TALFOIIRD'S SUPPLEMENT TO VACATION RAMBLES. * GREATER poets and greater lawyers,
keener pleaders and closer reasoners, than the late Mr. Justice Talfourd, might not be difficult to find ; though the combination of such genius, accomplishment, and special learning, is very rare, and would account for his repu- tation. It was not these things, however, which gave Talfourd his peculiar hold upon the public mind, and produced the profound sensation caused by his death, but his wide and genial sympathy with men as man. Never did the hacknied or rather household quotation from the Roman poet apply more closely to a human being than to Thomas Noon Talfourd : rarely has such fortune at- tended upon a man in the closing act, which according to Solon marks the happy or miserable life ; for he was not only painlessly removed in the discharge of one of the highest duties of a citizen, but "goodness, moving in a larger sphere than justice," raised his last address above the exposition of social rights to the vindication of the claims of human nature. In this singular peculiarity of Talfourd's disposition, his very deficiency contributed to his pre- eminence. The want of depth and strength in his intellectual cha- racter, which stopped him from advancing to the higher pinnacles of greatness, gave a milder tone and a wider reach to his genial qualities. What harderjudgments would have passed by un- noticed, was welcomed by Talfourd, not for its merit but its con- nexion with humanity. This posthumous volume of a hasty family tour to Naples, Rome, and Florence, by way of Paris and Marseilles, is through- out an illustration of his character. It was undertaken as the only opportunity he might have to show his eldest daughter the Con- tinent; for the claims of younger children—too young to profit by the tour, too old to be left to a " cheerless holiday "—seemed to mark it as his last "ramble." The journey was mostly made by diligence, for in 1846 French railways were few ; and the frequent discomforts which to numbers in a lower sphere than Mr. Ser- geant Talfourd would have called forth whole pages of lamenta- tions, are borne cheerfully as a feature of travel, while every cir- cumstance however slight is made a source of pleasure. When the accommodation combines with the scenery, as in the steam trip from Marseilles to Naples, the geniality of the man shows it- self not in obtrusive praise but deep enjoyment. A fellow tra- veller, or even a passing stranger, develops the kind and consi- derate nature of Talfourd, as far removed from awkward fami- ' Supplement to " Vacation Rambles"; consisting of Recollections of a Tour through France, to Italy, and Homeward by Switzerland, in the Vacation of 1816. By T. N. Talfourd. Published by Moxon.
liarity as from hollow condescension. Sterne exercised his power , of pathos upon a dead ass ; Talfourd leans to living humanity. Here, at Sion, is an unaffected trait of passing sympathy, which if the prisoner knew his greeter would raise his pride—his heart was gladdened already.
" Returning from this noiseless solitude of the great castle to the crowded town, a little incident—hardly incident—affected us with a vain pity. In a narrow alley lending into the main street, we met a party of four soldiers, with drawn swords, conveying a man to prison; a slender bright-com- plexioned stripling, who walked bareheaded by himself, having two soldiers before and two behind him. He moved with a quick step and a dauntless air, and looked steadfastly at us as we approached him on the flinty hill we were descending. His expression of countenance so resembled that of a per- son eyeing another with the desire of recognition, that I involuntarily in- clined my head and waved my hand to answer his earnest look : and I have rarely seen a face so lighted up with grateful expression as his when he held up his manacled hands, with a smile as if in apology for not returning the greeting. It was the look of a moment : the little procession turned directly towards the entrance of the gaol, and we saw him no more; but there was something strangely affecting in this silent interchange of courtesy with a nature never to be understood, and in this pity for suffering we could never even guess at. Whether the prisoner was about to endure a short confine- ment for some slight transgression, or was wrongly or rightly charged with a grievous offence, we shall never know ; but the heart could not be utterly depraved which was capable of animating such an expression of gratitude for the slight token of a foreign stranger's imperfect sympathy."
Another feature in this little volume is the author's truthful- ness and love of nature. Some of the most celebrated scenes in landscape and art passed before him—Genoa the Superb, the Bay of Naples, Herculaneum, Rome ; as well as of the most renowned productions of art—St. Peter's, the collections of the Vatican, the Ducal Gallery at Florence, the ruins of Rome, and the mediaeval architecture of that city and of several other cities. To mere good-nature prone to fall in with the ideas of others, or unchecked by critical judgment, all these things would furnish a theme for panegyric. Talfourd records the exact impression they made upon him ; the critic rendering his reasons. This is his first glance at Florence.
" After that water, cutlets, and coffee had repaired the ravages of our two nights' journey, we went out to look at a city which bore a name that had been to us almost a spell. But my vision of marble palaces, beside a brim- ming translucent river, interspersed with groves of myrtles and orange-trees, was soon dispelled. I saw, instead of these, lofty ranges of uniform houses, with broad paved causeways; public buildings or 4iant mansions, massive, towering, and blank-walled, looking more like prisons than the abodes of gayety andjoy a river in a low bed, embanked by brick walls, not clear, nor even affluent, disfigured by occasional shelves of mud, and crossed by some handsome but not beautiful bridges ; and although the two palatial galleries, unfolding their treasures in bright succession, afterwards gave to Florence the interest which triumphant art sheds about it, I could never realize in it the idea of a city devoted to poetic luxury. The square of the Duomo, ennobled by fine statues, seemed to me too small an area for those marble majesties, and scarcely worthy of the Cathedral. The interior of that church, with its enormous dome, its four huge arches yawning along the nave on each side—its pavement of red, blue, and white marbles—and its wealth of decoration, rendered harmonious and solemn by the gorgeous gloom which the richness of its painted windows shed on all—produced in us a feeling more allied to religious awe than any church we had yet seen in Italy ; for though the details of the interior were sumptuous in the extreme, they were subdued by a pervading sentiment of greatness. On the other hand, the famous Chapel of the Medici, in which every device of wealth is lavished on the sepulchres of the mighty, sickens the heart with the sense of the vanity of a struggle by the powers of this world with Death. Let the gold, the gems, the roses, and the crowns, be multiplied around the ashes of kings ; there the antic sits, mocking their state,' and insisting on the ter- rible plainness of his lesson. Sepulchral memorials should be simple; not affecting to perpetuate the shows of life, but suggesting thoughts akin to those which will last for ever."
A slight circumstance at Naples called up the memory of Sir William Follett, and leads to a full estimate of his character and a notice of his career. Amid the kindest appreciation of the man, and the amplest justice to his abilities and success, there comes in a nice adjudication of the mere practising lawyer; not harsh, for that could not be, but perhaps as kindly severe in its naked truth as anything Talfourd ever wrote.
As we announced to our host our intention to depart on the following day, he brought us his record of visitors for the customary inscription of our names ; and, turning over the pages, I was startled by the traces of a well-known hand,. tremulously indicating the presence of ' Sir W. W. Fol. lett,' when on a Journey—too late, alas !—in search of renovated strength, in the autumn of 1844. Since then, the calamity which impended over that celebrated lawyer has occurred : what an extinction, how sadly premature, how awfully complete ! The contrast between life and death never seemed to me so terribly palpable as iu this reminiscence thus awakened ; the action of the life had been so fervid, the desolation of the grave was so rayless. Before me lay an expiring relic—for the writer was stricken mortally when he traced it—of a life of the most earnest endeavours and the most brilliant successes—a life loved, prized, cherished, honoured, beyond the common lot even of distinguished men—the life of an advocate who had achieved, with triumphant ease, the foremost place in a profession which in its exercise in. wolves intimate participation with the interests, hopes, fears, passions, af- fections, and vicissitudes of many lives ; the life of a politician admired by the first assembly of free men in the world, idolized by partisans, respected by opponents, esteemed by the best, consulted by the wisest, whose declining health was the subject of solicitude to his Sovereign—Auenched in its prime by too prodigal a use of its energies : and what remains ? A name dear to the affections of a few friends—the waning image of a modest and earnest speaker—and the splendid example of success embodied in a fortune of 200,0001., acquired in ten years by the labours which hastened its extinction —are all this world possesses of Sir William Follett. The poet's anticipa- tion, 'Non minis moriar,' so far as it indicates earthly duration, has no place in the surviving vestiges of his career. To mankind, to his country, to his profession, he has left nothing ; not a measure conceived, not a danger averted, not a principle vindicated ; not a speech intrinsically, worthy of preservation ; not a striking image, not an affecting sentiment : in his death the power of mortality is supreme. How strange—how sadly strange—that a course so splendid should end in darkness so obscure ! "It may be well, while the materials for investigation remain, to inquire into the causes of success so brilliant and so fairly attained by powers which have left so little traces of their progress. Erskine, was never more de- cidedly at the head of the Common Law bar than Follett ; compared with Follett he was insignificant in the House of Commons ; his career was chequered by vanities and weaknesses from which that of Follett was free and yet, even if he had not been associated with the greatest constitutional questions of his time and their triumphant solution, his fame would live by the mere force and beauty of his forensic eloquence as long as our language. But no collection of the speeches of Follett has been made, none will ever be attempted : no speech he delivered is read, except perchance as part of an interesting trial and essential to its story ; and then the language is felt to be poor, the cadences without music, and the composition vapid and spirit- less ; although, if studied with a view to the secrets of forensic success, with ' a learned spirit of human dealing' in connexion with the facts developed and the difficulties encountered, it will supply abundant materials for admi- ration of that unerring skill which induced the repetition of fortunate topics, the dexterous suppression of the most stubborn things when capable of ob- livion, and the light evasive touch with which the speaker fulfilled his promise of not forgetting others which could not be passed over, but which if deeply considered might be fatal. If, however, there was no principle of duration in his forensic achievements, there can be no doubt of the esteem in which they were held or the eagerness with which they were sought. His supremacyin the minds of clients was more like the rage of a fashion for a youthful Roscius or an extraordinary preacher than the result of deliberate consideration ; and yet it prevailed, in questions not of an evening's amuse- ment, but of penury or riches, honour or shame. Suitors were content, not only to make large sacrifices for the assured advantage of his advocacy, but for the bare chance—the distant hope—of having some little part (like that which Phormio desires to retain in Thais) of his faculties, with the certainty of preventing their opposition. There was no just ground, in his case, for the com- plaint that he received large fees for services he did not render ; for the chances were understood by those who adventured in his lottery; in which, after all, there were comparatively few blanks. His name was a tower of strength,' which it was delightful to know that the adverse faction wanted, and which inspired confidence even on the back of the brief of his forsaken junior, who bore the burden and heat of the day for a fifth of the fee which secured that name. Will posterity ask what were the powers thus sought, thus prized, thus rewarded, and thus transient ? They will be truly told, that he was endowed in a remarkable degree with some moral qualities which smoothed his course and charmed away opposition, and with some physical advantages which happily set off his intellectual gifts ; that he was blessed with a tem- per at once gentle and even, with a gracious manner and a social tempera- ment; that he was without jealousy of the solid or showy talents of others, and willingly gave them the amplest meed of praise ; that he spoke with all the grace of modesty, yet with the assurance of perfect mastery over his sub- ject, his powers, and his audience : and yet they will scarcely recognize in these excellences sufficient reasons for his extraordinary success. To me, the true secret of his peculiar strength appeared to lie in the possession of two powers which rarely coexist in the same mind—extraordinary subtilty of perception, and as remarkable simplicity of execution."
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