ant of its existence--to be confident of having the judgment
of the court, or the verdict of the jury, when others deeply interested
and concerned in the cause imagined that they were making no way
whatever. "Now, I've knocked him," his opponent, "down"--he would say at
such a moment to his junior--"don't let him get up again! I must go off
to the House of Lords--and will come back if you want me! But mind, if
he attempt to do so or so--to put in such and such a paper, on no
account allow it; send for me, and fight till I come." He possessed, to
an extraordinary degree, the power of rapidly transferring his undivided
and undisturbed attention to every thing, great and small, which could
be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most
obscure and perplexing parts of a case--a touch of his master-hand
disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with
beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had
not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the
case, and which at once dissolved the difficulty. Whether acting on the
offensive or defensive, he was equally characterised by the great
qualities essential to successful advocacy; but perhaps, when acting on
the offensive, he displayed more formidable powers. He tripped up the
heels of the most wary and experienced antagonists, just when they
imagined themselves in the very act of throwing him. It was almost
useless to quote a "_case_" against him. Though the party doing so
deemed it precisely in point in his favour, and on that ground was
stopped by the court from proceeding further, Sir William Follett would
ask for the case; and rising up, after a momentary glance at it, show
that it was perfectly distinguishable from that before the court, and,
in a few minutes' time, would be interrupted by the court, with--"We
think, Mr ----, that you had better resume your argument!" If, on such
occasions, Sir William's opponent were not a ready and dextrous legal
logician, his client would wish that he had secured Sir William Follett.
His power of drawing distinctions and detecting analogies--and that,
too, on the spur of the moment--was almost unequalled. It was in vain
for an opponent to _feel_ that the suggested distinction was without a
difference--he could not _prove_ it to be so--he could not demonstrate
the fallacy which had been imposed on even a strong court by that
exquisite astuteness which,