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.
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