wished to convey of his character as an advocate, my intelligent readers will perhaps agree with me. The triumphs he appears to desire are the triumphs of intellect and of taste, His glory is not in the winning of causes merely, without reference to the dignity of the means, but in winning causes by such means as accomplished minds-or at least minds of considerable reasoning power-can best appreciate. Some barristers are delighted to wheedle a verdict out of a jury, and if the verdict be obviously contrary to common sense, the more is their self-esteem increased. Others, again, are proud of touching the feelings of a jury, and gaining a verdict from their sensibility rather than their judgment. Sir W. Follett, I imagine, has no relish for success of either kind. He wishes to obtain it by the exercise of an elevated common sense, and by skilful reasoning on his side of the question. But he knows that when before a jury, his business is to obtain a favourable verdict, and he is too shrewd to speak to a jury in terms which they do not understand, or to pursue a strain of reasoning which they could not follow. It is, therefore, very possible, that in speaking to juries he feels himself to be doing a coarser kind of work, from which, if his profession permitted it, he would as lief be excused.

Though the speeches of Sir W. Follett do not rise into what may be justly called oratory, yet he is unquestionably a very able and agreeable speaker. His voice is clear and rather deep in its tone: it is loud without harshness. His articulation is very distinct, and judiciously varied, quickened in matters of mere detail, and becoming more deliberate and emphatic, where a pressing and important argument is to be urged. But for any burst of eloquence-any flight of imagination—any burning wordsany striking originality of expression, you may watch in vain. Any such fiery bolts of eloquent wrath, or passionate admiration, as were every now and then shot forth in Brougham's speeches at the bar, you never witness when Sir W. Follett speaks. should not be surprised if he looked upon every thing of the sort as a degree of madness. He wants to reason the case-not to surprise any one,

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or to make them say inwardly, "how splendid!" or "how beautiful!" Yet it is not to be inferred that he is a dry or an uninteresting speaker. Independently of his elocution, which is excellent, he has too much mind in his speeches to permit them to be dull. He is no plodding common-place lawyer, but neither is he an impassioned orator. He is an emphatic, skilful reasoner, who uses simple, direct terms, flowing apparently from a remarkably clear conception of the train of ideas which elucidate the point at issue. I recollect lately being in court, when, in consequence of an interruption from the barrister on the other side, an accidental point arose, foreign to the main subject. Sir William begged the attention of the court while he showed, in a few words, that the party for whom he was concerned could not, in law, be affected by the point which had been started. The chief justice begged him to repeat his "principle," in order that he might take it down, upon which the advocate instantly threw what he had been saying into an abstract form, as if he had been reading a rule of law from a text-book, though the point was an accidental one, started only a minute before, and I should have scarcely supposed that he would have remembered the "principle" which he meant to enforce, separated from the circumstances which he had previously coupled with it.

Of oratorical action he has very little, although more than some English barristers I have seen. Many of them, indeed, will harangue by the hour, with their hands behind their back, under their gown. Sir William generally extends, his right arm, and with stretched-out hand keeps time, as it were, to his periods. His manner to the bench is decisive, yet carefully courteous. He often mentions the deference with which he makes his suggestions, but even though they be apparently not admitted by the court, he does not fail to press the same point again and again.

No man has less of a lawyer's pedantry in his speeches, even when the law of the case is the point at issue. There are some barristers whose arguments none but those learned in the law can possibly understand. Nay, I have heard some so cram their state

ment with technical terms, that, however well acquainted with the principles of law, none but those practised in the craft, could ever guess at what was meant. But any intelligent person may follow Sir W. Follett's arguments, and understand them. You may be without sufficient knowledge to tell whether he has rightly or wrongly laid down the law, but you cannot be mistaken as to the view of it which he for the time desired to impress upon the court.

It is very interesting to observe the force, fluency, and even accuracy, with which he will discuss all varieties of subjects:

"Hear him but reason in divinity, And all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire that he were made a prelate :

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

You would say it hath been all-in-all his study:

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle rendered you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter."

He does not spoil his cause, as some men do, by fastening upon nice and difficult points which stand in the way of the main issue. He goes right forward to the main point, and (if it be in his favour) he keeps it prominently before the court. I heard of a case lately in which a very ingenious barrister was employed, who at consultation was greatly startled by a doubtful word in an agreement upon which the case depended, but which word did not touch the principal matter in controversy. It was agreed that it was better not to press the point in which this doubtful word was concerned. The adversary, however, had to begin ; and being a man of great acuteness and vehemence, he fastened upon this doubtful word, and put the case to the court as if the point depending upon this word were the only important one in it. The ingenious gentleman first mentioned was caught by this device. He spent his time in labouring to arrest the argument against this unfortunate word; and when both barristers had done, the really main points of the case had scarcely been before the court at all. The weak point was given

against the ingenious gentleman, and his client lost.

The same matter came before the court again, and Sir William Follett was employed against the acute and vehement barrister, who, as before, was very triumphant upon the bearing of the unfortunate word. Sir William saw this, and scarcely touched, in his reply, upon that part of the case; but the other, and the more important parts, were now clearly and conspicuously brought under the attention of the court. The decision, I believe, has not yet been given.

Some barristers, even of great eminence, slowly absorb a case before they are capable of digesting it, and of delivering an able argument upon it. One of the most passionate and per severing, and certainly one of the greatest advocates of the day, labours at a difficult case, as though it were written in Hebrew, but when he has it in his mind nothing can shake it away, and win he will if to win be possible. Sir William Follett on the contrary, sees into the marrow of a case with astonishing quickness. He does not allow himself to be entangled by out-lying difficulties, but strikes directly at the heart of the business, and having informed himself upon it, he is ready to reason the matter out with any one. He knows what to omit. He sees what is essential, and refrains from encumbering himself with more. He is very much em. ployed in consultations, and it is often difficult to obtain his aid in that way, but when it is obtained he will do what is necessary to be done in a fourth of the time which other men of great, but slower minds, would find necessary. When barristers and solicitors go to him full of anxieties and perplexities, he seems to set all right. He puts them in a straight course; he fixes their attention to the leading points; he does what is needful and no more, and sends them away.

"Reprehendet inertes, Culpabit duros, incomptis allinet atrum Transverso calamo signum; ambitiosa

recidet

Ornamenta; parum claris lucem dare coget

Arguet ambiguè dictum; mutanda nota bit."

Yet the man who can do all this with

so much vigour, celerity and ease, did nothing at the university. He must even then have been "a scholar, and a ripe good one"-but it was in other things than the higher branches of the mathematics, or the Greek plays.

The professional income of Sir W. Follett must be very large. Folks who ought to be able to give a very good guess, say it can hardly be less than from twelve to fourteen thousand a-year. Be that as it may, I am sure he voted for the income-tax. He must get a great deal of money for which it is impossible he can do much-very often, perhaps, not any thing at all. He cannot be every where, and yet so highly is even the chance of his services estimated, that he is paid for being every where. Like some other very eminent barristers, he often gets fees from parties who are tolerably sure he cannot act for them, but who give their money in order to be quite sure that he will not be against them. Huge fees are given to him with heavy briefs. When he goes "special" into the country, the fee, I believe, is, four hundred guineas-however short the case may be. When he is to go out of his own court, the first inducing process, I understand, is a fee of fifty guineas, besides the fee with his brief. Such are the temptations which an English barrister, in first-rate business, gets to kill himself with overwork. It is not easy to resist them; and unless the work be diligently done they will not be continued. So the end is the wealth of princes and the drudgery of slaves. Sir W. Follett, if report speak truly, is not likely to set the fashion of giving eminent legal assistance at a cheaper rate than has hitherto been afforded by anxious and wealthy clients.

Let us now glance at the subject of our sketch in another sphere: I mean as a parliament-man Of all the law

yers in the House of Commons-and they are not a few-Sir W. Follett is by many degrees the most important to his party. He does not confine himself to legal subjects, but upon almost every great question delivers his sentiments as a leading member of the political body. Upon these occasions he never fails to engage the careful attention of the house, nor to repay that attention by the force of his arguments, and the clear light of good

sense which he throws upon the subject in debate. If I remember rightly, he stood for the city of Exeter at the election which followed the passing of the reform-bill. He did not then succeed, but when Sir Robert Peel formed his short-lived ministry at the close of 1834, and dissolved the parliament, Mr. Follett again stood for Exeter, and was returned at the head of the poll. At the same time he was made solicitor-general-that office having been (as was generally reported at the time) declined by Mr. Pemberton, the accomplished equity barrister, who now leads every thing in the court of the master of the rolls.

It may be interesting to most of the readers of this magazine to be reminded that the first parliamentary effort of Sir W. Follett was in defence of the Established Church in Ireland. The parliament to which he was first returned assembled, I think, in January, or early in February, 1835, and such was his professional reputation, that every one looked for an early display of his ability—even upon the first debate,—for the nume rical superiority of the Whig party at that time made necessary every exertion of the ability of their opponents. But Sir William was silent until Lord John Russell brought forward that motion which, though it gained him the support of the O'Connell clique at the time, ultimately proved ruinous to the party of the noble lord,-I mean the motion for inquiry into the state of the Irish Church, with the view of applying any surplus of its revenues to the general education of all classes of the people, without reference to religious distinction. With this question Sir W. Follett grappled, and at once took the highest parliamentary ground. Not troubling himself with the mere terms of the motion, or with collateral details, which lawyers are so apt to do, to the wearying of the house, he went straightforward to the popular common-sense view of the question; namely, that it was a great blow aimed at the church, and the church establishment. Passing by less formidable antagonists, he grap pled at once with the speech of Lord John Russell, himself, the mover of the dangerous resolution. Yet he abstained from all passionate invective,

or perhaps this did not so much as occur to his mind. He gave credit to the noble lord for having used milder and less startling language than some of those whose views he was carrying into effect, but he charged him with being, in substance, no less revolutionary than they-with inflaming the wounds which he ought to strive to heal, and with exciting to a still higher degree the melancholy spirit of religious discord and strife which prevailed in Ireland. This speech appeared to make a great impression upon the house, and one of the excabinet ministers, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, immediately rose to answer it, commencing his address with a congratulation of the house upon the forensic talent of the honourable and learned member who had just sat down.

If I may believe a book now before me, which had great vogue at that time, Sir W. Follett was then only in his thirty-second year. However, as there have been some instances, since the invention of typography, of errors having crept into printed books, I will not undertake to guarantee the correctness of the statement. I believe, however, that it was not far wrong. That first speech was made on the 31st of March, 1835, and ever since then, the speeches of Sir W. Follett have ranked with the most important made in the House of Commons. It is my belief, that if he were to devote to politics the study and attention which his profession obliges him to bestow on other matters, he would be

the first man in the House of Commons. The lamented Mr. Perceval stepped from his practice at the bar to the highest political station, and if there be any man of the present day capable of doing the same thing, it is the present solicitor-general.

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Out of the profession he is generally spoken of as, without question, the future lord chancellor. For my part, I must presume to doubt if he would add to his reputation by undertaking that office. His is not that kind of mind, nor that kind of experience, which (if I may venture an opinion upon the subject) is best fitted for the decision of chancery suits. A profound knowledge of equity law-a flexibility and readiness in the application of principles deduced from equity practice-seem the two things most requisite in a chancery judge. wide knowledge of general affairs, and an extensive range of reasoning power, appear really to be rather embarrassments than otherwise. Every one says that Lord Cottenham was, in his court, the best of chancellorspar negotiis nec suprà,-out of his court, his lordship appears to be as dull and dogged as any beef-eater of the millions. I doubt that where Lord Cottenham can be highly competent, Sir W. Follett would appear to advantage. A blunt ivory knife will cut open a book better than a razor. Perhaps there is some analogy with this, in the success of Lord Cottenham. Now the subject of our sketch is particularly distinguished for the refinement of his acuteness.

Time, eleven o'clock, P.M.-The moon is faintly struggling through the halfclosed window-curtains, to mix her pale light with the red glare of a carcel lamp, that stands on a round table. Books, bronzes, statuettes, with some odd-looking oak cabinets in Flemish carving, decorate the walls—manuscripts and rolls of paper-proof sheets and open letters litter the floor. In a large arm-chair, opposite a writingtable, a spitz dog is sleeping, who suddenly springs up and vacates his place as the door opens.

[Enter the sub-editor, followed by Kiffer, the editor's factotum, bearing a huge sack on his shoulder.] "Leave it there-leave it anywhere; how confoundedly early the train arrived to-night."

"Ja, meinherr."

"I wish you had not disturbed me for a little longer; there was nothing so very pressing, I'm sure."

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Ja, meinherr."

"Confound your German stupidity; bring the coffee and the curaçoa, and light the candles."

"Ja-wohl, meinherr."

[Exit Kiffer with solemn step.] "What a noise, to be sure, they are making; hark, that must be Butt; no, it is the editor himself who speaks."

[A voice from without]"I shall therefore not detain you further, gentlemen, but propose at once the health of our excellent and worthy friend, the sub-editor,"-hip, hip, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, hurra-a-a-h.

[The sub. groans audibly and mutters to himself.]

"Very gratifying, no doubt, to know that they are making me the innocent cause of another cooper of Sneyd, while I must to my accursed labour here, in solitude and alone. Confound the noise-who can that be singing?-really these editorial meetings are ill-conducted, disorderly things. Eleven o'clock is quite late enough for any party."

[Enter Kiffer with coffee and liqueur.]

"I say, Kiffer, open that bag, will you?"

"Ich kann es nicht-I must heraus. they are calling for Bishop." [Exit.]

"Bishop! only think, the wretches! burgundy and claret, 34, not good enough but they must wind up with Bishop. Now then for my misfortunes; Lord, what a plethora of labour we have here! The northern mail itself letters, nothing but letters-I detest letters-they require answers. However, here goes a l'ouvrage [Draws the great chair to the table, and upsets the contents of the bag before him.] What strange instincts to be sure, do habits engender--here lie some forty or fifty manuscripts before me; and I'll wager a day's pay, that without reading a line save the title and without further examination than the exterior affords, I'll separate the worthy from the unworthy, the ripe and ruddy fruit of genius, from the rotten and tasteless apple of dulness and stupidity. But the letters; they are indeed something of a puzzle. Here we begin:—

TO THE EDITOR OF THe dublin UNIVERSITY
MAGAZINE.

SIR-It is now four months since I forwarded my "Ode on the Industrious Fleas;" and I perceive that it has not yet appeared in any number of your Magazine. The late editor assured me it should obtain an early insertion, and I am quite at a loss to ascertain the cause of the omission. Is it to appear next month? Yours, E. F.

Cowes, June 10.

DEAR HARRY-Why the devil did you let your political friend pitch into the tariff before I got my little place in the treasury. Sir James looks devilish black at me the last day or two, and suspects me I know; but I swear everywhere it was Butt wrote it, which will, I hope, set every thing right at last.

Yours truly, TIM HENESY.

Albany Chambers, London.

DEAR SIR-Seven pounds and fourten only make eleven-ten by my arithmetic; and if the paper was "longwinded," as your note very courteously remarks, please to observe that the pay is low in proportion. One must water