The natural eloquence which on this occasion flashed forth from the coarse and unlettered Henry, as the spark-of fire from the flint, continued to distinguished him both as a Member of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and afterwards as a member of Congress. He took from the first a bold and active part against the pretensions of the mother country; indeed Mr. Jefferson goes so far as to declare that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the earliest impulse to the ball of revolution." His most celebrated burst of oratory, or rather turn of phrase, was in this very year 1765, when descanting in the House of Burgesses on the tyranny of the Stamp Act. "Cæsar—" he cried, in a voice of thunder and with an eye of fire—"Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First had his Cromwell—and George the Third"—"Treason!" here exclaimed the Speaker, "Treason! Treason!" re-echoed from every part of the House. Henry did not for an instant falter, but fixing his eye firmly on the Speaker, he concluded his sentence thus "—may profit by their example. If this be treason make the most of it!" Indolence and aversion to reading seemed almost as natural to Henry’s mind as powers of debate. To the last he never overcame them. Thus, at his death, in 1799, his books were found to be extremely few, and these too consisting chiefly of odd volumes. But his gift of speech was (for his hearers) sufficiently supported by his fiery energy, his practical shrewdness, and his ever keen glance into the feelings and characters of other. Nor were these his only claims to his country’s favor. He retained the manners and custom of the common people, with what his friendly biographer terms "religious caution.—He dressed as plainly as the plainest of them," continues Mr. Wirt, "ate only their homely fare, and drank their simple beverage, mixed with them on a footing of the most entire and perfect equality, and conversed with them even in their own vicious and depraved pronunciation." By such means he soon acquired and long retained a large measure of popularity, and he applied himself with zeal and success before any audience, and on every occasion which arose, to increase and perpetuate the estrangement between the North American Colonies and England. FRANKLIN.