SIR ROBERT PEEL'S PREMIERSHIP.

A .CONTRIBUTION IN HONOUR OF THE GRAND TORY FESTIVAL AT MERCHANT TAILOR'S HALL.

FAILURE in any enterprise is presumptive proof of misconduct in him who undertook it. To allege deficiency of means, is no excuse for ill success. A general who makes a sudden irruption into an enemy's country, and is-soon compelled to retire with loss, is not allowed to justify himself by protesting that he miscalculated the force necessary for the successful completion of the expoditian. He is reminded that the duty and province of a commander is to ascertain the amount of resistance he will have to overcome, and not to sacrifice troops and treasure in a hopeless reacounter with a superior power. "'Tis not in mortals to command success ;" true—but it is incumbent on the vanquished, who chose his own time and mode of attack, to prove that success was all but certain, and that he took every means to insure it.

Let us apply this rule to the conduct of Sir ROBERT PEEL, from the time he was called upon to assume the Premiership— the chief command of the Tory troops—to his resignation. His party affect to consider his management as faultless. They are 'doing all in their power-to exalt him, and to hold him up as the statesman to whom recourse must be had, and that speedily, for the salvation of a lost empire. And this they do, notwithstanding the disastrous plight from which the utmost skill and prowess of 1he chief so highly extolled have not been able to preserve them.

To all who have the faculty of looking a little onward, the ultimate ruin of the Tory party is not less clear than their present defeat is undeniable. So far from having impeded the progress of those principles to which they profess irreconcileable hostility, it is admitted that " Democracy" has made vast strides during the 'official predominance of the Aristocrats. In the Legislature,

and throughout the land, the Movement has gained ground rapidly. Is this a cause for exultation among those who on Monday next dine together in the City to glorify the talents and prowess of Sir ROBERT PEEL? They see the result of his attempt to oppose the progress of' Liberal principles and thorough reforms ; and can they suppose that where failure has been so complete and so disastrous, there has been no mismanagement on the part of their leader ? Have his foresight, skill, discrotion, and command of tenmer, been so conspicuous throughout the struggle, as to relieve him from the blame which almost invariably attaches to the vanquished aggressor ?—Let us see : if we mistake not, a review of his recent public acts and speeches—not to go back uson the grand blunders of 1S27 and 1S30—will establish that the profuse admiration of his partisans has been illdeserved. So far from viewing him as a statesman to whom the country should apply for aid in times of difficulty and danger, we should rather say that he has shown himself remarkably destitute of those qualities which inspire amid justify national confidence in a Minister.

The eireumitances under which PEEL acespted office must be remembered. He was absent front the country, and hail bees so for some months. He had left a Liberal ',Iinistry in possession of an unprecedented majority in the House of Commons, and of the favourable opinion of the great mass of' the nation. Suddenly, and for eo reason that can be creditably assigned, the King dismissed this popular Ministry; and, without waiting to ascertain from his own observation, or from the reports of unprejudiced parties, the real state of public feeling, Sir ROBER.T PEEL clutched the power placed within his reach. Ile thus identified himself with the Court as opposed to the Country—with a section of the Aristocracy against the mass of the People. No professional officehunter ever displayed more alacrity to gratify a diseased longing for power and place than this high-minded and patriotic person. He was precipitate when he should have been cautious, confident when past experience should have taught him distrust. Was this statesmanlike ? was it even prudent upon a sordid calculation of the chances of gain or loss to the party who had chosen him for their instrument ?

Having thus hastily and unadvisedly taken office, did Sir ROBERT PEEL exhibit tact and judgment in the selection of his colleagues ? Was it wise, in the existing temper of the nation, to connect himself with Sir EDWARD KNATCHBULL, Mr. BARING, Lord RODEN, Lord STORMONT, Mr. SHAW, and other vehement opponeres of Reform? Was the appointment of Lord LONDONDERRY judicious? Most political impostors have had the prudence to square their actions, for a time at least, to their professions. But let any man read Sir ROBERT PEEL'S address to his Tamworth constituents, and his Mansionhouse speech, and then reconcile, if he can, the evident drift and aim of those elaborate compositions with the acts of their author. We did not, it is true, look upon the Tamworth address or the speech as proof of Sir ROBERT'S apostacy from his Tory principles; but their manifest object was to insinuate his abandonment of those principles, and his willingness to turn Reformer. Such was the light in which they were represented by' his organs and partisans; and, yet as if to give the lie to his own words, and to the assertions of his creatures, Sir ROBERT PEEL

associated with himself in the Government men who were notori ous for nothing but bitter hatred of Reform. This we maintain to have been a glaring, a practical inconsistency, which no discreet or commonly honest politician would have been guilty of. Had

the persons thus chosen redeemed part of their unpopularity by their serviceable talents,—had there been more LYNDHURSTS among them,—Sir R000tre would have had some excuse for choosing them; but, as we have several times bad occasion to say, the KNATCHBULLS, Gousnuoies, M.AHONS, and the rest, were deplorably deficient in nearly all that is requisite to make the House of Commons and the Country pardon or forget political delinquency. It is no justification of Sir ROBERT PEEL to aver that he was not responsible for the paucity of talent in the Tory ranks;

and that he took the best men he could get. He should have objected to "march through Coventry" with them; and the inability

of the party to furnish him with the necessary means of contending with success, would have been an ample apology for declining the post of leader. But Sir ROBERT PEEL resolved to fight an arduous battle with inefficient troops.

We will not stop to discuss the prudence or the indiscretion of dissolving the last Parliament without first meeting it. Much may reasonably be urged for and against that step, the policy of which was doubtful ; but, having dissolved the Parliament, and having ascertained the result of the elections, what excuse had Sir Roomer

PEEL for declaring, as he did to his Tamworth friends, that he felt

confident of his ability to carry on the Government of the country with the new House of Commons? No one, surely, will pretend

that the National Representatives were less favourable to him

than he could have reasonably anticipated that they would be. On the contrary, it is notorious that he had support from ,quarters whence he had no right to expect it. The constituencies were duped in numerous instances. Had not thirty or forty Members falsified their previous professions, there would have been a ma jority of nearly a hundred against him on every important question. Moreover, he was most leniently treated by the Opposition. The temptation to castigate and expose him was reisted—in consideration, we suppose, of his forlorn and hopeless state—by many

who could have applied the lash and used the dissecting-knife to very good purpose. On the whole, Sir ROBERT PEEL actually

obtained a House of Commons very much more favourably inclined towards him than could have been calculated upon ; and

yet he was in a minority. How, then, could he, if he possessed

average foresight and knowledge, have supposed that he would maintain himself in office by a majority of that assembly? The fact is, that he led his party into certain, perhaps irremediable disaster; and it seems absurd to claim for such a man the praise of consummate skill and prudence.

His present eulogists point to the measures he proposed. But a Minister whose real aim and office it was to preserve established

institutions, and arrest the progress of the Movement, committed the most serious mistake by bringing forward important measures of innovation, which he had not the smallest prospect of carrying.

In fact, he unsettled many things, but consolidated nothing. The old maxim of his party was not only " quieta non movere," but to make steady what was already moveable. Sir ROBERT PEEL

acted on a different plan : he sanctioned principles which as

an organ of the Tory party he should have repudiated, and established precedents for future proceedings, which his al lies, the Obstructives, will live to lament and oppose in vain. In so doing, it must be admitted that he did not disappoint the expectation of those who had watched and remembered his political career. It has been his uniform course to go far enough, unintentionally, to injure his party, but not so far as to benefit the People. He has never been aware of the more remote consequences of what lie said and did. The want of fore sight which was so conspicuous in his mode of dealing with the great questions of Dissenting Disabilities, Catholic Emancipation,

and Parliamentary Reform, was quite as remarkable in his recent proceedings as a Minister. Sir ROBERT will not be many years older before he will be made to perceive, that by the course he pursued when Premier, he has furnished the Movement party with several excellent weapons for the destruction of Toryism and its appurtenances.

As to the measures themselves, where they were good, they were not original. They were adopted from his predecessors with slight alterations ; which in some instances, especially as regards the Irish Tithe Bill, were not improvements. But whatever may be thought of his conduct in assuming

office himself, in selecting colleagues, and in the concoction of measures, you must allow, it is said, that Sir ROBERT PEEL'S personal behaviour during the trying period of his Ministry was above all praise. This is the language of those whom it suits to adulate and deify the only member of their party who has the slightest pretensions to take a leading part in the government of the country. But let us look to facts, and see whether Sir ROBERT PEEL has uniformly, or even generally, acted in so praiseworthy and unexceptionable a manner. Soon after his return from the Continent, he became involved in a needless and undignified squabble with Dr. LusnisruTorr. His letter to this Ecclesiastical Judge would have been deemed a warlike one, had there been any chance of the Doctor's fighting ; but to call out a Judge, is about as safe as to challenge a Bishop ; and the result was an exposure of Sir ROBERT'S testiness and illtemper, nothing more. It happened too, rather unfortunately, that the next person whom the Premier fell foul of was the pacific JOSEPH HUME; who devotes his time, talents, and knowledge, to the public service, but wisely and fairly refuses to fight with sword or pistol the parties who are annoyed by his sturdy way of exposing official misconduct or political delinquency. Sir ROBERT, to do him justice, took Colonel Evasrs's severe animadversions on his dishonourable conduct as a public man, very meekly ; but two hostile communications in the course of a few weeks are sufficient to call in question the justice of the encomiums so lavishly bestowed on the personal bearing of the Premier. This readiness on the part of Sir ROBERT to take offence when it was safe to seem valiant, and to pardon attacks which it would have been perilous to resent, was remarked on several other occasions. It was remarked that he was insolent when he thought he could be insolent with impunity. He treated an unpopular or inexperienced Member—Mr. ROEBUCK, or Mr. W ILKLEY, for instance—very differently from Mr. SPRING RICE or Mr. SHE' e. His courtesy was not uniform, nor was he always at the pains to curb his ill-humour. On the very first day the House met, he was betrayed into and forced to apologize for needless and unbecoming heat of manner. With an affectation of uncommon candour, Sir ROBERT was palpably disingenuous and unprofitably sly. Witness the trick by which he attempted to steal the sanction of the House to the principle of his Irish Tithe Bill under the pretence of a mere preliminary and formal vote, which, he said, was never refused; and the clumsy attempt to persuade Lord Join, RUSSELL to abandon his famous resolution, and bring in a bill to effect the same purpose. Lord JOHN, it will be remembered, told him plainly that he saw through his manteuvre, and would not be " so deceived." . We have never denied Sir ROBERT PEEL the merit of delivering distinct, well-arranged, and plausible speeches. He makes the most of all he has to say ; and it is surprising how much of the smpression he creates—in the House of Commons, not out of it— depends upon merely mechanical elocution. We heard nearly all that he uttered in Parliament from the opening to the Easter recess; and have lately perused his speeches in the Mirror of Pariiament, where they seem to be very accurately reported, as indeed Sir ROBERT'S speeches generally are in the newspapers even. But we have been struck with their essentially common place character. They are not vapid, but tiresome to read ; and we can honestly say, that not a single new idea or memorable ex pression, or a single fact of importance not generally known or easily accessible, is to be found in the whole. We look in vain for one stroke of real wit, one passage of genuine humour, one touch of pathos. Sir ROBERT'S jokes are studied, but heavy. There is no " curiosa felicitas' even in what he evidently deems his best displays—he is elaborate, but not happy. For the most part, his speeches are made up of the argumentum ad hominem and the argumentum ad crumenam. In the debates on the Address and the Irish Tithe Bill, lie seemed to consider it a complete defence

of his own modes of proceeding, that Earl GREY'S Ministry had set him the example, or something like one,—forgetting that one bad measure does not justify another, and that there were probably from 150 to 200 Members of the House who had opposed Earl GREY and would resist any other Minister in an unpopular course of action. But Sir ROBERT assumed an air of infinite triumph, when, by reference to former proceedings, he could avail himself

of the tu quoque argument—could say, "you have done yourself what you blame in me." This, however, is a paltry and quackish

style of oratory. We have read whole volumes of the speeches of Fox and BURKE, and heard O'CONNELL scores of times, without encountering a single specimen of it. We never heard the appeal to the sordid feelings of a body of gentlemen more impudently made than it was by Sir ROBERT PEEL on the Malt-tax debate, when he endeavoured to frighten the "landed gentlemen" with the assertion that they would have to pay more by means of a Property-tax than they now contribute through the Malt-tax. This might or might not be true—it was very easy to assert it ; but it is presumed that the National Representatives legislate for the good of the community, not for the peculiar advantage of the landed interest. The argument, therefore, so directly put to the breechespocket, was an insult to the House, and ought to have been treated as such. But it was not : on the contrary, it was the most effective one the Minister had to urge.

This mode of arguing is characteristic of Sir ROBERT PEEL. He never by any chance appeals to principle : he applies himself to the

baser passions and prejudices—to the hypocrisies and cants. He not unfrequently gains a temporary advantage by this practice; but his habitual recourse to it proves his deficiency in the higher faculties of reasoning—in the power of reaching the more generous and ennobling feelings and motives ; and is sufficient of itself to sink him into a third-rate orator.

But Sir ROBERT PEEL'S worst defect, as a Parliamentary debater even, is his manifest insincerity. We do not lay so much stress on his want of the " ars celare artem,"—meaning thereby his inability to pass off studied passages as the natural and spontaneous eloquence of the moment (in which be is immeasurably inferior to O'CONNELL) ; but it is a damning fault in a popular speaker to inspire his auditory with distrust of his good faith. This, however, is the case with Sir ROBERT PEEL: he is listened to, but suspected—admitted to be clever, but not supposed to be honest.

The result of our examination into the public character of Sir ROBERT PEEL, as more particularly developed in his conduct during his Premiership, is the confirmation of our opinion that he wants those statesmanlike qualities which alone could justify the Representatives of the People in supporting him as the leading Minister of the Crown. He appears to us to have betrayed a sin gular deficiency of judgment and foresight in the assumption of office, and in the choice of colleagues. He has not made up for

these falai errors by that extrordinary dexterity or skill in the

conduct of his party which is attributed to him by some trading politicians, who intend to make him of use at some future time, and by others who take their opinions of men and things upon trust. His recent failure was the inevitable result, not of extraordinary circumstances and sudden disasters, but of such as he ought to have foreseen ; and the force of these circumstances was not broken by any wonderful display of adroitness, energy, or talent.

We therefore hope that the Tories will keep fast hold of Sir ROBERT. Though far from being the miraculous person they

pretend to consider him, he is by far the best leader they can bring forward. He is fitted for their purposes, which are selfish and deceptive. But let the Liberals reflect on his past life ; and if, in the turn of the political wheel, he should ever become one of them, let them use, but not trust him—make him serviceable as a tool, but refuse to follow him as a guide.