d listened to, and been instructed by the eloquence
of Patrick Henry, in his early youth, and in later life had met him as
a competitor on the hustings. He had grown up by the side of Edmonds,
Peyton Randolph, George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson. In his very youth
he had excited the wonder and admiration of these great minds. He was
sent into the Congress of the United States almost before he was
qualified by age to take his seat; and at once took position by the
side of such men as William B. Giles, William H. Crawford, James A.
Byard, and Littleton W. Tazwell. His style of speaking was peculiar;
his wit was bitter and biting; his sarcasm more pungent and withering
than had ever been heard on the floor of Congress; his figure was
_outre_; his voice, fine as the treble of a violin; his face, wan,
wrinkled, and without beard; his limbs, long and unsightly, especially
his arms and fingers; the skin seemed to grow to the attenuated bone;
and the large, ill-formed joints were extremely ugly. But those
fingers, and especially the right fore-finger, gave point and _vim_ to
his wit and invective.

In his manner he was at times deliberate, and apparently very
considerate, and again he was rapid and vehement. When he would
demolish an adversary, he would commence slowly, as if to collect all
his powers, preparatory to one great onset. He would turn and talk, as
it were, to all about him, and seemingly incongruously. It was as if he
was slinging and whirling his chain-shot about his head, and circling
it more and more rapidly, to collect all his strength for the fatal
blow. All knew it would fall, but none knew where, until he had
collected his utmost strength, and then, with the electrical flash of
his eye, he would mark the victim, and the thundering crash of his
vengeance, in words of vehemence, charged with the most caustic satire,
would fall upon, and crush the devoted head of his scarce suspecting
foe. I remember, upon one occasion, pending the debate upon the
Missouri question, and when Mr. Randolph was in the habit of almost
daily addressing the house, that a Mr. Beecher, of Ohio, who was very
impatient with Randolph's tirades, would, in the lengthy pauses made by
him, rise from his place, and move the previous question. The Speaker
would reply: "The member from Virginia has the floor." The first and
second interruption was not noticed by Randolph, but upon the
repetition a third time, he slowly lifted his head from contem