BOOKS.

SIR ROBERT PEEL.* THE memoir of the great reforming statesman which has been drawn up by an admiring relative, is less a biography than a dis- quisition. In fact it corresponds very fairly to its title—The Life and Character of Sir Robert Peel. It is written in a libe- ral, appreciating, and even philosophical spirit, contains some ex- cellent reflections often conveyed in striking and eloquent lan- guage; and in the earlier portion, at least, does not disappoint the expectation awakened by the author's announcement that he "likes to read of real men and women and to shake hands across the page with real flesh and blood); As we advance, however, the book becomes "more stately than pleasant in its paces," till at last we complain of the grandiose garrulity which substitutes "a mere impersonation of diplomacy" for the living humanity that seemed promised us at the outset.

Sir Lawrence's first chapter is introductory. It answers the request which his gallant sailor kinsman, the late Sir William Peel, once made him---" Tell me something about those Peels, they must have been fine fellows."

"The family to which the great statesman belonged was one of those families of English yeomanry, the members of which have been described as happy in a golden mean, too high for the office of Constable and too low for that of Sheriff." About the year 1600, one William Peel accompanied by an aged father, came from East Marten, in Craven, in the county of York, and settled near Blackburn, in that of Lancaster, where the Peels or De Peles had been seized of lands, as early as the fifth year of Henry VI.: not

however being "of the gentry of the land, but in the position and rank of yeomen only." Some forty years after the migration of William, we find his grandson Robert engaged in the manu- facture of woollen cloths at Blackburn. Robert was the first prosperous oi the family—the first of the conspicuously,fine fellows of that ilk ! To him succeeded his eldest son Robert, who purchased "a small estate in the neighbourhood of Blackburn, called the Crosse, since and still called Peel Ford." This estate he settled on his son William, the father of Robert Peel, the tiandfather of the late minister, as also of his present bio- grapher. Robert Peel was born at Peelford, to which he sue- needed by inheritance ; he received a good education, probably

plackburn Grammar School. In 1744, he married Elizabeth Haworth, of the ancient family of the Haworths of Haworth. At first, he supported himself by farming. An extraordinary and tapolitic statute, prohibiting the use of calicoes, had been repealed the very year of Peel's marriage. Mr. Haworth, who had learned the business of calico-printing in London, was the first to squeeit into his min neighbourhood. With him were asso-

4.., -. Robe, rt Peel and Yates, who had kept a small inn at Black- Van, er Was descended from parents who had. The three friends manufacgired arid "printed their own cloth, and established a warehouse in ),tanchester for its sale. They introduced some considerable imp:?vements in the machinery for spinning cotton, improvement, which gave offence to the handloom weavers, who avenged themselves for the supposed injury by the destruction of Mr. Peel's proPerfi• One of these improvements, possibly, was the invention of the parsley-leaf pattern. The family legend con- nected with it, is confirmed by Sir Lawrence, and is too pleasing to omit. we tyierefore report it, though in an abbreviated form.

3h.. peel was in his kitchen making some experiments in print- ing on handkerchiefs, and other small pieces, when his only daughter, then a girl, afterwards Mrs. Willock, the mother of the postmcate, of Manchester, brought him in from their garden of herbs a sprig of parsley." She pointed out and praised its beauty, and with an eye to the professional utilities, added that she thought it would make a very pretty pattern. Her father took it from her hand, admired it, commended her, and said that he would make

a trial of it. "A pewter-plate, for such was then the common dinner-plate in families of that degree, was taken down from the shelf, and on it was sketched, say, rather scratched, a figure of the leaf, and from this impressions were taken. It was called in the family, Nancy's pattern. The apt alliteration drew on its in- ventor the name of Parsley Peel, a name which Sir Lawrence thinks carried with it no malignancy of imputation, and, there- fore did not stick. After the destructive outbreak which has been mentioned, Mr. Peel removed to Burton-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire. Here he took a lease of some land suitable to his purpose, built three mills, and cut a canal, which last stood him in no less than 90004 He died rich, September 1795, aged 72. He was a hardwork- ing, plain-spoken, inventive, solid, and enduring man. In his later days he is described as stooping a little. "e wore," says Sir Lawrence, "a bushy Johnsonian wig ; like that sage, he was

dressed in dark clothes of an ample cut, he leaned as he walked upon a tall gold-headed cane, and as he was a very handsome man, he looked a figure stately enough for a mediteval burgo- master." From his habit of looking downward, when he walked, as if calculating some stiff question, he came to be chibbed the Philosopher. He was soon followed in death by his widow' a self- sufficing old lady, who had shortly before expressed a wish to stay by him to the last and keep him all right. It was this worthy

who in some commercial panics, when rumour did not spare the'kele' counselled her daughter, whom she found less hand- doing geired than she judged-expedient, to go up stairs and put

on the rear fliefficLer of Sir Robert Peel. By Sir Lawrence Peel. Published by on her very best clothes, and " Look as blithe as you can, s a--

she, for if the folks see us looking glum today, they will be all t f \ the Bank tomorrow."

The first Sir Robert Peel was the third son of this strenutne,,ntei and notable couple. When a very young man, "he joined he" ef maternal uncle Mr. Haworth and his future father-in-law Mitre° Yates. On the retirement of Mr. Haworth, Mr. Yates becamiLee' senior and Peel junior partner. In business he was an originate and reformer, a man of untiring energy and of vast ambition When he married Ellen Yates at the age of thirty-six, he wa. already wealthy. Loving money he loved it wisely, regarding i , , as an instrument of power, and was generous in its distribution. "He was grave in exterior, yet a humorous man with a quiet (17, relish of fun—a characteristic not unshared by his more cele-

brated son. "He was the true child of commerce," says Sir"" ve Lawrence. His political opinions were those of Pitt in the firs „,"'"'

years of his administration, before the dislocating influences o the French Revolution. Pitt he described as the fairest ministe io_

he had ever known and pronounced that none ever understood so at well the commercial interests of the country.

His son, Robert, was his third child, his first and second'- children being girls. This son, from the hour of his birth, he determined to devote to his country. To make a second Pitt of_ him was the aim he seriously proposed. "When he was a very little fellow, his father would sometimes playfully lift him on to a little round table which stood by the breakfast-table, and of would hear from that ' tribune ' the recitation of some juvenil lesson." The story, however, that from this rostrum he delivereI I each Sunday, after dinner, the vicar's improving discourse, is , myth of foreign derivation, originating in a practice, adopted at a maturer age, when the boy used to repeat ona. Sunday to his father, sometimes in the presence of a guest or friend, and com- monly in the study, all he could remember of the sermon. Like the pupils of the famous Puritan divine, Joseph Meade, he was encouraged on such occasions to ask questions. Quid dubitas ? What doubts have you met with in your studies today ? was the i first interrogatory of the theologicEl preceptors. "For he sup- f posed that to doubt nothing and to understand nothing were i nearly the same thing ; " and, continues our biographer, "I ob- served in my limited intercourse with the late statesman, that he was rather a conjugator of this verb." 2

Young Peel was educated at Harrow and Oxford. At Harrow4 he was the form fellow of Byron, whose well known testimony to Peel's scholarship and abilities is quoted by Sir Lawrence. He was "never in scrapes ; " he "always knew his lesson ; " he wa quick, sensitive, impatient of opposition, reserved and shy. A e $

Oxford he was a regular student. Bringing with him to colleg 1 more than the ordinary school learning, he had no need of crami„ ming.. "Re was a boater and cricketer, his dress, too, sr" fashionable. A reading man, with boots by Roby, and a we tied cravat ! He affects the admirable Crichton ! " Sir La rence does not tell us in what year Peel graduated. We believe, it was in 1808. "In a remarkably good year, in which were? found the names of Gilbert, Hampden, Whately, he took a doubleb first class. He was the first man so distinguished." At the age of twenty-one he took he took his seat in the Hous of Commons as Member for Cashel. At this time he had n4 Wing Whig leaning, though in a very general sense he had always a1, bias to the Liberal side. "II naquit Tory," says M. Guizot, anal born born a Tory he attached himself to the Tory party, when I Percival was Prime Minister, and Canning and Castlereagh hi principal coadjutors. In 1810, he seconded the address in th Commons. In 1811, he was appointed to the office of Unde Secretary for the colonies. On the death of Mr. Percival, 1812f, Lord Liverpool became Premier, and on acceding to that offie " he marked his sense of the services and merit of Mr. Peel, b nominating him Secretary of State for Ireland. O'Conne treated the appointment as an indignity. He nicknamed the young Secretary "Orange Peel," and declared that they had sent a raw youth, squeezed out of the workings of Lknow not what fac- tory, and not past the foppery of perfumed handkerchiefs and , thin shoes to govern us.'In this tumultous political arena,/ Peel seems to have evinced industry' moderation and ability, and' while supporting the old policy, to have rendered it as little vexatious as possible to the Catholics. In 1817 or 1818, while still Anti-Catholic, Peel, recommended to the electors by Eldon' and Stowell, was chosen to represent the University of Oxford, in which a vacancy had occurred, and whieh Mr. Canning, a Pre- Catholic also aspired to fill. Soon after his election, he resigned his office of Secretary for Ireland, and though he gave to the Liver- pool Ministry a personal support, he had no official connexion with it from 1818 to 1822.

It was during this period that he took that prominent part in the currency question which inaugurated his splendid financial career. In advocating the resumption of cash payments in 1819, Mr. Peel courageously disavowed the inconvertible principle which he had voted for in 1811. In February he had been appointed chairman of a Bank Committee. In May he advocated the doctrine "that a certain weight of gold bullion, with an impression on itclernting it to be of that certain weight and of a certain ifIlerigs, colliti-' tuted the only true, intelligible and adquidlYstandard of value." This act of apostacy gave great ofkbe to the first Sir Robert,1 who, we may say in passing, WI% to us to have been less ample-' minded than our author supnses i,

After this, Peel appear, as the opposer o - form and the defender of the Manchester in

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Queen Caroline, he cautiously kept aloof from the Ministerial ceedings. In January 1822, he accepted office under Lord erpool, as Secretary of State for the Home Department. This istry subsequently included Mr. Canning, who cooperated ile differing with Peel. On Lord Liverpool's resignation, Can- g was empowered by the King to form a new Ministry, in WI the Roman Catholic question should be an open one, but in ich Parliamentary Reform or the repeal of the Test and Cor- e:At-ion Acts should be strenuously resisted. On Canning's death

i=1827, Lord Goderich succeeded, to be rapidly followed by the Vellington-Peel Administration. The distinguishing act of this abinet was the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill. Mr. eel, convinced, like his great chief, of the necessity of concession, ought forward the measure in the Commons, as Member for the ose borkg,h of Westbury. The Emancipation Act became law. e repeal of the Corporation and Tests Acts followed. The new etropolitan Police Act was also introduced by the Home Secre- ry during his brief tenure of office.

Though yielding on the Catholic Relief question, the Govern- ant was not prepared to yield on the constitutional question of arliamentary Reform. In November 1830, the first Whig Ministry that had been formed for nearly a quarter of a cen- tury, was constituted under the Premiership of Lord Grey. Peel, who at this crisis succeeded to the Baronetcy and Estates, was now in open opposition. Yet, while resisting the Whig schemes of Reform' he expressed his opinions guardedly. He declined to - join the Duke of Wellington in the attempt to form a Cabinet 7which should supersede that of Lord Grey ; and, after the Reform 1i11 had become law, he frankly accepted it with all its conse- Iuences. We pass over Sir Robert Peel's organization of the Conservative party as distinct from that of the Whigs or ob- structive Tories; over his support of the Irish Coercion Bill, his advocacy of the Abolition of Negro Slavery and his general ap- proval of the Poor-law Amendment Act of 1834, during the Premiership of Lord Grey ; as also over his own brief tenure of power in 1834-35, and come to the General Election of 1841, when Lord Melbourne and his colleagues, finding the new Par- liament decidedly hostile, resigned, and Sir Robert Peel again became Premier.

"The contests between free-trade and protection had now come to be understood as contests between the many and the few." According to his kinsman, Peel had always been a free-trader. There was however, one category to which he thought that the rinciple did not apply, that of corn. Yet, even Pitt was anxious

rnkeep the food of the people at a low price, and the time had 'ved when the increasing population of the country required larger supply of wheat. A succession of bold and masterly easures soon gave effect to the lessons which Adam Smith had tong since inculcated. The modification of the corn laws ; the /tree-trade tariff and financial arrangements of 1842; the analo- .gous reforms of 1846 attest the wise and courageous policy of the great statesmen ; while his entire conduct evinced the purity and single-mindedness of the motives which prompted his actions. Defeated on the Irish Coercion Bill, Sir Robert Peel resigned office June 29, 1846. During the next four years he lent a generous support to the government of Lord John Russell, voting with it on the question of the Navigation Laws and for the removal of Jew- ish disabilities. At his melancholy death in /850, he was still working, still speakino.° earnestly ." as the advocate of peace and justice, the champion of the humble and weak." Sir Robert Peel has been reproached for his inconsistencies. His biographer con- siders these inconsistencies, and we think rightly, as apparent fonly. His life was a life of thought, and "the true life of thought is a life of struggle." His intellect was of a thoroughly i duetive character. It required a long experience to convince

• m of the desirableness of a measure. He was not one of those easoners who take the high priori road. He patiently collected facts before he arrived at a generalization. He was wonderfully sagacious ; if he did not always anticipate exigencies, he was never slow to recognize them when they came ; or to accommodate his policy to the circumstances of the time. In oratory, Peel is considered inferior to the great masters of senatorial eloquence. Sir Lawrence says he wanted the inven- tive power, the exquisite feeling, the imagery, and the diction of the poet. Yet his tact, his dignity, his argumentative and persuasive powers were admirable. His quotations were generally felicitous; and his humourous sallies, though rare, were successful. If not what is commonly called a great orator, he was a skilful and convincing debater.

In character, Peel seems to have been simple, candid, forgiving, conciliating, and magnanimous. "Wellington, a man truthful himself above most men, in his old age, on the very brink of his own grave spoke of one virtue which was particularly prominent in Peel, and praised him as one of the most truthful men he had ever known." He refused a peerage, he refused the garter, he desired to have a private funeral, he counselled "his sons and family to accept no title for his services, to rely on themselves and to earn honour for themselves ; " surely " clear signs of awise and inodern'temind." Peel was not a democrat, but he sympathized with the people. Ire "established at Tamworth a school for the supe- rior education of the-iiiidale classes ; " he advocated the admission of the working classes to mild'arns, ornamental grounds, galleries of art ; he promoted popular edildgion, as he himself intimated, by the repeal of the Corn-laws, more Chan any:minister ever did by any measure ever passed. In Peel, art aid science found a munifi- cent patron, both in his public and private capacity.

The time, perhaps, has not yet come for a final estimate of his character, or even of his services. We express our conviction, meanwhile, that few public men will better stand the test of time than Peel ; that few statesmen have been more patriotic or self-sacrificing ; that few statesmen have laboured more loyally or more usefully than the Conservative Reformer, who, accepting facts and adapting his policy to the wants of the age, has shown himself a proficient in " the science of exigencies," effecting the resumption of cash payments, conceding emancipation to the Ca- tholics, initiating freedom of commerce, erasing from the statute- book the unjust and invidious Corn-laws, organizing the Metro- politan Police, and aiding, by his suggestion of the Encumbered Estates Bill, in the gradual substitution of a real for a sham pro- prietary in Ireland.