ing his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together,
with warmth and energy, to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls"
to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice--"but
Jesus Christ--like a God!" If it had indeed and in truth been an angel
of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.

MR. HENRY AGAINST JOHN HOOK.

(_From Life of Patrick Henry._)

Hook was a Scotchman, a man of wealth, and suspected of being
unfriendly to the American cause. During the distresses of the
American army, consequent upon the joint invasion of Cornwallis and
Phillips in 1781, a Mr. Venable, an army commissary, had taken two of
Hook's steers for the use of the troops. The act had not been strictly
legal; and on the establishment of peace, Hook, under the advice of
Mr. Cowan, a gentleman of some distinction in the law, thought proper
to bring an action of trespass against Mr. Venable, in the district
court of New London. Mr. Henry appeared for the defendant, and is said
to have disported himself in this cause to the infinite enjoyment of
his hearers, the unfortunate Hook always excepted. After Mr. Henry
became animated in the cause, says a correspondent [Judge Stuart], he
appeared to have complete control over the passions of his audience:
at one time he excited their indignation against Hook: vengeance was
visible in every countenance; again, when he chose to relax and
ridicule him, the whole audience was in a roar of laughter. He painted
the distresses of the American army, exposed almost naked to the
rigour of a winter's sky, and marking the frozen ground over which
they marched, with the blood of their unshod feet--"where was the
man," he said, "who had an American heart in his bosom, who would not
have thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellar, the doors of his
house, the portals of his breast, to have received with open arms, the
meanest soldier in that little band of patriots? Where is the man?
_There_ he stands--but whether the heart of an American beats in his
bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge." He then carried the jury, by the
powers of his imagination, to the plains around York, the surrender of
which had followed shortly after the act complained of: he depicted
the surrender in the most glowing and noble colors of his
eloquence--the audience saw before their eyes the humiliation and
dejection of the British, as they marched out of their trenches--they
saw the triumph which lighted