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 been at this moment brightly adorning. He
devoted himself, however, to the law, with intense and undivided energy;
and, at a very 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--it is believed, the bursting of a bloodvessel
in the lungs. Was not this a very fearful occurrence--was it not 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 his first solemn summons to the grave, on the occasion alluded to?
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
provide--his 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, an