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 manoeuvre, 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
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