His Name Was 'a Tower Of Strength,' Which It Was
Delightful To Know That The Adverse Faction Wanted, And
Which inspired
confidence even on the back of the brief of his forsaken junior, who
bore the burden and heat
Of the day for a fifth of the fee which
secured that name. Will posterity ask what were the powers thus
sought, thus prized, thus rewarded, and thus transient? They will be
truly told that he was endowed, in a remarkable degree, with some
moral qualities which smoothed his course and charmed away opposition,
and with some physical advantages which happily set off his
intellectual gifts; that he was blessed with a temper at once gentle
and even; with a gracious manner and a social temperament; that he was
without jealousy of the solid or showy talents of others, and
willingly gave them the amplest meed of praise; that he spoke with all
the grace of modesty, yet with the assurance of perfect mastery over
his subject, his powers, and his audience; and yet they will scarcely
recognise in these excellencies sufficient reasons for his
extraordinary success. To me, the true secret of his peculiar strength
appeared to lie in the possession of two powers which rarely co-exist
in the same mind extraordinary subtlety of perception and as
remarkable simplicity of execution. In the first of these faculties
in the intuitive power of common sense, which is the finest essence of
experience, whereby it attains 'to something of prophetic strain' he
excelled all his contemporaries except Lord Abinger, with whom it was
more liable to be swayed by prejudice or modified by taste, as it was
adorned with happier graces. The perfection of this faculty was
remarkably exemplified in the fleeting visits he often paid to the
trials of causes which he had left to the conduct of his juniors; a
few words, sometimes a glance, sufficed to convey to his mind the
exact position of complicated affairs, and enabled him to decide what
should be done or avoided; and where the interference of any other
moral advocate would have been dangerous, he often rendered good
service, and, which was more extraordinary, never did harm. So his
unrivalled aptitude for legal reasoning, enabled him to deal with
authorities as he dealt with facts; if unprepared for an argument, he
could find its links in the chaos of an index, and make an imposing
show of learning out of a page of Harrison; and with the aid of the
interruptions of the bench, which he could as dexterously provoke as
parry, could find the right clue and conduct a luminous train of
reasoning to a triumphant close. His most elaborate arguments, though
not comparable in essence with those of his chief opponent, Lord
Campbell which, in comprehensive outline, exact logic, felicitous
illustration, and harmonious structure, excelled all others I have
heard were delivered in tones so nicely adapted to the minds and
ears of the judges, with an earnestness so winning, and a confidence
so contagious, that they made a judgment on his side not only a
necessity, but a pleasure.
"The other faculty, to which, in combination with his subtlety of
understanding, the excellence of his advocacy may be attributed, is
one more rarely possessed and scarcely ever in such association
the entire singleness of a mind equally present in every part of a
cause. If the promotion of the interest of the client were an
advocate's highest duty, it would be another name for the exactest
virtue; and inasmuch as that interest is not, like the objects of
zeal, fixed in character, but liable to frequent change, the faculty
of directing the whole power of the understanding to each shifting
aspect of the cause in its minutest shadowings without the guidance of
an inflexible law, is far more wonderful, if far less noble, than a
singleness of devotion to right. It has an integrity of its own, which
bears some affinity to that honesty which Baillie Nichol Jarvie
attributes to his Highland kinsman. Such honesty that is, the entire
devotion of all the faculties to the object for which it was retained,
without the lapse of a moment's vanity or indolence, with unlimited
vision and unceasing activity was Follett's beyond all other
advocates of our time. To the presentment of truth, or sophism, as the
cause might require, he gave his entire mind with as perfect oblivion
of self as the most heroic sufferer for principle. The faculty which
in Gladstone, the statesman, applied to realities and inspired only by
the desire to discover the truth and to clothe it in language,
assumes, in the minds of superficial observers, the air of casuistry
from the nicety of its distinctions and the earnest desire of the
speaker to present truth in its finest shades in Follett, the
advocate, applied indiscriminately to the development of the specious
shows of things as of their essences, wore all the semblance of
sincerity; and, in one sense, deserved it. No fears, no doubts, no
scruples shook him. Of the license which advocacy draws from sympathy
with the feelings of those it represents, he made full use, with
unhesitating power; for his reason, of 'large discourse,' was as
pliable as the affections of the most sensitive nature. Nor was he
diverted from his aim by any figure or fancy: if he neither exalted
his subject by imagination, nor illustrated it by wit, nor softened
its details by pathos, he never made it the subject of vain attempts
at the exhibition of either. He went into the arena, stripped of all
encumbrance, to win, and contended studious only and always of
victory. His presence of mind was not merely the absence of external
distraction, nor the capacity of calling up all energies on an
emergency, but the continued application of them equally to the duty
of each moment. There are few speakers, even of fervid sincerity and
zeal, whose thoughts do not frequently run before or beside the
moment's purpose; whose wits do not sometimes wander on to some other
part of the case than that they are instantly discussing; who do not
anticipate some future effect, or dally with some apprehension of
future peril, while they should consider only the next word or
sentence.
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