strong government. But," the French statesman is compelled to add, "he was called on to perform the most difficult of tasks—a task essentially incoherent and contradictory. He was obliged to be at once a conservative and a reformer, and to carry along with him in this double course a majority incoherent in itself." The history of Sir Robert Peel's second administration, which is the history of England during 1841-45, does not fall to be written here; only a few principal items can be glanced at. After an autumn and winter of preparation he met parliament on the 3d of February, 1842, and on the 9th proposed his famous sliding scale, which was carried by a majority of one hundred and eight. On the 11th of March he made his financial statement, and proposed to meet the deficit which had been growing yearly larger under the whigs, by an income-tax of 7d. in the pound. On the 10th of May, in a long and elaborate speech, showing a wonderful mastery of details, he proposed his new tariff, the principle of which was to extinguish the duties on a number of minor articles of foreign import, and in other cases to replace prohibitory by moderately protective duties. Among the duties thus reduced were those on various agricultural products, cattle and salted meat, butter and eggs; nor did this innovation fail to excite the murmurs of his protectionist supporters. In the session of 1844 he carried, with the support of the whigs, his Bank act, which, according to M. Guizot, he himself "delighted to speak of as one of the most important achievements of his life." In the same session still stronger murmurs than before were heard proceeding from a section of his supporters, when he introduced the measure for the endowment of Maynooth, to carry which he had to accept the support of his whig opponents against many of his own adherents. Meanwhile the anti-corn-law league was growing very formidable. The consolidation and extension of its power were followed by the potato rot and Irish famine, in the autumn of 1845. On the 6th of November, according to his own memoirs, Sir Robert Peel submitted to his colleagues of the cabinet a proposal to issue forthwith an order in council remitting the duty on grain in bond to one shilling, and opening the ports for the admission of all species of grain at a smaller rate of duty, while parliament was to be summoned on the 27th, and an indemnity asked for. The cabinet declined its assent to this proposal and others which accompanied it. On the 22nd November, Earl Russell addressed to his London constituents the celebrated Edinburgh letter, in which he gave in his adhesion to corn-law repeal. On the 5th of December Sir Robert resigned, and on the 11th Earl Russell arrived at Osborne. His lordship's attempts to form an administration were foiled, by the refusal of Earl Grey to join a cabinet of which Lord Palmerston was to be a member. On the 20th of December Sir Robert Peel resumed the functions of prime minister, now supported by his principal colleagues (with the exception of the present earl of Derby, who seceded) in his scheme of proposing to parliament the repeal of the corn-laws. On the 27th of January, 1846, he introduced his plan, according to which, after 1849, the duty on corn was to be reduced to the nominal one of a shilling. The repeal of the corn-laws was carried by a coalition between Sir Robert Peel and his followers on the one side, and the liberals on the other, against the protectionists. Little more than an hour and a half after the peers had passed the new tariff, on the 25th June, 1846, the liberals and the protectionists coalesced to throw out on the second reading the minister's Irish coercion bill. The numbers on the division were two hundred and ninety-two against, to two hundred and nineteen for, and on the 29th of June Sir Robert Peel announced to the house of commons that he had ceased to be a minister of the crown. For the next four years he gave his successor, Earl Russell, an independent support, aiding the whig ministers to carry the Irish encumbered estates act and the repeal of the navigation laws. Almost his solitary act of notable opposition to the whig ministry was his speech and vote on the Pacifico affair, when Sir Robert and his followers coalesced with the protectionists and the Manchester party, but unsuccessfully, to refuse approval of the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. This was his last appearance in the house of commons. On the following day, the 29th of Juno, while riding in the afternoon up Constitution Hill, he was thrown from his horse, and his left collar-bone was broken. After lingering in great pain for some days, he died on the 2d of July, 1850. A public funeral would have been given to him, and a peerage to Lady Peel; but his own instructions were precise. He had left directions that he should be interred in the parish church of Drayton where his father and mother were buried, and that no one of his family should accept any title or public reward in respect of any service which he might have rendered to his country. On the motion of Earl Russell, the house of commons r esolved that a monument should be erected to him in Westminster abbey.—F. E.
The parliamentary and public career of Sir Robert Peel, especially the circumstances connected with his later administration, are so well known, that comment upon them would be superflous here; but the private life and character of the illustrious statesman not being so generally known to the public, cannot be passed over in silence. He was essentially a domestic man—never so happy as in the bosom of his family, or surrounded by his friends and neighbours. His manners were graceful, but retiring. A stranger might, but most erroneously, have attributed his quietude and seeming reserve to constitutional coldness, or even pride; but, on the contrary, he was extremely warm-hearted and sincere, though from force of habit, being accustomed to deep thought, he occasionally exhibited an air of abstraction. As a rule he was cheerful without hilarity, and when amongst his friends, a quiet vein of humour pervaded his conversation. Nothing perhaps more strongly exemplified the equanimity of his disposition, his power of self-control, and elasticity of mind, than the air of perfect repose unalloyed by care which he exhibited when descending, under whatever circumstances, from the turmoil of parliamentary strife to the peaceful pursuits of domestic life. Undoubtedly the main-spring of this was the satisfaction he derived, whether ousted by defeat or crowned with success, from the consciousness of having faithfully discharged his duty. There was indeed a grandeur in the dignified serenity of his deportment under such circumstances, which commanded admiration. He was never idle. However sudden the transition from the worry of official existence to the retirement of country life, he immediately applied himself to the moral and social improvement of all within his influence, and entered into their pursuits with alacrity. Interesting himself in agriculture, he promoted amongst his farm-tenantry and neighbours the adoption of the most approved scientific appliances; tried at his own expense the various experiments in draining, manuring, &c., giving the farmers the benefit of the experience thus acquired; procured the advice of the most eminent scientific men; and invited his tenantry to hear their lectures on farming, not forgetting on these occasions to exercise freely the rites of hospitality. He was a liberal promoter of education, in furtherance of which he not only aided the schools established and endowed by his father, but founded a library and reading room at Tamworth. He was munificent in his donations to public charities, church building, &c., and his private charity was as extensive as it was unostentatious. He was a keen sportsman, and sought health in the invigorating sport of shooting, freely inviting his neighbours to participate with him in this amusement, and to surround his table after the close of the day. Thus he brought himself into useful and agreeable contact with those around him of every rank and denomination; in fact Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor was a perfect specimen of the true English country gentleman. The admirable productions of ancient and modern painters and sculptors of every school which adorn his family mansion, undisfigured by anything below mediocrity, and embracing a collection of portraits of the most eminent men of his own time of every shade of politics, attest at once the love of art and science, and the large liberality of sentiment which distinguished him. He delighted to encourage genius, and though so extremely careful not to tax the country by lavish patronage, the exclusion of his own family from which was a notable example, he availed himself of frequent opportunities of rewarding merit by procuring appointments to public offices of the sons of men more distinguished, as too frequently happens, for pre-eminence in art, science, and literature than for wealth. Peel was a true patriot, and whatever may have been the opinions of adverse parties as to his measures and the line of policy he pursued, rectitude of purpose may undoubtedly be ascribed to him. He sought no personal advantage—his "will" furnishes conclusive evidence of this. It has been objected that he was not far-seeing in political matters, and that he deceived his party when, in his judgment, the time for action arrived. As regards the former, if we revert to the almost prophetic language in which when introducing his modifications
