This great speech from Patrick Henry, which certainly was not made on that occasion, and probably was never made at all, Wirt causes to be followed by a great speech from Richard Henry Lee, although the journal could have informed him that Lee was not even in the House on that day. Moreover, he makes Patrick Henry to be the author of the unfortunate first draft of the address to the king,--a document which was written by another man; and on this fiction he founds two or three pages of lamentation and of homily with reference to Patrick Henry's inability to express himself in writing, in consequence of "his early neglect of literature." Finally, he thinks it due "to historic truth to record that the superior powers" of Patrick Henry "were manifested only in debate;" and that, although he and Richard Henry Lee "took the undisputed lead in the Assembly," "during the first days of the session, while general grievances were the topic," yet they were both "completely thrown into the shade" "when called down from the heights of declamation to that severer test of intellectual excellence, the details of business,"--the writer here seeming to forget that "general grievances" were not the topic "during the first days of the session," and that the very speeches by which these two men are said to have made their mark there, were speeches on mere rules of the House relating to methods of procedure.[129] Since the death of Wirt, and the publication of the biography of him by Kennedy, it has been possible for us to ascertain just how the genial author of "The Life and Character of Patrick Henry" came to be so gravely misled in this part of his book. "The whole passage relative to the first Congress" appears to have been composed from data furnished by Jefferson, who, however, was not a member of that Congress; and in the original manuscript the very words of Jefferson were surrounded with quotation marks, and were attributed to him by name. When, however, that great man, who loved not to send out calumnies into the world with his own name attached to them, came to inspect this portion of Wirt's manuscript, he was moved by his usual prudence to write such a letter as drew from Wirt the following consolatory assurance:-- "Your repose shall never be endangered by any act of mine, if I can help it. Immediately on the receipt of your last letter, and before the manuscript had met any other eye, I wrote over again the whole passage relative to the first Congress, omitting the marks of quotation, and removing your name altogether from the communication."[130]