His person is represented as having been
coarse, his manners uncommonly awkward, his dress slovenly, his
conversation very plain, his aversion to study invincible, and his
faculties almost entirely benumbed by indolence. No persuasion could
bring him either to read or to work. On the contrary, he ran wild in the
forest like one of the _Aborigines_ of the country, and divided his life
between the dissipation and uproar of the chase, and the languor of
inaction.
His propensity to observe and comment upon the human character, was,
so far as I can learn, the only circumstance which distinguished him
advantageously from his youthful companions. This propensity seems to
have been born with him, and to have exerted itself instinctively, the
moment that a new subject was presented to his view. Its action was
incessant, and it became at length almost the only intellectual exercise
in which he seemed to take delight. To this cause, may be traced that
consummate knowledge of the human heart which he finally attained, and
which enabled him when he came upon the public stage, to touch the
springs of passion with a master hand, and to control the resolutions
and decisions of his hearers with a power almost more than mortal.
From what has been already stated, it will be seen how little education
had to do with the formation of this great man's mind.
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