ence. He died in his forty-seventh year; filling
the great office of her Majesty's Attorney-general; the head and pride
of the British Bar; a bright ornament of the senate; in the prime of
manhood, and the plenitude of his extraordinary intellectual vigour; in
the full noontide of success, just as he had reached the dazzling
pinnacle of professional and official distinction. The tones of his low
mellow voice were echoing sadly in the ears, his dignified and graceful
figure and gesture were present to the eyes, of the bench and bar--when,
at the commencement of last Michaelmas term, they re-assembled, with
recruited energies, in the ancient inns of court, for the purpose of
resuming their laborious and responsible professional exertions in
Westminster Hall. It was impossible not to think, at such a time, of Sir
William Follett, without being conscious of having sustained a grievous,
if not an irreparable, loss. Where was he whose name was so lately a
tower of strength to suitors; whose consummate logical skill--whose
wonderful resources--taxed to the uttermost those of judicial intellect,
and baffled and overthrew the strongest who could be opposed to him in
forensic warfare? Where, alas, was Sir William Follett? His eloquent
lips were stilled in death, his remains were mouldering in the
tomb--yes, almost within the very walls of that sacred structure,
hallowed with the recollections and associations of centuries, in which
his surviving brethren were assembled for worship on Sunday the 2d day
of November 1845--the commencement of the present legal year--at that
period of it when _his_ was erewhile ever the most conspicuous and
shining figure, _his_ exertions were the most interesting, the most
important, _his_ success was at once the most easy, decisive, and
dazzling. Yes, there were assembled his brethren, who, with saddened
faces and beating hearts, had attended his solemn obsequies in that very
temple where was "committed his body to the ground, earth to earth,
ashes to ashes, dust to dust," where all, including the greatest and
noblest in the land, acknowledged, humbly and mournfully, at the mouth
of his grave, _that man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth
himself in vain; he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather
them_! Surely these are solemnizing and instructive reflections; and
many a heart will acknowledge them to be such, amidst all the din, and
glare, and bustle of worldly affairs, in the awfu