New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-01-12

the rsnqfal mind The country, there one who
more directly than any other than ALL set in
flame not to DO extipguished if amidst those lights
thnre one the daystar till whose coming there
~ it certainly Henry 1t is that before
rim Massachusetts had her quarrel with England, hut
net with the common sympathy of the colonies. For
ayerse, from her very foundation to not merely the
dominion. but the very institutions of the mother
try she had kept up with it continual pickering rei
gious well civil strife at best local often i'll
tempered and faetous that her too frequent bros
commanding little regard would have continued to
to nothing had not any opposition to English
spruuG in more loyal quarter The Southern colonies
meanwhile, had always loved the parent land. both
Church and State, and naturally had been ndugenty
dealt with by its legislation, Thus until that ladvised
the Stamp Act, came to affect all the American
plantations alike there had been nothing to draw us to
gether in cause, aeemmon resistance The
gave that cause and Henry led that retstancs
Young, obscure, unconnected unaided, unccunseled
and uucountenanced he yet, by sudden spendor
Of his eloquenoe his abilities and bis dauntess resou
ton, carried every thing before him animated the
whole land to determined assertion of their rights
established for himself boundiess influence over tht
popular mind urged it. whenever the occasion came TO
sound the signal of unshrinkng opposition 20 every
encroachment led the way independently OF all move
elsewhere devised and brought about every main
of preparation rejected all esmpromise clearly
the first to see the certain issue Of the contest in Eu
repean intepoitiou and the OF cur indie
pendence steadily that aim before even he could
openly ayow it: and, finally when Things ripe
ued 1t for his State instructed her deputation to
nosa il 10 all the rest and indeed involved them In it
beyond avoidance by setting up regular and permanent
Republican Constitution 10 Virginia; step that allowed
no retreat and not Tess decisive than the heroca
landing place. he burnt his vessels behind him, Henry
was in word, the Moses who led lis forth from thu
mouse of bandage If there had been opposition be-
fore bis is not the appointed and would HAYS been
IN Intellectual one. There had, doubt, been Jews
enough that murmured, before he who deliverea
them appeared We may therefore fifty apply to Henry
IN regard to the bringing about of Independence all
that Dryden so finely said of Bacon in science
Bacon, like Moses, led US forth, at last =:
The barren wilderness he passed ~ sa
Did on the very border stand
" OF the best promised land, A ~
And from the mountain-top of his exalted wit,
Saw it himself and showed us it.n
And yet Henry like nearly all of his illustrous fellow
aborers Of freedom, sleeps in undistnguhed grave
his death party spirit denied to his memory the tokens
public admiration and regret offered in that very Lee
gisiaure of which he had been the great light and which,
indeed had called into being Since that that sorry
aurefor all faction should have been hushed the
body of citizen and man so amirableno further no.
lcc has been taken Of him and he who merited
onal monument only less proud than that due to Wash
ugten himself SAUNDERS beneath an hum bic private
at Red Hill, the secluded residence where he died
But we turn the personal particulars of this extra
ordinary which appropriate to the design the
present volume Not few of them will be found in
yolve important corrections of the received of his
Early years. and new view therefore, of his genius
character.
In that received account his sole original bographer
Mr. Wr-Writin without any personal knowledge of him
negectng consult the most obvious and authentic
source Information, his four surviving sisters ladies
condition and remarkable ntelligenee-has fallen into
the vulgar error to which the peculiar position and for
of Mr. Henry at first gave rise and which he after
wards, for warranable political purposes encouraged
When suddenly burst out from complete obscurty
unriyaiIel orator politician and snatched
the control of legislation and of the public mind from
the veteran the college bred wealthy and high
born leaders who had till then held It, the homeness Of
dress which beted his circumstances, the hum
y Of aspect and the simplicity of which
unaffected traits of his disposition naturally assigned him
the eyes both those WHO of 1t and of those who
down upon it. to the pebeian class It suited the
rnvy these 1t delighted the admiration Of those
gard hinthat uninteligble marvel of abilities which
had thus all at efaced every thing ese-as mere
child Of the people The really skiifu, who understand
intellectual prodiges and refer them ignorance
chance must have seen at through the cloud in
which he stood, great and enlightened understanding
competent to high and complex public question
not be strong in knowledge well faculties The
few cannot have mistaken him for that fabulous thing
ignorant genius for they must have seen in his
msnding and complete eloquence the art in his mastery
measures the innrmatpn of thoroughly trained.
though in secret to the business of swaying mems minds
aud of conducting their coIuses though hitherto apart
from them All but this highest class however. of the ri
walls whom he at threw into eclipse naturally sought
depreciate him declaimer, tribuuitian
yoluhle and vehement he rude rash it-
Could the tspers that at Beshazzars feast
out before the beze of that marvellous handwriting
wall have been afterwards permitted give their
opinion of it. they would Of have talked disdan-
fully of its beam, PHOSPHORUS other low
pyrotechnc trick Such was the reputation which the
vauquishsd magrates in general of their followers
eayored to hx upon the young subyerter Of their
deney lie not Of the old arstocratic families
low person, therefore he had been within
the walls Of college still less had he, like many them
finished with the graces of foreign travel public dci
learning; therefore, by their
terate although certainly in his performances all the
best efforts of education manifest without its parade
While they called him ignorant, he always proved himself
know Whatever the occasion demanded and able
ously to instruct foe and friend. Stunning from his
all assumption, and from his modesty all display
pulled out the purse of his requirements to
ehnk it merely, but only to pay that man could
Tell what he had left in the bottom of his pocket and
hus, raggedooking Fortunatus, he always surprised
with his unguessed resources Strange powers un-
donbtedy he had that must have not little COMPOUNDED
the Judgment OF the best observers unexercsed in the
forum he had risen upa of whole art
moving n discourse the understanding the PASSIONS
Impractical in public affairs he had only to appear
them in ordei to stand the first politician Of his day
yersed in the business and the strategy of eberaVe
assemblies, he had only to become member of one in
order to be its adroitest parliamentary aetcian he
was dexterous without practice so was he prudent with
experience for, the first he shone out as the
wisest man i'll all the public councils He to have
escaped all that tribute o. which youth almost
Invariably pay the price Of emnence in public affairs
he fell into no theory he INDUCED vision he
committed blunder in short ripe from the beginning
appeared to be by instinct and tue gift nature
whatever Others slowly become only by the aid
experience Bred up in secusion though Gas the high
cultivation of his sisters testified to all who knew them
in household whose very atmosphere knowledge he
had beyond good acquaintance OF Latin the rudents
of Greek, French mathematics and early familiarity
with the best English authorsthpse of the Ezabethiau
age. Of the Commonwealth and of Queen Anne's day
received little direct inst, uctiun none but fram his
father and books, his early companions; that his
scholastic instruction really slender But he had
been taught betmes to love knowledge and how work
it out for HIMSELF how in word, to accomplish what
and eoeges-admrabie contrlFances as they for
keeping up among mankind common method and CON-
stock of inormatop-afe but suited as they We're
but designed, for the of ea. APPLYING to
all the mechanical process bringing to the same
level the genius and the Ounce they exceenty
repair the original inequality sometimes SO with which
nature deals out understanding among the human
In word they capital machines for bringing about
average of talent but it is the expense of those
bright parts which occasionally come that they do it
Their methods clap in the couples him who
| can but creep and him who would soar; harness
in the cart the pow-horse and the eourser
The highest genius must be its sole method maker
its entire rule From what it has done rules are de-
duced but for its Interiors not for it its whole existence
il exceptional original and whatever in its discpinpg
would tend to make IL otherwise but to check
to deminish itssdeYelopment.
No greater error therefore, than to suppose that man
extraordinary Patrick Henry who, mature from
first up speaker and reasoner and
amongst Of large abilities, knowledge and experience
constantly showed himself in matters the weighest and
the most difficult superior to them ALL could have been
unedncated In reality he had learned Of the posi-
Bile master, for such aman-hmsef That he knew that
he knew solidy, because more efectuay and
to the purpose than all those him the great sub
jects with which no dealt wonderfully, beyond all
question. Now, though the genius of Mr. Henry was
prodgous and though there be things which genius
it intutvey and spontaneously there are other
things which are not movable, by genius itself
without study which the utmost genius cannot extern
porze cannot produce from nothing cannot make with
ont their materials previously amassed in its mind cannot
understand without their necessary particulars
lated in advances and 1t WAS in just such thipgs-the
highest civil ability which of wisdom genius
the greatest eloqnence which be formed but by
infinite art and abortat he stood up at all times su-
preme. The sagacty eff craftsmanship with which he
looked through the untred affairs OF this country saw
through systems and oretold consequences, has