Richard Henry Lee was distinguished by a face of the Roman order: his forehead high but not wide, his head leaning gracefully forward; his person and face fine. He was an accomplished scholar, of wide reading. His voice was musical. He had lost the use of one hand by an accident, and kept it covered with a bandage of black silk; but his gesture was graceful. His style of eloquence was chaste, classic, electric, and delightful. As Mr. Jefferson has said that Patrick Henry spoke as Homer wrote, so Mr. Lee may be, perhaps, compared to Virgil. Henry and Lee coincided in political views, co-operated in public life, and were confidential correspondents and warm and constant friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[531:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 36.
[533:A] Letter from R. H. Lee to his sister, Mrs. Corbin, written in 1778. Hist. Mag., i. 360.
[534:A] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 37.
[537:A] Wirt's Life of Henry, 47; Old Churches, Ministers, etc., 298; Grigsby's Convention of '76, p. 46.
