their prejudices. On the other hand, a young man gains much by being early initiated into habits of business. Public business in this country is conducted on a principle so different from that which regulates private business, that he who takes to it late in life, takes to it under serious disadvantages. It was Peel's fortune, good or bad, to become, at the age of three-and-twenty, an UnderSecretary of State. Never had the office received so industrious and painstaking a functionary. He read and commented on every paper-the most trivial as well as the most important; and his tenacious memory enabled him to carry to the debate, whenever one arose, a complete acquaintance with all the details of the subject. Such a man was invaluable to his party, and the more so that he seemed in no hurry to make personal capital out of his acquirements. Except when called upon, in 1809, to second the Address in answer to the King's Speech, Peel did not, for rather more than two years, speak in the House of Commons at any length; and the few sentences which he uttered were, it must be acknowledged, scarcely of an order to excite any sanguine hopes of his success as an orator.

From the Colonial Office Peel was transferred to Ireland as Chief Secretary. It was a post not perhaps of greater importance then than it happens to be at this time-for at this moment the Irish Secretary is a member of the Cabinet; but it was always conferred upon a man of whom some expectations were entertained, being considered as a touchstone of administrative ability, and therefore a school of practical statesmanship for young members. Amidst the fierce conflict of parties, religious not less than political, which then raged, the new Secretary bore himself well. He extended the excellent police force which Sir Arthur Wellesley had established in Dublin throughout the provinces, and maintained order if he could not introduce harmony. It is understood, also, that he learned a good deal from a closer view of things, which tended to shake his confidence in the system of government as it was then carried

on.

Hence every move towards establishing equality of social privileges between Protestants and Roman Catholics obtained his support; and even in regard to the last concession of all, it is now no longer a secret, that, long before the surrender of 1829, Peel was in his secret heart favourable to Catholic emancipation. Peel, however, was constitutionally a prudent man; and, contrary to the usual practice, his youth exhibited surer tokens of this useful quality than his maturer age. Throughout the six or seven years of his Irish administration, he neither originated nor attempted to originate a single novelty. But he did what was perhaps, under the circumstances, far better. Assiduous himself, he compelled all his subordinates to do their duty, and to take as far as possible the sting out of an exclusive system, by working it with as little appearance of harshness as it would bear.

Peel was not a popular Irish Secretary. A stiff, silent, cautious young man may be respected, but he cannot be personally loved anywhere, and least of all in Ireland. Lady Morgan, accordingly, quizzed him in her novels, and O'Connell sneered at him. Even the Protestantascendancy people looked askance, because he would take no part in their boisterous conviviality, and objected to dress up the statue of King William. But he gained ground from day to day in reputation as an administrator, and began by degrees to take his proper place in that House of Commons which was by-and-by to become his world. Not that the House of Commons ever accounted him a great orator. His skill in debate was perhaps unrivalled; but in his best days as a speaker he fell far behind Canning, Tierney, Windham, Plunkett, and Brougham; and these, and many more, long overshadowed him by their eloquence. For Peel had not a scintilla of genius. His style was diffuse and laboured, his best thoughts always seemed to be overlaid with words, and his three courses degenerated at last into the merest mannerism. What he did not receive from inspiration, however, he managed to acquire by diligence and

close attention to details. He was never above availing himself of the views of others, and if he did not always acknowledge his obligations to his prompters, we must not forget that, in this and in all constitutional countries, leading statesmen must either be, or be supposed to be, the originators of everything which they propose, and for which they are responsible.

We must sketch with a rapid pen the further progress of Peel's advance in public life. In 1817 he made his first great speech in opposition to the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities, which, though severely criticised by Sir James Mackintosh, Mr Wilberforce, himself an advocate of emancipation, pronounced a masterpiece of argument. The same year he stood in opposition to Mr Canning as a candidate for the representation of the University of Oxford, in which a vacancy had occurred through the elevation of the Speaker, Mr Abbot, to the peerage. Assisted by Lords Eldon and Stowell, and by the great body of the clergy, he carried his election; and was congratulated in the handsomest manner by the very man whom he thus deprived of an honour coveted well-nigh beyond all others. And now beginning, as it were, to feel his own strength, he began also to exhibit that readiness to abandon old opinions which his friends were accustomed to eulogise as candour, his enemies to condemn as inconsistency, or something worse. In 1819, having ceased to be Irish Secretary, he became chairman of the committee nominated by Mr Vansittart to inquire into the state of the Bank of England with reference to the expediency of a renewal of cash payments. He had spoken against Mr Horner's resolution in 1811, and contributed as far as his influence extended to prevent the repeal of the Restriction Act at that time. He now took quite an opposite view of the case, himself introducing into the House, and supporting the bill commonly called Peel's bill, as the fruit of the inquiries, deliberation, and judgment of the committee. It is not our purpose on the present occasion to discuss the merits of a measure which certainly had in its favour an unusual concur

rence of the opinions of men of all parties. Whether right or wrong in principle, the bill passed both Houses by large majorities, Peel himself frankly avowing that, in consequence of the evidence given to the committee, and of the discussions upon it, his opinions had undergone a great change. Besides giving offence to such proprietors of land as had mortgaged their estates, Peel had the misfortune to differ in the course of the debate from his father. Both expressed themselves characteristically on the occasion-the old man referring to his great political idol, Mr Pitt, and his own early endeavours to rear his son after that model; the young man claiming credit, as was his wont, for the sacrifice which he made of private feeling to public duty.

It was a season of trouble and anxiety to the King's Ministers. To the Manchester massacre, as it was called, succeeded the Cato Street conspiracy and the ill-advised trial of Queen Caroline; from the discredit attendant on the latter of which Peel happily escaped, he holding at the time no office under the Crown. With becoming manliness, however, he stood by the Government in its hour of need. Indeed, his defence of the Home Secretary and of the magistracy took such a turn, that the manufacturers of Lancashire became offended, and charged him with denouncing the factory system as dangerous to the public peace. This was putting an entirely erroneous interpretation on his words. All that he meant to convey was the expression of his opinion, that in a free country capitalists have no right to bring masses of people together without providing some more constitutional means of preventing outrage than by calling upon the Government to employ troops in doing the work of constables. Happily for all classes, this doctrine is now fully understood; and the army and the people are brought into kindly relations with one another, because the former are never, except in the last extremity, required to control the latter.

Peel's line with reference to Queen Caroline was more guarded. He blamed the Ministers for striking her name out of the Liturgy, and for refus

ing a ship in which to fetch her home, and a house in which to receive her on her arrival in London. He took no objection, however, to the proceedings which followed, and the King and his government were too grateful for the advocacy of their bill of pains and penalties to think much of the censure cast by him on measures which rendered it unavoidable.

Peel had been twelve years in Parliament, of which more than eight were passed in office, when he was advanced to a seat in the Cabinet. The resignation of Lord Sidmouth in 1821 created a vacancy at the Home Office, which Mr Peel was selected by Lord Liverpool to supply. The appointment was well received by the public, who, without entertaining any exaggerated idea of his powers, believed him to be a man of sound judgment and untiring industry. Under the circumstances, he more than fulfilled the highest expectations that were formed of him. In the Cabinet he proved a steady but sober friend to Conservative progress. Perhaps he was at this time, and especially after Canning returned to the Administration, more Conservative than progressive. But out of the Cabinet we mean in matters purely departmentalno Minister ever effected. greater changes, and all of them for the better. His reforms of the criminal law-and they were his, from whomsoever the inspiration may have come-are a standing monument to his glory. It is a pity that he should have been so prone to make a parade of his own merits. But this, though a constitutional, perhaps, rather than a moral weakness in the man, must not tempt us to detract from the merits of which he boasted. He has been charged with jealousy of Canning, and of aiming so early as 1822 at the office of Prime Minister. Let us not forget that this charge comes from the adherents of one who certainly did aspire to the highest place in the Cabinet, and succeeded at last by great adroitness in gaining his end. We have never heard it insinuated from any other quarter, that till the post was actually forced upon him, Peel ever made a move, directly or indirectly, to achieve it.

The art of governing in England

was not, in 1822, what it had been twenty years previously. Men's attention no sooner ceased to be riveted on measures of defence from foreign enemies, than they began to consider the abuses, real or imaginary, in the system of administration under which they lived. In Ireland a strong agitation was got up for the repeal of the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from political power. In England and Scotland parliamentary reform became an ominous watchword. The latter object was followed for a time with far less of judgment and skill than the former. The Catholic Association under the direction of Daniel O'Connell, either kept itself within the limits of the law from the first, or, when placed beyond these limits by some fresh Act of Parliament, at once shifted its ground, and defied the executive to interfere with it. The Radical Reformers of Great Britain, less ably directed, made their appeal for a while to physical force, and were easily put down. But both learned wisdom from experience. Threats of insurrection ceased to be uttered in England, and secret societies died out in the sister country. Forthwith the two questions, reform of Parliament, and equal political rights to men of all religious persuasions, became mere party questions. Moreover, in respect to the last, the Cabinet itself was divided, and the habitual supporters of the Government felt themselves, in consequence, at liberty to vote upon it as they pleased. This, whether unavoidable or not, was by no means a satisfactory state of things. It caused great embarrassment, and boded change. Indeed, a man of Peel's peculiar temperament and habit of thought could not fail to perceive that, in standing out for the settlement of 1688, he was fighting a doomed battle. Yet he fought it gallantly throughout the whole of Lord Liverpool's tenure of office, without, as far as we know, breathing a hint to the most intimate of his friends that he despaired of the issues.

So the current ran for some years. Peel, taking his place beside Lord Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Chancellor Eldon, contended for the maintenance of the

But

promote the nation's wishes. the growing desire of the educated classes to risk all rather than persevere in a system of exclusion, brought the matter before him in a different point of view. Session after session, except in 1826, the majorities in the House of Commons favourable to repeal had steadily increased; while in the Lords all the fresh blood ran in the same direction. And in Ireland, society was all but broken up. How was the Government to be carried on at all with this fearful sore perpetually open? It was not in such a nature as Peel's to avoid being affected by these considerations. Expediency-using that term in no offensive sense-stood with him, as a politician, in the room of principle. His object through life, except on one memorable occasion, seems to have been rather to effect the greatest amount of good which could be achieved with the least possible inconvenience, than to aim at the utmost good that was attainable. Now, though believing that the time was come for the admission of Roman Catholics into Parliament, he was not yet prepared to run the risk of dislocating the party with which he had all his life acted, by taking office under a Minister who was pledged to procure for them such admission. As events soon afterwards proved, Peel did himself no good by resting his severance from Mr Canning on the ground which he took up. The Duke was more wary; and hence, when the day of Catholic emancipation arrived, by far the greater load of obloquy fell upon Peel, who, in point of fact, sacrificed himself to what he believed to be the cause of his country.

The prize which Canning paid such a heavy price to win did not long remain with him. He held it but a few months, and found no happiness in it. On his demise, Lord Goderich endeavoured to carry on the government and failed. What was there to prevent Mr Peel from aspiring to the place for which his Canningite colleagues had accused him of intriguing nine years previously? Two impediments stood in the way. First, George IV. did not personally like him; next, he was diffident of his own power to guide a party, which had still the folly to think as

much of blood as of talent. He at once, however, accepted the Duke of Wellington's proposal, and returned to the Home Office. It was a season of unexampled difficulty, both within and without. The great towns were becoming impatient under what demagogues assured them was a state of political degradation. In Ireland, agitation grew more rampant from day to day. And not the Whigs only, but the old Tories also fretted, and gave but a lukewarm support, because they equally considered themselves ill-used in the formation of the Ministry. For both, at the beginning of the Duke's Administration, had expected that he would make advances to them; and both were disgusted by his retaining in the King's service only such men as Huskisson, Palmerston, and Lords Dudley and Ward. In the Cabinet itself, moreover, there was no great principle of cohesion. The Canningites, made sore by the jeers of the lookerson, jibbed occasionally in dragging the coach. Huskisson, in particular, came into collision with the head of the Government almost as soon as the Government was formed; and being snubbed in the House of Lords for his speech delivered from the hustings at Liverpool, never cordially forgave the rebuke. And perhaps it was somewhat rashly, not to say unwisely, administered. When the object of all parties was to bury in oblivion past differences, it would have been no degradation to the Duke had he given to Mr Huskisson some "guarantee" as to his future policy. And the use of the expression, though not, as Huskisson used it, strictly justifiable, ought, perhaps, to have been forgiven, or, at all events, reproved in private. Still, that matter might, and probably would, have been got over, had Huskisson better considered the course which official honour required him to pursue on the East Retford question. And here we must object to the tore in which Sir Lawrence Peel, usually so impartial, speaks of the severance of Mr Huskisson from the Tory party, and of the causes of it. If, as we believe to be the fact, and as Sir Lawrence himself acknowledges, Huskisson forced the Duke and Mr