Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846
"I don't exactly know how I stand in the Queen's Bench to-morrow morning," said he, at the consultation late over-night – "but I fear that that long troublesome case of the – Railway will be brought on by – at the sitting of the court. I'm afraid I can't get him to put it off – but I'll try; and if he won't, I may yet be able to settle the case before he has got far into it – for it will be very strange if all their proceedings are right."
On this slender chance rested the likelihood of Sir William's attendance at the Privy Council. The next morning at ten o'clock, beheld all the counsel on both sides ready for action.
"You're not going to bring on the – case this morning, are you?" whispered Sir William Follett, as soon as he had taken his seat, to his opponent who was arranging his papers.
"I am indeed, and no mistake whatever about it."
"Can't we bring it on to-morrow, or some day next week? It would greatly oblige me – I really have scarcely read my papers, and, besides, want to be elsewhere."
"I'll see what my clients say," – and then he consulted them, and resumed – "No – my people are peremptory."
"Very well. Then keep your eyes wide open. I must bring you down as soon as possible, for I want to be elsewhere."
"Ah – I must take my chance about that" – then, turning round to an experienced and learned junior, he whispered – "You hear what Follett says? – Are we really all right?"
"Oh, pho! never mind him – we are as right as possible."
A few moments afterwards, up rose – , and soon got into his case, and very soon, also, to the end of it. The case had not been heard more than half an hour, Sir William Follett at once attentively listening to his opponent, and hastily glancing over his own papers, when he rose very quietly, and said – "If my learned friend will pardon me, I think, my Lord, I can save the court a very long and useless enquiry – for there is clearly a fatal objection in limine to these proceedings."
"Let us hear what it is," said the court.
Sir William had completely checkmated his opponent! A statutory requisition had not been complied with; and in less than ten minutes' time the enemy were all prostrate – their expensive and elaborate proceedings all defeated – and that, too, permanently, unless on acceding to the terms which Sir William Follett dictated to them, and which, it need hardly be observed, were somewhat advantageous to his own client!
"Really this is too bad, Follett," might have been heard whispered by his opponent, as the next case was called in.
"Not at all – why didn't you let it stand over as I asked you?"
"Oh – you would have done just the same then as you have now."
"I don't know that," replied Sir William Follett with a significant smile. "But why won't your people be more careful?" And then turning to his junior, said – "Now for the Privy Council!" And all this with such provoking, easy, smiling nonchalance!
Heaven forbid that any thing here said should favour the attempt to defeat justice by technical objections; but there is, at the same time, much vulgar error on that subject, grounded on reasons which would tend to subvert all rules of law and legal procedure whatever. In the case above mentioned, the legislature had thought fit to impose on applicants for redress under the statute in question, a duty, which through haste or negligence had been overlooked, and which Sir William Follett's clients had a perfect right to take advantage of, as soon as his acuteness had detected it. To return, however. No member of the bar, let his experience and skill have been what they might, was ever opposed to Sir William Follett without feeling, as has been already intimated, the necessity of the greatest possible vigilance and research to encounter his boundless resources; his dangerous subtlety and acuteness in detecting flaws, and raising objections; his matchless art in concealing defects in his own case; and building up, with easy grace, a superstructure equally unsubstantial and imposing, and defeating all attempts to assail or overthrow it. Even very strong heads would be often at fault, conscious that they were the victim of some subtle fallacy, which yet they could not then and there detect and expose; and by their hazy and inconsistent efforts to do so, only supplied additional materials for the use of their astute and skilful enemy, to whom nothing ever seemed to come amiss; who converted every thing into ingredients of success; whom scarce any surprise or mischance could defeat or overthrow. A very short time before he withdrew from practice, he was engaged at Liverpool, whither he had gone upon a special retainer, in a very intricate and important ejectment case.
Unexpectedly he discovered, when about half-way through the case, that his client (the plaintiff) had omitted to serve a notice upon the defendant's attorney to produce a certain critical document, at the contents of which it was necessary to get, in order to make out the plaintiff's case. The objection was promptly taken by his opponent – and to the dismay of Sir William's clients. Not so with him, however.
"You have not given a notice to produce them, eh?" he calmly whispered to his client, and was answered with a disturbed air in the negative; and all the court saw that Sir William was in the very jaws of a non-suit.
"You ought to have done so, but it does not much signify," said he, very quietly – "what's the name of the defendant's attorney?" and, on being told it, that gentleman, doubtless chuckling with delight in his anticipated triumph, was somewhat astounded by being suddenly called as a witness by Sir William Follett; who coolly asked him to produce the document in question – and on his refusal, with one or two artful questions, which completely concealed his real object, elicited the fact that he had no such document, had searched every where for it, both in his own office, and among his clients' papers, and elsewhere, but in vain.
"Now, then, my lord," said Sir William Follett, "I am entitled to give secondary evidence of its contents!"
The Judge assented.
Sir William extracted from his own witness all that was necessary – and out of the nettle danger plucking the flower safety, won the verdict. Every one, however, who has had opportunities of observing, can give many instances of Sir William Follett's extraordinary tact and readiness in encountering unexpected difficulty, and defeating an opponent by interposing successive unthought-of obstacles. In the most desperate emergencies, when the full tide of success was arrested by some totally unlooked-for impediment, Sir William Follett's vast practical knowledge, quickness of perception, unerring sagacity, and immoveable self-possession, enabled him, without any apparent effort or uneasiness, to remove that impediment almost as soon as it was discovered, and conduct his case to a triumphant issue. He was, indeed, the very perfection of a practical lawyer. Whatever he did, he did as well as even his most exacting client could have wished – he won the battle, won it with little apparent effort, and won it with grace and dignity of demeanour. A gentleman felt proud of being represented by such an advocate – who never descended into any thing approaching even the confines of vulgarity, coarseness, or personality – who lent even to the flimsiest case a semblance of substance and strength – whose consummate and watchful adroitness placed weak places quite out of the sight and reach of the shrewdest opponent, and never perilled a good case by a single act of incaution, negligence, rashness, or supererogation. When necessary, he would prove a case barely up to the point which would suffice to secure a decision in his favour, and then leave it – equally before the court, and a jury – the result afterwards showing with what consummate judgment he had acted in running the risk – the latent difficulties to have been afterwards encountered which he had avoided, the collateral interests which he had shielded from danger. He possessed that sort of intuitive sagacity which enabled him to see safety at the first instant of its existence – to be confident of having the judgment of the court, or the verdict of the jury, when others deeply interested and concerned in the cause imagined that they were making no way whatever. "Now, I've knocked him," his opponent, "down" – he would say at such a moment to his junior – "don't let him get up again! I must go off to the House of Lords – and will come back if you want me! But mind, if he attempt to do so or so – to put in such and such a paper, on no account allow it; send for me, and fight till I come." He possessed, to an extraordinary degree, the power of rapidly transferring his undivided and undisturbed attention to every thing, great and small, which could be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most obscure and perplexing parts of a case – a touch of his master-hand disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the case, and which at once dissolved the difficulty. Whether acting on the offensive or defensive, he was equally characterised by the great qualities essential to successful advocacy; but perhaps, when acting on the offensive, he displayed more formidable powers. He tripped up the heels of the most wary and experienced antagonists, just when they imagined themselves in the very act of throwing him. It was almost useless to quote a "case" against him. Though the party doing so deemed it precisely in point in his favour, and on that ground was stopped by the court from proceeding further, Sir William Follett would ask for the case; and rising up, after a momentary glance at it, show that it was perfectly distinguishable from that before the court, and, in a few minutes' time, would be interrupted by the court, with – "We think, Mr – , that you had better resume your argument!" If, on such occasions, Sir William's opponent were not a ready and dextrous legal logician, his client would wish that he had secured Sir William Follett. His power of drawing distinctions and detecting analogies – and that, too, on the spur of the moment – was almost unequalled. It was in vain for an opponent to feel that the suggested distinction was without a difference – he could not prove it to be so – he could not demonstrate the fallacy which had been imposed on even a strong court by that exquisite astuteness which, however sinister, was carried off by a charming air of frankness and confidence in the validity of the distinction. On such an occasion, directly the cause was over he would turn round and say, laughingly, to his discomfited opponent, "You haven't your wits about you this morning – why didn't you quote such and such case?" or "say so and so?" Such things were never said in an unpleasant manner – never truculently – never triumphantly – but simply with a good-humoured, cheerful air of badinage, which, so far from irritating you, took off the edge of vexation, and set you almost laughing at yourself for having suffered yourself to be so completely circumvented.
While thus paying a just tribute to the skill and wonderful resources of this eminent advocate, another of his great merits, which shall be noticed, will afford an opportunity for doing justice to the junior bar, with reference to the invaluable, and – to the public – often totally unperceived, assistance which they afford to their leaders. Sir William Follett was pre-eminently characterised by the rapidity with which he availed himself of the suggestions and labours of others. A whisper – a line or two – would suffice to suggest to him a truly admirable and conclusive argument, which he instantly elaborated as if he had prepared it deliberately beforehand in his chamber; and he would put the point with infinitely greater cogency than could have been exhibited by him who suggested it, and defend it from the assaults of his opponents and the bench with truly admirable readiness and ingenuity. He exhibited great judgment and discrimination, however, on these occasions. A false or doubtful point he quietly rejected in limine, and would afterwards point out to him who had suggested it, the impolicy of adopting it. Sir William Follett, as is the case with all eminent leaders, was under very great obligations, in his successful displays, to the learning and skill of his juniors, and of the gentlemen who practise under the bar as special pleaders. It is to them that is intrusted the responsible and critical duty of preparing and advising upon pleadings, and shaping them in the way in which they ought to be presented in court. Their "opinions" and "arguments" are often of the greatest possible value – often very masterly; and no one more highly estimated, or was more frequently and largely indebted to them, than Sir William Follett; but who could do such complete justice to them and so suddenly – as he? A hasty glance over, in court, such an analysis of pleadings, or affidavits, or legal documents of any kind, as has been spoken of – in a cause to which he had been, up to that moment, entirely a stranger – would suffice to put him in full possession of the true bearings of the most complicated case; and his own great learning, surpassing power of arrangement, and masterly argumentation, would do the rest. If he were taken quite unawares in such a case, and could not possibly procure its postponement, an instant's whisper with a junior – a moment's glance at his papers – would make him apparently master of the case; and, by some unexpected adroit manœuvre, he would often contrive to throw the labouring oar upon his opponent – and then, from him, would acquire that knowledge of the facts of the case which Sir William Follett rarely failed to turn to his own advantage, so as to secure him success. Great as were his natural endowments, how could incessant exercise, during twenty years' hourly conflict with the ablest of his brethren and of the bench, fail of developing his splendid energies to the uttermost, even up to a point of which we may conceive as little short of perfection? The strength of his reasoning faculties was equalled, if not exceeded, by that of his memory, which was equally susceptible, tenacious, and ready; qualities these, which, as Dugald Stewart has observed, are rarely united in the same person,4 and which, in the case of an advocate, give him immense advantages; while he possessed that accurate practical knowledge which enabled him to detect the minutest errors in the conduct of a cause, his comprehensive grasp of mind enabled him to take in the whole of the greatest cause, with all its dependencies; and while he fixed his own eye, with unwavering steadfastness, on the object which he had in view, he could lead his opponent and keep him far away from his; and address himself to every passing humour of the judicial mind, supporting favourable, and repelling adverse intimations, with reasons so plausible as to appear absolutely conclusive. Whoever might forget facts, or lose the drift of the argument, Sir William Follett never did; and when he had the last word, he was almost always irresistible. He required, for the purposes of justice, to be followed by a watchful and strong-headed judge, who could detect the cunning fallacy, or series of fallacies, which had led the jury quite astray from the real points – the true merits of the case; and even such a person was often unable to remove the impression which had been produced by the subtle and persuasive advocate whose voice had preceded his. That voice was one indeed lovely to listen to. It was not loud, but low and mellow, insinuating its faintest tones into the ear, and filling it with gentle harmony. His utterance was very distinct – a capital requisite in a speaker – and he had the art of varying his tones, so as to sustain the attention of both judges and juries for almost any length of time. His person and attitudes, also, were most prepossessing. Their chief characteristics were a calmness and dignity which never disappeared in even the most exciting moments of contest, and of irritability, and provoking interruption. Woe, indeed, to one who ventured to interrupt him! However plausible, cogent, or even just, might be the suggestion thrown in by his adversary, Sir William Follett contrived to make it tell terribly against him, either harmonising it with his own case, or showing it to be utterly inconsistent with that of the interrupting party. – Sir William Follett, who was above the middle size, always stood straight upright, as every one ought to do while addressing either judge or juries. He seldom used his left hand in speaking, but the play of his right hand was very graceful, easy, and natural. His countenance was by no means handsome, yet of very striking expression – decisively indicative of great intellectual power, particularly about the forehead, which was very strongly developed. His eyes were grey, rather small, and deep-set; but they had a power of riveting the attention of any one whom he was addressing, particularly in public. You felt him to be a man whom you could neither neglect nor trifle with; who was addressing your intellect in weighty words, fathoming your intentions, and detecting your inclinations and prepossessions, and leading you in some given direction with gentle but irresistible force. He would often startle you with the boldness of his propositions, but never till he had contrived, somehow or other, to predispose you in favour of that view of the case which he was presenting. He had a most seductive smile; truth, candour, and gentleness seemed to beam from it upon you; and you were convinced that he felt perfect confidence in the goodness of his cause. He evinced a sort of intuitive sagacity, in adapting himself to the character and mode of thinking of those whom he addressed. If he were standing before four judges, all of different but decided characters – and all continually interrupting him with questions and suggestions, a close experienced observer could detect, in full play, in this wily advocate, the quality which has just been mentioned. He was never irritable, or disrespectful to the bench, however trying their interruptions; but calm determination was always accompanied with courteous deference for judicial authority. It is believed that no one ever heard a sharp expression fall on Sir William Follett from the bench. Foreigners coming to our courts, have frequently expressed admiration at his tone and bearing, as calm, graceful, and dignified, even though what he said could not be understood by them. His language was chaste, simple, and vigorous, but never ornate. He always came direct to the point; and the severest critics could find no fault in his diction. If he had read extensively, his speeches never bore witness of that fact; for he was, perhaps, never heard to use a quotation, either in verse or prose – except, of course, in the latter instance, books of legal authority, treatises, and reports of cases. Of fancy, of imagination, he appeared quite destitute. If originally possessed of any, it must for many years have been overpowered and extinguished, by the incessant and exclusive exercise of his memory and reasoning powers, for the purposes of business. Yet was he capable, on great and interesting occasions, when addressing either the full court or a jury, of riveting the attention and exciting the emotions of his hearers. Trickery, however compact and strong its meshes, he tore to pieces contemptuously, and with scarce an effort; nothing could escape his penetrating eye; it detected those faint vanishing traces of fraud, which were invisible to all other eyes. If there be genius in advocacy, Sir William Follett was undoubtedly a man of genius; and genius may perhaps be taken to signify great natural powers, accidentally directed – or, a disposition of nature, by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment. What intellectual qualifications and resources are not requisite to constitute a first-rate advocate? If the Duke of Wellington has a genius for military affairs, so had Sir William Follett for advocacy – and genius of a very high order, as will be testified by all those before whom, or on whose behalf, he exhibited it – alike by clients or judges – as by opponents. If he were a very subtle sophist himself, he was himself one on whom no sophistry could impose. It fled before the penetrating glance of his aquiline eye. Faculties such as his must have secured him eminence in any pursuit or walk in life to which he might have devoted himself; particularly to the military profession, to which it is believed he always had a strong inclination. Who can doubt that if his lot had been placed from the first in political life, he would quickly have become pre-eminent in the senate, and as a statesman? Who that knew him, but would pronounce him to have been pre-eminently fit for political life, to govern men of intellect, to deal with great affairs and mighty interests – to detect and discomfit the adversaries of peace and order, to vindicate the laws, and uphold the best interests of society? All this he might have been; sed dîs aliter visum– he devoted himself, heart and soul, throughout life, to the labours of the bar, and the acquisition by them of a rapid and large fortune, and official distinction. In all these aims he must have succeeded to his heart's content; for he was for many years the most distinguished and popular of advocates; he became the Queen's Attorney-general, and died in the prime of life, leaving behind him a fortune of some two hundred thousand pounds. That great class of persons who constituted his clients, will always remember his brilliant and successful exertions with gratitude. His brethren who were opposed to him, heartily acknowledge the pre-eminence of his abilities and professional acquirements; and they, as well as the junior bar, who for years watched his brilliant exertions, must acknowledge that the one in struggling with him, and the other in witnessing those struggles, have witnessed an instructive exhibition of forensic excellence – a model of advocacy. To prepare for a contest with Sir William Follett, and to contend with him, called forth all a man's energies, and formed a severe and salutary discipline for the strongest. "Their antagonist was their helper: they that wrestled with him, strengthened their nerves, and sharpened their skill: that conflict with difficulty obliged them to an intimate acquaintance with their object, and compelled them to consider it in all its relations, and would not suffer them to be superficial."5 In him they saw daily in exercise, many of the greatest qualities of advocacy – and beheld it triumphing over every imaginable kind end degree of obstacle end difficulty. He showed them how to maintain the bearing of gentlemen, in the moments of hottest exasperation and provocation which can arise in forensic warfare. He taught them how to look on success undazzled – to bear it with modesty of demeanour, and subordination of spirit. He exhibited to them the inestimable value of early acquiring accurate and extensive local knowledge – of being thoroughly imbued with the principles of jurisprudence, and habituating the mind to close and correct reasoning. The traces of his surpassing excellence in these matters, are now to be found nowhere but in the volumes of Law Reports, where the essence of his innumerable masterly arguments will be found collected and preserved by gentlemen of patient attention and learning competent for the task, and on whose modest but valuable labours will hereafter depend all that posterity will know of Sir William Follett. These are the legitimate records of his intellectual triumph; as are the prosperous circumstances in which he has left his family, to them a solid and noble testimonial of his affectionate devotion to their interests. Their fortune was the purchase of his life's blood. The acquisition of that fortune absorbed the whole of his time, and of his energies; it deprived him of thousands of opportunities for relaxation and enjoyment, and also – it must be added – for the exercise of virtues which probably he possessed, but gave himself little or no time for calling into action – of those virtues which elevate and adorn the individual, while they benefit our fellow-creatures and society – for performing the duties which God Almighty has imposed upon his creatures, proportionately to their endowments and opportunities, himself telling us, that to whom much is given, of him shall much be required. To the young, eager, and ambitious lawyer, the contemplation of Sir William Follett's career is fraught with instruction. It will teach him the necessity of moderation, in the pursuit of the distinctions and emoluments of his profession. By grasping at too much often every thing is lost. Was not Sir William Follett's life one uninterrupted scene of splendid slavery, the pressure of which at length broke him down in the meridian of his days? Had he been able to resist the very strong temptations by which he was assailed – temptations, too, appealing powerfully to his love of family and offspring – a long life's evening of tranquillity, of unspeakable enjoyment, might have rewarded a day of great, yet not excessive, labour. He might also have devoted his powerful talents to the public benefit, in such a way as to secure the lasting gratitude and admiration of posterity, by remedying some great existing defect in his country's jurisprudence, by making some solid contribution to the safeguards of the constitution. But did he ever do so? All his great experience, talents, and learning, might never have existed, for any trace of them remaining in the records of his country's constitution. What page in the statute-book attests his handiwork? And what did he ever do to advance the interests of the profession to which he belonged? These are questions asked with sorrowful sincerity and reluctance, and with every disposition to make the amplest allowances for those failings of Sir William Follett, which undoubtedly detracted somewhat from his excellence and eminence. He was a man of modest, mild, inoffensive character, who spoke ill of, and did harm to, no one; but, at the same time, was not distinguished by that active and energetic benevolence, liberality, and generosity, which secure for the memory of their exhibitant, ardent, enduring gratitude and reverence. His excellence was of a negative, rather than a positive kind. He did harm to no one, when he might have done so with impunity, and was possibly sometimes tempted to do so; but then he did not do good, at all events, to the extent which might have been expected from him. He was, however, by no means of a mean or selfish nature; but in his excessive, and to a certain extent pardonable, eagerness to make what he deemed a suitable provision for himself and his family, gave himself the appearance of being comparatively indifferent to the interests or welfare of others. It is, however, only fair to his memory to acknowledge, that legal eminence is too often liable to the same imputations – that professional pursuits have certainly a strong tendency to warp amiable and generous natures – to keep the eye of ambition, amidst the intense fires of rivalry and opposition, fixed exclusively upon one object – the interest and advancement of the individual. Nothing can effectually control or counteract this tendency, but a lively and constant sense of religious principle; which enlarges the heart till it can love our neighbour as ourself, which brightens the present with the hopes of the future, which purifies our corrupt nature, and elevates its grovelling earthward tendencies by the contemplation of an eternal state of being dependent upon our conduct in this transient state of trial. Who can tell the extent to which these and similar considerations are present to the minds of the dying great ones of the earth, who, suddenly plucked from amidst the dazzling scenes of successful ambition, are laid prostrate upon the bed of death – their pale faces turned to the wall, with hereafter alone in view, and under an aspect equally new and awful? Let us, therefore, be wise, and be wise in time, nor haughtily disregard the earnest voice of warning, however humble and obscure may be the quarter whence it comes.
Sir William Follett belonged to a respectable family in Devonshire, and was born on the 2d December 1798. In 1814 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of B.A. in 1818, without any attempt to obtain honours; quitting college in this latter year, and entering the Inner Temple, he prosecuted the study of the law in the chambers of eminent practitioners, where he continued for three years – and then practised for about three years as a special pleader. He was called to the bar in 1824, and went the western circuit, but for one or two years was much disheartened by his want of success. He expressed, on one occasion, his readiness to accept of the place of police magistrate, if it were offered! His progress was, soon afterwards, signal, and all but unprecedentedly rapid. He was appointed Solicitor-general in 1834, while yet behind the bar, and in 1835 was returned for Exeter, for which place he sate till his death. He quitted office with Sir Robert Peel in 1835, but returned with him to it in 1841, and became Attorney-general in 1844, on the promotion of Sir Frederick Pollock to the chief seat in the Court of Exchequer. For several years before Sir William Follett's decease, his constitution, never of the strongest, was broken by his incessant and severe labours; and in 1844, having been obliged to give up practice altogether, he went to Italy at the close of the session – having attended at the bar of the House of Lords, to lead for the Crown in the O'Connell case. He was, however, quite unfit for the task. His spine was then so seriously affected, that he was obliged to sit upon a raised chair while addressing the House, the Chancellor and the other Lords, out of great consideration for the distinguished and enfeebled speaker, moving down to the lower end of the House, close to the bar, in order to occasion him as little exertion and fatigue as possible. He did not speak long, and the effort greatly exhausted him; and it was not without difficulty, owing to something like partial paralysis of the lower extremities, that he could walk from the House. He returned from the Continent in March 1845, a little better than when he had gone, and endeavoured to resume the discharge of such of his less onerous, professional, and official duties as admitted of their being attended to at his own house. He continued to listen to patent cases, attended by counsel, till within a short period of his being finally disabled; but every one saw with pain the total exhaustion under which he was suffering. Finding himself rapidly declining, in May 1845, he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, proffering the resignation of his office of Attorney-general.