His scorn for oratory, long sentences, images, apostrophes may have been a case of sour grapes, for in his youth he admired tremendously Patrick Henry. As we have seen, he was wise enough not to aim higher than he could reach. Not only did he never crave the fame of the popular orator, but, conscious of his limitations, he always showed a real repugnance to addressing a large assembly. Particularly brilliant in conversation, he was destined to be a committee man, to win his ends by the pen rather than by the silver tongue of the politician. Yet if he had been fond of rhetoric, rhetoric would have found its way into his writings, but no man of the period wrote less figuratively, employed fewer artifices of style; metaphors, comparisons were unknown to him. Ideas remained ideas and were never clad in the flowing garments of mythology; facts remained facts and never became allegories. Liberty never appeared before his eyes and was never represented by him as a goddess, and neither America nor Britannia were majestic figures of heroic size that passed in his dreams. He was neither emotional nor imaginative, yet his eyes were keen and quick to note and establish distinctions between different varieties of plants or animals. His mind was alert and always on the lookout for new facts to add to his store of knowledge, after proper cataloguing. Surely he was not the man to make startling discoveries in the realm of natural history, or to propose a new system of the universe, nor was he one to conceive, in a moment of inspiration, a new political gospel and a new system of society; when he took up the practice of law in Williamsburg, the greatest future that destiny had in store for him, promising as he was, seemed to become as upright and sound a lawyer as Mr. Wythe, and a legal authority as good and learned as Mr. Pendleton. He was admitted to the Bar in 1767, and two years later was chosen as a member of the House of Burgesses and placed on the committee appointed to draw up an answer to the Governor's speech. His draft was rejected, however, and Colonel Nicholas' address substituted.[22] A few days later Governor Botetourt, unable to endorse the spirited remonstrance to the King on the subject of taxation, dissolved the Assembly. The next day--wrote Jefferson--we met in the Apollo of the Raleigh Tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported from Great Britain, signed and recommended them to the people, repaired to our several counties, and were re-elected without any other exception than of the very few who had declined to follow our proceedings.[23]