aw, who was then keeping the tavern at Hanover
Court-house. When Mr. Shelton was occasionally absent, Mr. Henry
supplied his place and attended to the guests.

In the winter of the year 1760 Thomas Jefferson, then in his seventeenth
year, on his way to the College of William and Mary, spent the Christmas
holidays at the seat of Colonel Dandridge, in Hanover County. Patrick
Henry, now twenty-four years of age, being a near neighbor, young
Jefferson met with him there for the first time, and observed that his
manners had something of coarseness in them; that his passion was
music, dancing, and pleasantry; and that in the last he excelled, and it
attached everybody to him. But it is likely that the music of his voice
was more attractive than even that of his violin. Henry displayed on
that occasion, which was one of festivity, no uncommon calibre of
intellect or extent of information; but his misfortunes were not to be
traced in his countenance or his conduct: self-possessed repose is the
characteristic of native power; complaint is the language of weakness. A
secret consciousness of superior genius and a reliance upon Providence
buoyed him up in the reverses of fortune. While young Jefferson and
Henry were enjoying together the Christmas holidays of 1760, how little
did either anticipate the parts which they were destined to perform on
the theatre of public life! Young Henry embraced the study of the law,
and after a short course of reading, was, in consideration of his genius
and general information, and in spite of his meagre knowledge of law,
and his ungainly appearance, admitted to the bar in the spring of 1760.
His license was subscribed by Peyton and John Randolph and Robert C.
Nicholas. Mr. Wythe refused to sign it.

In the "Parsons' Cause" Henry emerged from the horizon, and thenceforth
became the star of the ascendant.

FOOTNOTES:

[519:A] Lord Byron so calls him, in the Age of Bronze.

[520:A] Several persons of the name of Winston came over from Yorkshire,
England, and settled in Hanover. Isaac Winston, one of these, or a son
of one of them, had children: 1. William, father of Judge Edmund
Winston. 2. Sarah, mother of Patrick Henry, Jr., the orator. 3. Geddes.
4. Mary, who married John Coles. 5. A daughter who married ---- Cole. She
was grandmother to Dorothea or Dolly Payne, who married James Madison,
President of the United States. Of these five children, William, the
eldest, called Langaloo William, m