efforts to be reëlected, and of the pride which the University really took in such a son, he was defeated by Sir Robert Harry Inglis, the impersonation of Church and State, and anti-Catholic bigotry.

Mr. Peel's own explanation of his motives in bringing forward the measure of Catholic relief, and of his change of views seems at once manly and satisfactory. In a speech, which occupied four hours in the delivery, on 5th March, he said

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"I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of the Roman Catholics from Parliament and the high offices of State. I do not think it was an unnatural or unreasonable struggle. I resign it, because of the conviction that it can no longer be advantageously maintained, from believing that there are not adequate materials or sufficient instruments for its effectual and permanent continuance. yield, therefore, to a MORAL NECESSITY which I cannot control. * In 1828, the House agreed to a resolution favorable to a principle of adjusting this question. I thereupon determined to retire from office. I intimated my fixed intention, in this respect, to the Duke of Wellington; but I felt it my duty to accompany it with the declaration-not only that I would not in a private capacity any longer obstruct a settlement which appeared to me ultimately inevitable, but that I would advise and promote it. I was appealed to to remain in office, and was told my retirement must prevent the adoption of the course which I was disposed to recommend. I resolved, therefore, and without doubt or hesitation, not to abandon my post, but to take all the personal consequences of originating and enforcing as a minister, the very measure which I had heretofore opposed. I was called upon to make those sacrifices of private feeling, which are inseparable from apparent inconsistency of conduct from the abandonment of preconceived opinions-from the alienation of those with whom I had heretofore cooperated. I have done so, and have proved that it is painful in the extreme to yield to such considerations, even from the most urgent sense of public duty."

It was not till long after, that the world knew with what difficulty the King George IV was brought to consent to this measure of his ministers. In January, 1840, in vindicating himself from some imputation of a desire to repeal that great act, Sir Robert Peel stated that after the Duke and himself had made up their minds to the necessity of the measure, they had the utmost difficulty with the King; so much so, that they did not

know, within a month of bringing on the measure, whether or not they could rely on the Royal assent. Nay, on the 4th of March, the day preceding that on which it was brought into the Commons, he said that "the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst and himself, retired from Windsor Castle out of office," and the royal authority was only given at the last moment.

In the following year, 1830, George IV. died. The accession of a new sovereign led to the dissolution of Parliament, but before this occurred, the Duke of Wellington, in order as he hoped at once to repress any expectation of a change in the national representation, or in the suffrage, declared that as long as he remained minister, he would resist any such change. This declaration, which seemed uncalled for by any existing circumstances, was received with great dissatisfaction by the nation; and when the new Parliament assembled, the ministry found themselves in a most awkward position. While the elections for this Parliament were in progress, the revolution of three days occurred in France, which resulted in the change of a dynasty and the establishment in that kingdom of a constitutional monarchy. The ferment thus given to men's minds, and the rankling still fresh from the antireform declaration of the Duke, occasioned the return of an anti-ministerial majority to the new Parliament. Soon after its meeting, on a vote of confidence, ministers were left in a minority of twentynine, and of course retired.

Lord Grey became the Premier, and Lord John Russell the Leader in the House of Commons. One of his first measures, was a bill for a reform in the national representation. Mr. Peel, now resisted this bill, which, notwithstanding on the opposition benches, strenuously the popular excitement under which the House was chosen, was only carried to a second reading by a majority of one vote. Being subsequently left in a minority, the ministry dissolved Parliament, and went to the people on the question of Reform.

The House then elected was largely in favor of Lord John's bill-and slowly, but surely, it was carried through the Commons. In the Lords it met with such resistance as to make it clear that, without the creation of new peers favorable to the measure, it could not be carried. Lord Grey advised the King (William IV.) to this course, but he absolutely

refused-and in consequence Ministers resigned.

The Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel were again appealed to to take charge of the government; but after a full survey of the ground, and especially of the complexion of the House of Commons, largely committed to Reform, the veteran advised his Sovereign to resume his former ministers. They were accordingly reinstated, with an understanding that, if the Reform bill were permitted to pass the House of Lords, no new Peers should be created. The bill did accordingly pass, and received the royal assent on the 7th June, 1832. The Parliament, less than one year old, was again dissolved, and a new one chosen under the Reform law.

The appetite seemed to grow by that it fed on. Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill, in acknowledging and correcting some abuses, only seemed to render other grievances more intolerable. In Ireland, particularly, the public mind and the public peace were much disturbed. The new Parliament was largely imbued with the popular impulse. Lord Grey desired to resort to the old system of coercion of pains and penalties; but he found difficulty with his colleagues, and still greater with the House of Commons, in carrying through some of the more stringent clauses of his Coercion bill, and in consequence resigned. He was succeeded as Premier by Lord Melbourne, who was of the same party-and the personnel only and not the policy of the administration underwent a change. After a short lull the storm was renewed, and Lord Melbourne's ministry suddenly fell. The dissolution of that ministry in 1834 was one of those strange and capricious occurrences, to which the administration of affairs in England is subject. It was at the time wholly unexpected, occurring, as it did, in the recess of Parliament, and when no immediate or obvious cause for such an event was foreseen. It fell, as afterwards it appeared, from its own weakness-the turning point being the death of Earl Spencer, which raised Lord Althorpe from the Commons to the Peers, and rendered necessary the selection of a new Leader in the Commons. "The King," says a contemporaneous writer, "called to his councils the ablest, by unanimous consent the far ablest, of that assembly, in which the chief business of the country must be done a man recommended to

the King by his Majesty's own knowledge of his character, by the advice of the most illustrious and most generous of the servants of the public, and by such unhesitating and universal approbation of the people, that the natural excitement of a great public crisis, and the national impatience of the English character, were for once satisfied to wait, through an unprecedented period of suspense, for the final resolve of the absent Statesman."

Sir Robert Peel was at this juncture with his family in Italy, as little anticipating the call about to be made upon him by the country and his Sovereign, as any other private gentleman then on his travels. A King's messenger, who had traveled with unequaled dispatch, found him in the studios of artists, deep in the admiration and selection of pictures. He told him that the heart of the British people was, as it were, impatiently counting its pulsations until it should be ascertained whether he, the son of a cotton spinner, would vouchsafe to take that helm, which the high nobility of the land -a cabinet in which were originally thirteen peers or sons of peers, one baronet, and only one commoner-had been found unequal to govern. Sir Robert instantly returned home, receiving from the Duke of Wellington, on whose earnest recommendation he had been sent for, and who exercised during the interim ALL the powers of the government, the responsible trust. Although, on a survey of the ground, Sir Robert saw the unparalleled difficulties of the position, he felt obliged, by the confidence which both King and people had manifested in him, to take the government. But owing to the peculiar character of the House of Commons, the first chosen under the Reform Bill, and in which the ministry he succeeded had still a large majority, his first step was to dissolve Parliament and order a new election-this making the fourth Parliament elected in four years!

It was upon this occasion that he issued that address to his own constituents at Tamworth, which of itself denotes a new era in the constitutional history of England, and was a consequence, necessary perhaps, of the changes effected by the Reform Bill. As was well said at the time, never before did a prime minister think it necessary to announce to the people, not only his acceptance of office, but the principles and even the details of

the measures he meant to pursue-and to solicit, not from the Parliament but from the people, that they would so far maintain the prerogative of the King as to give the ministers of his choice, not indeed an implicit confidence, but a fair trial." In former times such a proceeding would have been thought derogatory, and impugned as unconstitutional, but the Reform Bill had made the Crown more dependent in the choice of its ministers on the preferences of the respective constituencies.

In the course of this address Sir Robert Peel, to use a phrase much in vogue among our public men, "defined his position" very manfully. He denied that he had ever been "the defender of abuses or the enemy of judicious reform. I appeal," said he, "with confidence, in denial of any such charge, to the active part I took in the great question of the Currency in the consolidation and amendment of the criminal law-in the revisal of the whole system of trial by jury to the opinions I have ever professed and acted upon with regard to other branches of the jurisprudence of the country. I appeal to this as proof that I have not been disposed to acquiesce in acknowledged evils, either from the mere superstitious reverence for ancient usages, or from the dread of labor or responsibility in the application of a remedy."

In direct reference to his future course as minister, and in allusion to expectations or intimations that he would be found in opposition to the spirit in which the Reform Bill had been carried, he thus explicitly explained his views:

"The Reform Bill, it is said, constitutes a new era, aud it is the duty of a minister to declare explicitly-first, whether he will maintain the Bill itself, and secondly, whether he will act upon the spirit in which it was conceived. With respect to the Reform Bill itself, I will repeat now the declaration which I made when I entered the House of Commons, as a member of the Reformed Parliament-that I consider the Reform Bill as a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question, a settlement which no friend to the peace and welfare of his country would attempt to disturb either by direct or by insidious means. Then, as to the spirit of the Reform Bill, and the willingness to adopt and enforce it, as a rule of government. If, by adopting the spirit of the Reform Bill it be meant, that we are to live in a perpetual vortex of agitation, that public men can only support themselves

in public estimation by adopting every popular impression of the day, by promis ing the instant redress of anything which anybody may call an abuse, by abandoning altogether the great aid of government, more powerful than either Law or Reason -the respect for ancient rights, and the deference to prescriptive authority-if this be the spirit of the Reform Bill, I will not undertake to adopt it: but if that spirit merely implies a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper, combining with the firm maintenance of established rights, the correction of proved abuses, and the redress of real grievances-in that case I can, for myself and colleagues, undertake to act in such a spirit and with such intentions."

These and like indications satisfied the nation that Sir Robert meant to place his administration on the basis laid by one of the wisest of statesmen, "a disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve," yet, notwithstanding this general approbation and confidence, owing to the preponderance of the democratic element, a majority adverse to the minister was returned to the House of Commons, and on the preliminary question of the session, the choice of a Speaker, he was defeated by a vote of 316 to 309. Such a division, on such a question, would, in all previous times, have led to the immediate resignation of the cabinet. But Sir Robert had taken the post, with the knowledge that he was beset by difficulties, and he was too much of a man to give way to the first, great as it was. He resolved to put himself upon his country, and at least to give them the opportunity of judging him by his measures. This manly effort failed him, and, after an unfavorable division on the Irish Tithe Bill, defended by a speech, (on 2d April,) which the Quarterly Review of the day pronounced "magnificent," and spoke of legacy worthy of the greatest statesman that has appeared in the House of Commons since the death of Mr. Pitt," Sir Robert relinquished the seals of office, after an ineffectual struggle of three months.

as a

The Reform Ministry again (April, 1835) resumed the government, with Lord Melbourne as its head, and Lord John Russel, as before, the leader in the House of Commons.

withdrawn from public life, Lord Stanley Lord Grey had and Sir James Graham had abandoned their old associates, and Lord Brougham, who had been passed over by his colleagues, on their restoration to office, became an antagonist. All this visibly

citing debate of four nights, was carried by a majority of ONE!-312 to 311. After sustaining another defeat on the Administration of Justice Bill, the Queen, by the advice of her minister, prorogued Parliament on 22d June, with a view to its immediate dissolution. This measure proved fatal to the Whigs. A most warmly-contested election ensued, and, in its progress, it was soon perceptible that the CONSERVATIVES were to carry the day. Lord John Russell, after a severe struggle, was elected one of the representatives of the City of London. On addressing his new constituents, he admitted that his party had been defeated in the elections, and defeated on the issue of free trade. He expressed, nevertheless, his conviction that this issue would be reversed, and that the principles of free trade would eventually triumph.

Sir Robert Peel, too, addressed his constituents at Tamworth; but in a far different strain from his address of 1834, when, as Prime Minister, he appealed through them to the country to give the King's Ministers a fair trial. He was now simply an opposition member of Parliament, though with the near certainty of being again called into power; and, in this category, he " kept dark." "The Doctor," said he, with a somewhat grave humor, "had not yet been called in to prescribe for the patient, and he could not, therefore, propose remedies."

The new Parliament met in August, 1841, and a thorough free trade speech from the throne was delivered by commission. In both Houses the contest immediately began, and was decided against ministers. The great struggle was in the House, in which, as yet, Sir Robert had taken no part. But towards the close of the last night, the fifth of the debate, O'Connell having made a speech abusing the Tories and praising the Whigs, those same Whigs whom on a former occasion he had stigmatized as "bloody, base and brutal:" the moment he sat down Sir Robert sprang to his feet," animated seemingly," says a contemporary writer, "by some unusual emotion; he used a phraseology bolder than his wont; uttered his words with a desperate passion, altogether uncharacteristic of his style of speaking. He repelled O'Connell's vituperation as proceeding from an imagination fertile in cal umny,' and looking directly across the House, and bending forward, asked the Irish agitator, in a tone of almost savage

scorn, if these were his base, brutal and bloody Whigs? The passion evaporated, but the voice trembled with emotion a long time afterwards, as he proceeded to state the principles which would actuate him should he be called to power." The division came, and in a House of 629 members, there appeared a majority of 91 against ministers.

Sir Robert was again installed in office, but declining to explain himself as to his future policy, and asking time for maturng it, Parliament after passing the neessary bills was prorogued on the 7th October. It met again on the 3d February, the Queen attending in person to deliver the speech, accompanied by the King of Prussia, who happened to be in England, and a brilliant cortège. On the 9th, Sir Robert made his long-expected motion on the Corn Laws, rejecting Lord John Russell's motion of a fixed duty, and reasserting the superiority of the sliding scale, and, in spite of all opposi tion, which was violent, his bill became a law.

His next and bolder measures were the new Tariff Act and the Income Tax. The country was in great difficulties. There had been a constant and growing deficiency in the revenue for several years, and new taxes on articles of consumption or trade were not to be thought of. Commerce, therefore, was to be revived by the removal of duties, and a tax on property was to supply, not only the existing deficiency in the revenue, but the farther diminution to be occasioned by the duties to be abolished.

The speech in which Sir Robert explained these measures is among the best he has delivered; but the length to which this article is running prevents our making any extracts. The appeal which he made to the men of property of the country to submit cheerfully to the proposed tax-equal to about three per cent. on incomes-was very striking and very effective. "There are," said he "indications among all the upper classes of society of increased comfort and enjoyment of increased prosperity and wealth -and yet concurrently with these indications there exists a mighty evil which has been growing up for the last seven years. You will not permit this evil to gain such gigantic growth as ultimately to place it far beyond your power to control. If you do, you must expect the severe but just judgment of a reflecting and retrospective posterity. Your conduct will be contrasted with

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