eleven o'clock, and we were at the Angel at Islington, with the crowd and hubbub then usual on the arrival or departure of a coach. In a twinkling, however, I got into a cab with my portmanteau, and in less than a quarter of an hour was at home, having thus returned safe and sound in wind and limb from "My First Circuit."

Given from my Chambers, on the 8th floor of No. 37 Fig Tree Court, in the Temple, on the 10th day of this present June, 1838.

SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT, Knight,

ATTORNEY-GENERAL.*

THE disappearance from the legal hemisphere of so bright a star as the late Sir William Follett, cast a gloom over the legal profession, and, indeed, over all classes of society capable of appreciating intellectual eminence. He died in his forty-seventh year; filling the high office of Attorney-general; the head and pride of the British Bar; a bright ornament of the senate; in the prime of manhood, and the plenitude of his extraordinary intellectual vigour; in the full noontide of success, just as he had reached the dazzling pinnacle of professional and official distinction. The tones of his low mellow voice were echoing sadly in the ears, his dignified and graceful figure and gesture were present to the eyes, of the bench and bar-when, at the commencement of Michaelmas term, 1845, they re-assembled, with recruited energies, in the ancient inns of court, for the purpose of resuming their laborious and responsible professional duties in Westminster Hall. It was impossible not to think, at such a time, of Sir William Follett, without being conscious of having sustained a grievous, if not an irreparable, loss. Where was he whose name was so lately a tower of strength to suitors; whose consummate logical skill, whose wonderful resources, taxed to the uttermost those of judicial intellect, and baffled and overthrew the strongest who could be opposed to him in forensic war* Blackwood's Magazine, January 1846.

fare? Where, alas, was Sir William Follett? His eloquent lips were stilled in death, his remains were mouldering in the tomb-yes, almost within the very walls of that sacred structure, hallowed with the recollections and associations of centuries, in which his surviving brethren were assembled for worship on Sunday the 2d day of November 1845-the commencement of the legal year-at that period of it when his was, erewhile, ever the most conspicuous and shining figure, his exertions were the most interesting, the most important, his success was at once the most easy, decisive, and dazzling. Yes, there were assembled his brethren, who, with saddened faces and beating hearts, had attended his solemn obsequies in that very temple where was "committed his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” where all, including the greatest and noblest in the land, acknowledged, humbly and mournfully, at the mouth of his grave, that man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain; he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them! Surely these are solemnizing and instructive reflections; and many a heart will acknowledge them to be such, amidst all the din, and glare, and bustle of worldly affairs, in the awful presence of Him who turneth man to destruction, and sayeth, Come again, ye children of men!

When summoned from the scene of his splendid and successful exertions, Sir William Follett was unquestionably the brightest ornament of the British Bar. Immediately afterwards the press teemed with tributes to his memory: some of them characterised by great acuteness and discrimination, several by exaggerated eulogy, and one or two by a harsh disingenuousness amounting to misrepresentation and malevolence. Nothing excited more astonishment among those who had thoroughly known Sir William Follett, than the appearance of these attacks upon his memory, and the bad taste and feeling which alone could have prompted the perpetration of

them, at a moment when the hearts of his surviving relatives and friends were quivering with the first agonies of their severe bereavement; when they had just lost one who had been the pride of their family, the pillar of their hopes, -and who was universally supposed to have left behind him not a single enemy-who had been distinguished for his courteous, mild, and inoffensive character, and its unblemished purity in all the relations of private life. Certain of the strictures here alluded to, were petty, coarse, and uncandid; and with this observation they are dismissed to oblivion. Sir William Follett had undoubtedly his shortcomings, in common with every one of his fellow-men; and, as a small set-off against his many excellences of temper and character, one or two must be glanced at by any one essaying to present to the public, however imperfectly, a just account of this very eminent person. One of his failings formed the chief subject of vituperation-vituperation of the dead!-by the ungracious parties to whom brief reference has just been made; and consisted, in short, in the excessive eagerness to accumulate money, by which it was alleged that the late Sir William Follett was characterised. This charge is certainly not without foundation; but while this frank admission is made, an important consideration ought to accompany it in guiding the judgment of every person of just and generous feeling; and will relieve the memory of the departed from much of the discredit sought to be attached to it.

The life of Sir William Follett appears to have been, from the first, of frail tenure. Could he have foreseen the terrible tax upon his scanty physical resources, which would be exacted by the profession which he was about to adopt, he would probably have abandoned his intentions, justly conscious though he might have been of his superior mental fitness for the Bar, and would have betaken himself to some more tranquil walk of life, which he might have adorned for a long series of years. He

devoted himself, however, to the law, with intense and undivided energy; and, at an early period of his professional career, was compelled to retire for a time from practice, by one of the most serious mischances which can befall humanity—the bursting of a blood vessel in the lungs. Was not this a fearful occurrence? Almost conclusive evidence of the unwise choice which he had made of a profession requiring special strength in that organ? Was it not justly calculated to alarm him for his future safety? And yet, what was he to have done? To have abandoned a profession for which alone he had qualified himself by years of profound and exclusive thought and labour? What Office would, under such circumstances, have insured the life of young Mr Follett, who, with such a fatal flaw in his constitution, was nevertheless following a profession which would hourly attack his most vulnerable part? Poor Follett! who can tell the apprehensions and agonies concerning his safety, to which he was doomed, from the moment of this-his first solemn summons to the grave? What had happened, he too well knew, might happen again at any moment, and hurry him out of life, leaving, in that case, comparatively destitute those whom he tenderly loved-for whom he was bound to providehis widow and children. And for the widow and children of such a man as he knew that he had become, he felt that he ought to make a suitable provision: that those who, after he was gone, were to bear his distinguished name, might be enabled to occupy the position in which he had placed them, with dignity and comfort. Was such an illegitimate source of anxiety to one so circumstanced, and capable of Sir William Follett's superior aspirations ? Was it not abundantly justified by his splendid qualifications and expectations? Why, then, should he not toil severely-exert himself even desperately -to provide against the direful contingency to which his life was subject? Alas! how many ambitious, honourable, high-minded, and fond husbands and fathers are