m 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 inst