, but a few moments before, had almost produced a mutiny.'

In childhood and youth, Patrick Henry, whose name renders titles superfluous, gave no presages of his future greatness. He learned to read and write, reluctantly; made some small progress in arithmetic; acquired a superficial knowledge of the Latin language; and made a considerable proficiency in the mathematics, the only branch of education for which he discovered, in his youth, the slightest predilection. The whole soul of his youth was bound up in the sports of the field. His idleness was absolutely incurable; and, of course, he proved a truant lad, who could sit all day on a bridge, waiting for a good bite, or even, one glorious nibble.' The unhappy effects of this idleness were lasting as his life; and the biographer very properly cautions his youthful readers against following this bad example.

His propensity to observe and comment upon the human character, was the only circumstance, which distinguished him, advantageously, from his youthful companions.

From what has been already stated, it will be seen, how little education had to do with the formation of this great man's mind. He was, indeed, a mere child of nature, and nature seems to have been too proud and too jealous of her work, to permit it to be touched by the hand of art. She gave him Shakspeare's genius, and bade him, like Shakspeare, to depend on that alone. Let not the youthful reader, however, deduce, from the example of Mr. Henry, an argument in favour of indolence and the contempt of study. Let him remember that the powers which surmounted the disadvantage of those early habits, were such as very rarely appear upon this earth. Let him remember, too, how long the genius, even of Mr. Henry, was kept down and hidden from the public view, by the sorcery of those pernicious habits;

through what years of poverty and wretchedness they doomed him to struggle; and, let him remember, that, at length, when in the zenith of his glory, Mr. Henry, himself, had frequent occasions to deplore the consequences of his early neglect of literature, and to bewail 'the ghosts of his departed hours.'

At the age of fifteen years, young Henry was placed behind the counter of a merchant in the country; and at sixteen his father set him up in trade, in partnership with his brother William. Through laziness, the love of music, the charms of the chase, and a readiness to trust every one, the firm was soon reduced to bankruptcy. The only advantage which resulted from his short continuance in mercantile business, was an opportunity to study human characters.

At eighteen, Mr. Henry married the daughter of an honest farmer, and undertook to cultivate a few acres for himself. His only delights, at this time, were those which flow from the endearing relations of conjugal life. His want of agricultural skill, and his unconquerable aversion to every species of systematic labour, terminated his career as a planter, in the short space of two years. Again he had recourse to merchandise, and again failed in business. Every atom of his property was now gone, his friends were unable to assist him any further; he had tried every means of support. of which he thought himself capable, and every one had failed; ruin was behind him; poverty, debt, want, and famine before; and as if his cup of misery were not already full enough, here was a suffering wife and children to make it overflow. Still he had a cheerful temper, and his passion was music, dancing, and pleasantry. About this time he became fond of geography and historical works generally. Livy was his favourite; and in some measure, awakened the dormant powers of his genius. As a last effort, he determined, of his own accord, to make a trial of the law. He, however, disliked the professional business of an attorney at law, and he seems to have hoped for nothing more from the profession, than a scanty subsistence for himself and his family, and his preparation was suited to these humble expectations; for, to the study of a profession, which is said to require the lucubrations of twenty years, Mr. Henry devoted not more than six weeks. On examination he was licensed, rather through courtesy, and some expectation that he would study, than from any conviction which his examiners had of his present competence. At the age of four and twenty he was admitted to the bar; and for three years occupied the back ground; during which period the wants and distresses of his family were extreme; and he performed the duty of an assistant to his father-in-law in a tavern,

In 1764, he pursued his favourite amusement of hunting, with extreme ardour; and has been known to hunt deer, frequently for several days together, carrying his provisions with him, and at night encamping in the woods.

After the hunt was over, he would go from the ground to Louisa court: clad in a coarse cloth coat, stained with all the trophies of the chase, greasy leather breeches ornamented in the same way, leggings for boots, and a pair of saddle-bags on his arm. Thus accoutred, he would enter the court-house, take up the first of his causes that chanced to be called; and if there was any scope for his peculiar talent, throw his adversary into the back ground, and astonish both court and jury by the powerful effusions of his natural eloquence.

In the same year he was introduced to the gay and fashionable circle at Williamsburg, then the seat of government for the state, that he might be counsel in the case of a contested election; but he made no preparation for pleading: and, as we might naturally suppose, none for appearing in a suitable costume. He moved awkwardly about in his threadbare and course dress; and while some thought him a prodigy, others concluded him to be an idiot: nevertheless, before the committee of elections, he delivered an argument which judge Tyler, judge Winston, and others pronounced the best they had ever heard. In the same year, it is asserted on the authority of Mr. Jefferson, that Mr. Henry gave the first impulse to the ball of the revolution. He originated the spirit of the revolution in Virginia, unquestionably; and possessed a dauntless soul. exactly suited to the important work he was destined to perform.

In the year 1765, he was a member of the assembly of Virginia. He introduced his celebrated resolutions against the stamp act, which breathed a spirit of liberty, and which had a tendency to rouse the people of that commonwealth in favour of our glorious revolution.

After his death, there was found among his papers, one sealed, and thus endorsed; "Inclosed are the resolutions of the Virginia assembly, in 1765, concerning the stamp act. Let my executors open this paper." Within was found the following copy of the resolutions, in Mr. Henry's hand writing:

"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this, his majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this, his majesty's said colony, all the privileges, franchises, and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed, by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by king James the first, the colonists aforesaid, are declared entitled to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities, of denizens and natural born subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England. "Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.

"Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony, have interruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own assembly, in the article of their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, therefore, That the general assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the general assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American free

dom."

6

"On the back of the paper containing those resolutions, is the following endorsement, which is also in the hand-writing of Mr. Henry himself. The within resolutions passed the house of burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the stamp act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British parliament. All the colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent. I had been, for the first time, elected a burgess, a few days before; was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the house, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book, wrote the within. Upon offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me, by the party for submission. After a long and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally