expatiate on the beneficial consequences of changes of this

nature.

We are disposed, on the whole, to treat these three Acts as the commencement of an important change in the practice of conveyancing. We shall have many future opportunities of returning to any real difficulties which may be felt in their construction. At present we do not think it to be our duty to attempt to show our learning and ingenuity by picking holes in any of them. This is, after all, a poor exhibition. The legislature has now declared its intention to shorten and simplify deeds, and it is the duty of the profession to carry out that intention.

We have also thought it right to lose no time in placing these Acts, even before they have received the Royal assent, verbatim, before our readers; and this wish has been facilitated by the kindness of their promoters in both Houses of Parliament. They all come into operation from and after the 1st of October, and it will be important for those practically concerned in the transfer of property fully to consider their operation by that time. The profession, as to this, is fully competent to judge for itself. We will merely submit one or two first impressions that occur to us.

By Act No. 1. s. 2. all corporeal hereditaments will lie in grant as well as in livery: this will establish one uniform deed, which is to be stamped as a lease and release. The word "grant," which by s. 4. is not to imply a covenant, will be amply sufficient as an operative word. This deed should commence in the old form, This Indenture. It will be seen that the form in the First Schedule to Act No. 2. is prepared accordingly; and if this be adopted, or any other deed made in pursuance of the Act, or referring thereto (s. 1.), the benefit of the Act No. 2. may be obtained, which is chiefly, that if the words in the First Column of the Second Schedule are used, the words in the Second Column will be implied. This will no doubt at first appear strange to the profession, and there may be a reluctance to adopt; but a little time and reflection will, we think, soon overcome all difficulties, and the forms will speedily come into familiar use. Special clauses will of course still be necessary, and be inserted, as before; but the practitioner will soon see how advantageous it is to have the power of getting the benefit of old and established forms without detailing them in every deed; this will, in many cases, enable him to use his space for any special matter; it will lessen the chance of error and mistake; and, in many cases, it will give a material saving in stamp duty.

Before concluding this article (which has already exceeded its intended limits), it is only an act of bare justice to notice

the obligations which Lord Brougham has again conferred on the great cause of the amendment of the law.

If we consider his Lordship's speech on the 7th of February, 1828, in bringing forward his celebrated motion for an address to the Crown for a commission to inquire into the defects in the laws, and into the measures necessary for removing them, it will be admitted that this speech was never surpassed in the importance of the matters which it brought before Parliament, or in the manner in which they were introduced. The leader of a great party, a powerful opposition, flushed with recent triumph, and pursuing under his guidance that course which soon after opened to them the gates of power, with a name at once endeared to the people and respected by the chiefs of his own party- a leading advocate, moreover, in great practice at the bar, urging on the reform of the law, regardless of any sacrifices that he might thus make:these are only some of the considerations which are calculated to render this work one of the greatest ever accomplished. For it was not only a great and eloquent speech to be heard, read, and admired: its practical effects were far more important. It formed an era in the history of the law: more than any thing else, it paved the way of his party to office; it fixed the Whigs, at any rate for a time, in the hearts of the people of England. It was altogether a grand spectacle, to see great influence used for such purposes, and the righteous cause of the amendment of the law preferred to all others by "the renowned Emir" of the opposition.

After seventeen years' interval we find a second great effort made in the same cause, that interval having been filled up by no mean list of performances; but the distinction between the speech of the 19th of May and all intermediate addresses is, that it is a general statement of the whole matter. We believe the subjects of this second speech to be not inferior in importance to those of the first, and it will be seen that so far they have been attended with the same success.

Neither, as to the bills to which we have been adverting, should we in fairness withhold their meed of praise to others. We have particular gratification in noticing the conduct of the Lord Chancellor as to them; he gave them throughout a Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 272.

fair and candid support. A word from him would have stopped them in any of their stages; that word, however, was never spoken, and he has thus, in our opinion, given another instance of that true greatness which will long distinguish his name.

position of these Bills.

Bills No. 1. and No. 3. has passed all but its

And this brings us to the present At the time at which we write, the await the Royal assent; and No. 2. last stage. We are therefore justified in considering them as law. They passed the House of Lords, having been there much considered by that illustrious phalanx of lawyers who now adorn that House. They have passed without one dissentient opinion having been expressed; they have also received the approbation of a large portion of the conveyancing branch of the profession. Under these circumstances, we have an earnest conviction that they will be received with fairness and candour. We are glad to see that the principle of these Bills has been recognised by the present ministry, in the Bill relating to Leases in Ireland, of which notice was given by Lord Devon, and which, as we understand, is to be prepared according to the principle of Lord Brougham's Bills; and we are bound to give them this further credit, that no revenue objection was thrown in their way in our opinion, a resolve as wise as it was liberal.

We must not conclude this article without observing that another important Act, in connection with the above, is on the eve of passing-the "Act to render the Assignment of Terms unnecessary;" but as this does not come into operation until 1846, we shall have time to devote an article to its consideration in our next Number.

436

ART. XII.-SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT.

A GREAT light of our legal firmament has unhappily gone out, and the event seems to impose upon us the duty of recording its splendour and tracing its course while it continued to shine forth.

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. But nothing can surpass the gross ignorance of some who on the present occasion have handled this subject. It has actually been said by some one of a class manifestly wholly unacquainted with both the Bar and the Senate, that only two exceptions have been known of men succeeding in Parliament after establishing their reputation at the bar; as if Sir Samuel Romilly were no lawyer; as if Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham had never been known as leaders of the bar; as if Lord Plunket had not held the very first place in both courts and parliaments; as if Lord Denman had failed either in the one scene or the other. The list might be lengthened by going back to the Dunnings, the Thurlows, the Lees, the Wedderburns, the Floods, the Murrays; but the thoughtless writers we allude to, of course are still more ignorant of the times before their own, than of the most universally known facts of the present day. We, however, admit the general rule to be the other way, and that Sir William Follett is to be mentioned only as augmenting by one remarkable instance the considerable number of the exceptions. This is calculated to lend his history an additional interest, an interest not confined to the circle of professional men.

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 seventyfirst year. William was then the eldest surviving son, having been born the 2d December, 1798, at Topsham. His elder brother, a lieutenant in the 43d regiment, was killed before San Sebastian, in September, 1813, on the very day after he landed in Spain.