HENRY COUNTY. 327 



the culture of a farm, but his ignorance of agriculture, and his 

 aversion to labour forced him to give up this business, and he 

 again turned merchant, but succeeded no better than he had 

 some years before. Henry now had recourse to the law, and 

 after looking into Blackstone, and other principal law books, 

 for a short time, he was admitted to the bar. No one thought 

 that he could ever succeed in a profession which required an 

 intensity of application to which he had given grounds to 

 believe that he could not habituate himself. But to the as- 

 tonishment of all, his first opportunity to show what he could 

 do in his new profession, resulted in his being placed at the 

 head of the bar. The cause in which he was first employed 

 was that known as the " Parsons' cause." Mr. Wirt says, that 

 Mr. Henry rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his 

 exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a 

 commencement. The clergy were observed to exchange sly 

 looks with each other, and his father is described as having 

 almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings 

 were of short duration, and soon gave place to others of a 

 very different character. For now were those wonderful fa- 

 culties which he possessed for the first time developed, and 

 now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost superna- 

 tural transformation of appearance which the fire of his own 

 eloquence never failed to work in him ; and as his mind rolled 

 along and began to glow from its own action, all the exuviae 

 of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His 

 attitude by degrees became erect and lofty. The spirit of his 

 genius awakened all his features. His wonder-working fancy, 

 and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed his images, 

 produced an effect so great, that it is said, by one who heard 

 him, " that he made their blood run cold and their hair to rise 

 on end." In 1764, he again made one of his most brilliant 

 efforts before a committee on elections, in the House of Bur- 

 gesses ; and again in 1765, as a member of the House of Bur- 

 gesses, when he introduced his resolutions on the Stamp Act. 

 It was here that he said, " Caesar had his Brutus — Charles the 



First his Cromwell — and George the Third" upon which the 



Speaker cried out "Treason!" "Treason, treason!" echoed from 

 every part of the house. Henry, nothing daunted, in a voice 



