to his self-love, and apparently essential to his personal importance, would risk, he was now painfully aware, the tranquillity and safety of the country. It seems impossible to imagine any motive save a pure and honourable one for this great sacrifice of party and personal interests. The subsequent immense and tumultuous meetings on Penenden Heath, and in numerous other places, testified how easy it would have been for Mr Peel to have arrayed the well-meaning but bitterly-prejudiced people against the claims of the Catholics to equality of civil rights. Happily he chose the better path, and achieved a task vainly essayed by other, and, it may be in some respects, greater men-with infinite self-subduing effort, well expressed by himself on the introduction of the measure, accomplished it—

""Tis said with ease, but oh! how hardly tried,

By haughty souls to human honour tied,

Oh! sharp, convulsive pangs of agonizing pride!'

Mr Peel in his speech mainly rested the defence of his conduct upon the repeated divisions in successive Houses of Commons in favour of the disputed claims, and consequent impossibility, in the face of the dangerous power that had been recently organized in Ireland, of carrying on the government of the country with vigour and efficiency. Such,' said the right honourable gentleman, 'is the conclusion to which I found myself compelled by the irresistible force of circumstances; and I will adhere to it, ay, and I will act upon it, unchanged by the scurrility of abuse-by the expression of opposite opinions, however vehement or however general— unchanged by the deprivation of political confidence, or by the far heavier sacrifice of private friendships and affections. Looking back upon the past, surveying the present, and fore-judging the prospects of the future, again I declare that the time is come when this question must be settled.' On the House dividing, there appeared in favour of the measure 348, against it 160. The number of peers suddenly converted by the ministry to a sense of the necessity of concession was unexpectedly large, the second reading of the bill having been carried in their lordships' House by a majority of 105. On the 13th of April the royal assent was reluctantly signified to the measure. Lord Eldon, whose intolerance was of the sincerest kind, wrote the next day the following distracted note to his daughter, Lady F. J. Bankes:-'The fatal bills received the royal assent yesterday afternoon. After all I have heard in my visits, not an hour's delay! God bless us and his church!' God bless us indeed! The constitution, which had somehow remained behind the unchangeable bank-notes, was clean gone at last! As his lordship pathetically expressed it, 'the sun of England was [once more] set for ever.' It is surprising how many times, even in one's own recollection, this curious phenomenon has occurred; so frequently, indeed, that most people have become not only reconciled, but rather pleased with it-the result perhaps of habit, which is, it is said, a kind of second nature.

Mr Peel, with his accustomed candour-candid Peel, as he has been called by certain witlings, believing not unnaturally that they enunciate a joke by the expression of a serious truth-disclaimed for himself any honour that might attach to the successful carrying of the Emancipation Bills, ascribing it to those men-Romilly, Grattan, Canning, Plunkett, and others who had

during so many years unsuccessfully urged the measure upon the consideration of parliament.

Mr Peel sat for the close borough of Westbury during the passing of the Emancipation Bill, and for the remainder of the session, he having deemed it a point of honour to vacate his seat for the university of Oxford. Sir R. H. Inglis, at the election which ensued, was returned in his stead, though considering how vigorously the drum ecclesiastic' was beaten to summon the partisans of intolerance to the rescue of truth, about, it should seem, to be jeopardised by act of parliament, by the narrow majority of 755 to 609. Mr Peel's father died the following year at the good old age of eighty, and reconciled, we believe, to his son's change of opinion. At all events, he made no alteration in the disposition of his vast property; and the late baronet succeeded not only to the title, but to a magnificent fortune. Whether any serious risk of partial disinheritance had been incurred or not is of course only known to the parties personally concerned: it was, however, commonly rumoured at the time, both in the press and in society, that the Home Secretary had perilled fortune as well as political eminence by his conduct on the Catholic question.

Very fortunate for this country it was that this great remedial measure had been conceded before the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1830. As it was, that great event excited a movement in this country which led to very important consequences. The Duke of Wellington's cabinet, which had struggled on with tolerable success during the remainder of the session, found itself in a minority in the new parliament, necessarily summoned on the demise of the crown, by a combination of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, on Sir Henry Parnell's motion for a committee on the civil list: the minority of course resigned, and the famous administration of Earl Grey succeeded to power.

Sir Robert Peel, as acknowledged chief of the Opposition-his eminent debating talents having been pronounced indispensable by the wiser heads of the party, his 'apostacy' was at once forgiven-opposed with fervour and much misapplied eloquence the great Reform measure of the Grey cabinet. His speeches, however, did not go the length of denying the necessity of some effectual reform of the representation of the people. His chief objections were directed towards points-essential ones unquestionably-of detail. One of them is now admitted to have been reasonable and valid-namely, that the ten-pound qualification would injuriously diminish the number of voters in small provincial towns, whilst it unnecessarily, according to him, augmented it in large towns or cities. When the Duke of Wellington, on the refusal of the king to create a sufficient number of peers to overcome the resistance of the House of Lords to the passing of the Reform measure, attempted to form a cabinet, Sir Robert Peel refused to associate himself in so mad a project, and the duke abandoned the enterprise. The bill passed in its integrity; and Sir Robert Peel soon afterwards declared his frank acceptance of it with all its consequences. Those consequences, according to him, were, that the balance of the government by means of the antagonism of parties, more or less influenced by public opinion, was no longer possible, and that the popular will, as embodied in the votes of the constituencies, must be for

the future paramount. As a corollary to this creed, he held, and subsequently exemplified his belief in his measures, that it would be found wiser to yield to the impulses of popular opinion than wait to be overthrown by its compressed, but when at last inevitably liberated, overpowering force. In the reformed parliament, Sir Robert Peel, according to Sir R. H. Inglis -charitably forgetful of 'the treason to the church'-gave by his speeches 'fame and dignity' to its proceedings; and the ministry, vehemently assailed by Mr O'Connell and others, gladly accepted his occasional support. Earl Grey retired, and the premiership was grasped by the confident, but light and inexperienced, hand of Lord Melbourne. A feeble and vacillating administration of public affairs followed till towards the close of the year 1834, when the death of Earl Spencer, and consequent removal of Lord Althorp to the House of Lords, determined the king—who had, moreover, been greatly scandalised by some of the pranks of Chancellor Brougham-to dismiss his ministry, and ultimately, on the advice of the Duke of Wellington, to call Sir Robert Peel to his councils. The missive of the sovereign reached the baronet at Rome on the 26th of November, and he at once hastened homewards to clutch the glittering prize, so unexpectedly proffered for his acceptance. In his address to the electors of Tamworth soon after his arrival in England, Sir Robert Peel enunciated with sufficient clearness, though in somewhat periphrastic periods, the policy he intended to pursue. He would not advise the crown to rescind the commission that had been issued to inquire into and report upon the workings and the modes of election of municipal corporations; he would reform the church-temperately of course; and, in brief, he would endeavour to act faithfully in what he conceived to be the spirit of the Reform Act; and he emphatically protested against the doctrine, that, because he had opposed that measure, he was thereby incapacitated, now that it had become the law of the land, to administer the affairs of the country under its control. The dissolution of parliament which followed, although it added greatly to the Conservative ranks in the House of Commons, still left the minister in a minority there; and he was beaten on the very threshold of the session by the election of Mr Abercrombie to the Speakership, in place of Mr Manners Sutton, afterwards created Viscount Canterbury. Sir Robert Peel was ultimately expelled from office by a vote of the House declaratory in effect that any future surplus of Irish tithe, after the due maintenance of the established church of that country had been provided for, should be devoted to general educational purposes. The eloquent and zealous promoters of this resolution have since practically repudiated it. It, however, sufficed to replace them on the Treasury bench, and Sir Robert Peel was once more in opposition. The ability, the high moral courage he displayed during this brief tenure of office went to the heart of the country; and even William Cobbett, forgetting for once in his life his bitter antipathies, remarked with something of sadness in his 'Register,' the fruitless exertion of talents of which the country might well be proud.' The premier evinced on two occasions during this short ministerial reign a surprising infirmity of temper, which elicited the best, and, we believe, only joke-always excepting his essay on the immense aggressive forces of Russia—that can be fairly attributed to the honourable and gallant member for the city of Westminster, General de Lacy Evans.

Dr Lushington having uttered some disparaging words of the minister, received a peremptory note requiring a satisfactory apology, or the usual alternative amongst gentlemen, as the phrase runs. The doctor, like a sensible man, apologised. Next Mr Hume, having remarked in his place in the House of Commons that he would not have acted in the manner Sir Robert Peel had, received a written missive, after the rising of the House, demanding a retractation. Mr Hume, an altogether pacific and sane individual, explained to the challenger that the words were used in a purely parliamentary sense, and the quarrel had no further result. General Evans, who appeared to think that nobody but regular professors of the sword ought to indulge in such fire-eating tastes, was greatly scandalised at the premier's behaviour, and the following evening remarked upon it in the House of Commons. The right honourable gentleman,' said the gallant officer, is a regular fire-eater. First he sends a hostile message to an ecclesiastical judge, and then he challenges that entirely peaceable and prudent gentleman, Mr Hume; and I sincerely advise the pacific member for Durham (Joseph Pease, the Quaker) to be very careful of his words, or as sure as fate he will be the next person called out by the warlike premier.' The general's witticism was immensely enjoyed by the House, and by no one apparently more than by Sir Robert Peel himself.

Soon after the right honourable baronet's ejection from office on this occasion, the great banquet at Merchant Tailors Hall was given him by 300 members of the House of Commons. It was on this occasion that he infused such vitality and ardour into the Conservative organization of the country-at the same time giving it a legitimate and healthy direction--by his emphatic warning, that the Reform Bill, which had deprived him of power, was a great and irresistible fact; and that the battle of the Constitution must thenceforth be fought in the Registration Courts. His advice to 'register-register-register,' was promptly acted upon; and the constituencies were greatly increased-not, as the sagacious baronet clearly foresaw, in an exclusive and sectarian, but in a liberally-conservative and moderate direction. In the following year Sir Robert Peel was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow university, beating Sir John, now Lord Campbell, by a considerable majority. His inaugural speech was accounted one of his happiest oratorical efforts, remarkable alike for practical wisdom and the purest eloquence.

The Conservative party, under Sir Robert Peel's judicious guidance and advice, grew daily in parliamentary and popular strength, so that he was not unfrequently obliged to repress the intolerant zeal and folly of its more audacious members, who reckoned too confidently on the increasing power of the party. In one especial instance he effected a remarkable service. The English Corporation Reform Act had been so grossly mutilated by Lord Lyndhurst and a majority of the peers, as to render it altogether nugatory as a remedial measure. The Melbourne ministry were thoroughly at a loss how to proceed when it came back to the House of Commons: to accept such an abortion in place of their own fair-proportioned offspring was manifestly impossible, but could they hope to induce the Lords to rescind their amendments? Sir Robert Peel, who had left town-it was near the close of the session-immediately hastened back to their assist

ance and rescue, assisted by speech and vote to disallow the most objectionable of the peers' amendments; and Lord Lyndhurst was obliged—for 'the duke,' as usual, ranged himself on the side of Peel-to reluctantly acquiesce in the restoration of the bill to something like its former state, and the measure as it now exists passed. The eager ultra men of the party were greatly exasperated, and denounced in unmeasured terms the treacherous conduct, as they termed it, of their great but unmanageable leader. That 'Peel had no pluck' became a received and favourite phrase with them, and but for a haunting consciousness that they were powerless without him, he would unquestionably have been deposed. As it was, they sullenly acquiesced; and the continued vacillations, the infirm and abortive purposes of the cabinet-the constantly failing revenue, vainly propped by an increase of Excise taxes, and other clumsy and ineffective expedientsrevived their hopes of ultimate triumph, and with the increasing hostility of Sir Robert Peel's parliamentary tone and action, reconciled them somewhat to his previous moderation and forbearance. The famous 'ladies-ofthe-bedchamber' interlude took place during this period, in which the only party that appears to have acted with perfect dignity and good sense was the Queen herself. The cabinet, on being thrown into a virtual minority on the Jamaica Constitution-Suspension Act, withdrew, the male portion of them, from her majesty's service, leaving, as Lord Brougham humorously expressed it, their better halves behind them; and Sir Robert Peel, with sufficient adroitness, caught at the circumstance to relieve himself from the acceptance of office at an inopportune moment. His time was not yet come; and perhaps no man has ever displayed more sagacity than the right honourable baronet in seizing upon the right hour for the right work. The reinstated ministry staggered on as well as they could till 1841, when, alarmed at the deficiency of the revenue to meet the expenditure, they hastily caught up, as a last resource, an eight-shilling fixed duty on corn, and proposed it to parliament in lieu of the sliding-scale; hinting at the same time very intelligibly, that if parliament raised the duty to ten or twelve shillings, they would acquiesce, and resign themselves to continuance in office. This proposal obtained neither the confidence nor the support of the Free-trade party, and Sir Robert met it by a motion of want of confidence in ministers, which was carried by a majority of one! Parliament was dissolved, and in the new House of Commons the want-ofconfidence motion, renewed as an amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne, was carried by a majority of ninety-one.

Sir Robert having thus, and greatly by the aid of the agricultural party, stormed office, was immediately invested by the Queen with the direction of affairs. His cabinet was strengthened by the accession of the some time Whigs, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, and a more powerful ministry, in a parliamentary and party sense, never perhaps existed in the country. The new premier succeeded to office at a critical and disastrous time. The revenue was several millions below the expenditure: two bad harvests in succession, with other concurrent causes, had produced appalling distress in the manufacturing districts: the most frightful destitution prevailed in Paisley, Glasgow, Manchester, and other centres of trade. Foreign affairs wore an equally gloomy aspect. France, exasperated, alienated by the vigorous and successful expedition against Mehemet Ali, expressed both in