It is certain that Mr.

profession which passeth away. Garrow passed both Mr. Erskine and Mr. Gibbs-the latter for nearly ten years before he retired upon the Bench.

In 1827 Mr. Scarlett became Attorney-General* under the Junction Ministry of Mr. Canning; he went out early the following year on Lord Goderich's government being removed; and when the Catholic question was carried, early in 1829, the main ground of conflict between the moderate Whigs and the liberal Tories having been removed, he with Lord Rosslyn and one or two other Whigs took office with the Duke of Wellington. This they did with the full approbation of Lord Grey and the other Opposition chiefs. Lord Fitzwilliam had, indeed, considerably earlier opened a communication, unknown to Sir James Scarlett, with the Duke's government, and recommended his being employed as Attorney-General.

No admittance of the party to any share of power being possible while George IV. reigned and cherished his marked hatred of his former associates and party, little opposition was given to his government for the rest of 1829 and the early part of 1830. As soon as his death was certain to happen in the course of a few weeks, the Whigs prepared again for battle; and the first session of William IV.'s reign passed in fierce party contests. The result of the general election, in which the illustrious Duke at the head of the government exerted no influence whatever to control the returns, displaced his government, and Sir James Scarlett went out with the rest. Lord Rosslyn, having refused office with the new ministers, also retired; but it is worthy of observation that Sir James held his high station of Attorney-General with the stipulation that he was at liberty to vote for Parliamentary Reform when it should

*It is to be observed that he was sworn into office by the same Lord Eldon who had been so tardy in giving him his silk gown, Lord Eldon having remained in office to give some judgments.

be propounded. Mr. Brougham's Reform motion, which stood for the day after Sir H. Parnell's was carried against the government, would in all likelihood have turned out the ministers, and then Sir James Scarlett could not well have been overlooked in the new arrangements of office. But the ministers resigning in the morning, the motion was not brought forward. Nevertheless, the new Attorney and Solicitor-General took their offices with a notice that if a vacancy or vacancies in any of the chief judgeships took place within a few months, they were not to be offended if Lord Lyndhurst and Sir James Scarlett were promoted over their heads. This is certainly the only favour ever bestowed by the Whig party upon their old and faithful and important ally; and it is one to which his sacrifices and his merits amply entitled him. However, he was much displeased with the Lord Chancellor for appointing Lord Lyndhurst to the Exchequer. He was still more annoyed at the extent, regarded by him as full of danger, to which the Reform plan of the new government proceeded; and, from the first of March, when it was brought forward, he was found, with some other Whigs, ranged in opposition to the Whig ministry. Enough has already been said to show how slender the claims of the party upon his adhesion were. But no claim could of course have been allowed to supersede his clear and conscientious opinions upon important points, far removed above the reach of compromise, and never to be settled by mutual concessions for peace and unity's sake. He differed with his former associates on a fundamental question; and if any test be wanted to determine whether that difference was honest or sordid, let it be sought in his whole political life through times past; which exhibits more sacrifices to his principles than that of any other professional man of his eminence, or indeed of any considerable station in the law.

Nothing is more frequent in the heats of faction than

such charges of apostacy. Some of us are old enough to remember when Mr. Burke himself received no other name than the turncoat-the renegade-the apostate. He had differed with his party; they had taken a course which he deemed contrary to their principles; he conceived that, abiding by those principles, he had been abandoned by the Whigs, not they by him. The world, for a while deafened, bewildered, by the clamour, which however did not mislead it, suffered this great and good man to be so run down. It now does his memory justice. It now has learnt the lesson, that of all tyranny, the tyranny of party is the most intolerable. It now knows that men are expected to give up every vestige of freedom in word and in thought who join a faction, and that if they once belong to it, they are to be stamped as apostates from their own principles if they only retain the power of thinking for themselves, and are determined to maintain those principles which the faction for some sordid reason thinks proper to abandon or to betray.

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SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT.

SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT was among the most able and most successful members of the profession; and he united, with an extraordinary capacity for its prosecution, talents of a very high order as a senator;talents rarely found in combination with those of the lawyer, how closely soever the two provinces may, to superficial observers, appear to touch. In truth, if there is much to qualify an able and popular advocate for parliamentary exertion, there is also much to disable him. The niceties of legal arguments are not very level to the comprehension of the multitude, either within or without the walls of the Senate, and the subtle argumentation in which lawyers are prone to indulge is therefore very little suited to the popular taste. An advocate, too, representing his client is apt to be somewhat careless how sorely he fatigues the judge, in urging all points that may by any possibility serve his cause. Even when he addresses a jury, he makes sure of their attention, for they have no choice, because they are sworn to determine, and must therefore hear; besides that, only coming now and then into the box, they are much more patient than men who are doomed daily to hear debate. He is also a good deal above his audience in understanding, generally their superior in station, and thus it happens that the advocate, always secure of a hearing, takes little pains to gain attention, nor at all dreads losing it by his prolixity. Add to this, that he generally enters the House of Commons after his station is established in Westminster Hall, and he is not disposed to court favour in order to set his new position

on a line with that which he has already attained. All these considerations tend to make lawyers somewhat careless both of being interesting and of being brief, when they address the House; and all of these considerations are apt to make them abandon the attempt at rising there, in some disgust at finding themselves undervalued or overlooked. These astute

personages find the meed of popular applause vain and idle, and run back to the chase of surer game, among their natural prey. The failure of lawyers in Parliament is thus not difficult to account for.

He was the son of Captain Follett, by Miss Webb, an Irish lady of Kinsale. In 1790, the health of this gallant officer having been broken by serving in the West Indies, he left the army, and engaged in mercantile pursuits in Devonshire, where he lived, and where he died in his seventy-first year. William was then the eldest surviving son, having been born the 2d December, 1798, at Topsham. His elder brother, a lieutenant in the 43rd regiment, was killed before San Sebastian, in September, 1813, on the very day after he landed in Spain.

William, contrary to the positive, but most gratuitous assertion of periodical writers, had no constitutional weakness in early life, and no want of the very earliest indications of great talents. His own family had formed the highest opinion of his capacity, and in consequence educated him for the bar. He was first sent to the Exeter Grammar School, then under Dr. Lempriere, author of the well-known classical dictionary; and he was afterwards placed under the private tuition of Mr. Hutchinson, curate of Heavitree, near the same city. In 1814 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained till 1818, when he took his bachelor's degree, but he took it with no academical honours, nor did the sciences chiefly cultivated there ever prove attractive to him though he was sufficiently conversant with classical

;