BOOKS.

GOIZOT'S MEMOIRS OF PEEL.

THESE Memoirs of the political career,. intermingled occasionally with some personal notices of Peel's private life and personal cha- racter, were originally -rtibd in part before the Academia des Sciences Morales et Politiqute, and published in the Revue des Deux Monde& There is little trace of this origin in the structure or execution. There is undoubtedly some looseness of texture in the workmanship, which leads to an appearance of elongation in the narrative ; but there are no gaps in the plan, no alterna- tion of striking bits and dead levels. Except for the want of closeness—the absence of condensation, M. Guizot's Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel is entitled to great praise. It is clearly-planned, broad in its views and treatment, and exhibits in its judgments a Combination of the critic-historian with the practical statesman. It is also very readable, and travels over a large period of Eng- lish history contemporary to many, and the effects of which come home to " the business and bosoms " of the world at large. Since his death, and indeed during his life . various notices of Peel have been published upon a somewhat similar plan to M. Guizot's, but none give so complete a view, and very few in anything like so Short a compass. With the exception of some fresh matter, the result of the au- thor's personal position, there is of course nothing new. From his Very earliest manhood to the day of his death, Peel lived continu- ally before thepublic, " the observed of all observers" ; while both from necessity and disposition he was perpetually induced to give his reasons, if not his thoughts, to the world. The offices he Elea, the measures he planned and passed, the policy he pursued, and the speeches he made, are too fully known, and have been too often canvassed and criticized from all points of view, to allow any scrutiny to discover fresh information. - The literary merit of the Memoirs consists in the dearness with which M. Guizot perceives the distinguishing traits of Peel's career and character; the skill with which he selects from a long oration the essential passages that illustrate the case, and the quiet but living spirit with which they are presented. The main interest of the book arises from the position of the author. We have Peel judged by a foreigner and a statesman, removed from the fierce or petty feelings of party strife, though not ignorant of the character of Eng- lish parties or of Parliamentary warfare, and who has him- self been exposed to the temptations that beset and the stimuli that elevate and encourage a minister. It is possible that some may think this latter circumstance is not all gain. The judg- ffient of"Guizot is calm, fair, favourable, doing justice to the mo- tives, the wisdom, and the high political ability of the statesman, as well as to his caution and his courage. The errors in the management of his party are pointed out, and, as we think, the Feat error of all—the distance and reserve not to say the despot- ism with which he treated his followers. Perhaps, however, these things are treated too much on Fouche's notion as " worse than crimes—blunders," We do not say that lit. Guizot overlooks right and wrong ; quite the contrary—he frequently mentions them, and attributes to them great weight in politics both as regards international intercourse and their influence on the people : but he seems to value them rather for their use than their inherent qualities. It is not so much the " honestura " as the " utile " that excites his admiration. Sometimes it is evident that Guizot thinks he could have managed the argument, or at least the rhetoric, better than Peel. Speaking of the attacks made upon the Minister for "political faithlessness," for destroy- ing his party, and consenting to carry measures he bad opposed, the critic comments rather wonderingly upon his silence, ' as if he did not feel the importance of the attack, or did not know how to repel it." M. Guizot would have put down the assailants with the high hand.

" I am astonished at this [silence]. What would Sir Robert Peel's ad

*manes have thought and answered, if he had said to them—' You-accuse me of destroying the old political parties : they no longer.exiet ; they are daily_ dissolving of themselves, not by any act of mine. Where are the principles, the interests, the passions, which called them into being? You call yourselves Tories and Protestants par excellence : are you ready to treat the Catholics as enemies, to make war upon them, to confiscate their pro-

? Do you seriously believe the throne of the house of Hanover and

the Prr ant succession to be in danger? The reforms which I propose to youto make in the laws were made long ago in the -minds of men, m the minds.of most of yourselves as well as in those of your adversaries. Your most illustrious leader, Mr. Pitt, your boldest champion, Lord Castlereagh, your most eloquent orator, Mr. Canning, were all in favour of the emanci- pation of the Catholics. The old parties still preserve their traditions, but they no longer retain their faith ; they march under the -same banner, but they no longer fight for the same cause. New causes have arisen ; new ideas rally men together or keep them apart; new wants demand satisfac- tion. i follow this course of things : I consult the symptoms which develop themselves ; I enter upon the paths which are opened, and in which the generations of my time precede me. I change only because everything is changed—parties as well as ideas, feelings, and.manners. You think you are what your fathers were : you are mistaken.; you can persist in this error,only on condition of remaining motionless ; as soon as you begin to move and act, you will feel yourselves compelled to change, you will feel that you are already changed. Do not impute to me that which is the work of time; not reproach me for transformations which are general, though not eqially visible everywhere ; do not stigmatize as desertion and trea- chery that which you will do yourselves when you are called upon to govern your transformed country.'

" Sir Robert Peel would have been entitled to hold this language. The reason of his political changes was placed far higher than his opponents seemed to suspect; and where they only sought a personal offence with

* Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel. BIY Guizot. Published by Bentley.

which to taunt him, they ought to have seen the irrevocable accomplish. ment of a great social. fact."

Peel was not the man to speak so very directly as to the state of the world, but we think something like the germ of these ideas might be drawn from some of his many speeches. The main thence of the great speech on bringing in the Catholic Relief Bill was surely the failing strength of the Anti-Papal party, till po- litical failures could get no further, and the question became emancipation or civil war. But whether this were so or not, it was no answer to the Anti-Papists' complaint—Why did you go on till the eleventh hour and then suddenly leave us in the lurch 2

Of Peel's behaviour on the Catholic question, the Corn-laws, and the Currency Bill, the world, we should think, has heard enough by this time. We are not sure that sufficient attention has been paid to his conduct after the Reform Bill. Yet his pa- triotic prudence in immediately accepting the measure with an avowed determination to make the best of it, and the firmness with which he opposed himself to all violent extremes, especially the fury of his own party, were perhaps of as much real utility to the country as the repeal of the Corn-laws or of the Catholic Dis abilities, especially the latter. M. Guizot has perhaps not im- pressed this so fully as he might have done, but he distinctly sees it.

" All the ideas and all the schemes which for fifteen years, in drawing- rooms, in newspapers, and in Parliament, had been the topics of the con- versations, writings, and speeches of the Whig and Radical Opposition, were now brought forward as so many formal propositions claiming to be made laws. With all these questions, as they were suecesaively introduced, Sir Robert Peel was ready to grapple; and he brought into the debates a posi- tive opinion a vast and accurate acquaintance with facts, a. tempered eloquence which succeeded in convincing if not in commanding passionate admiration, and that self-reliant, though not expansive authority, which wins confidence even when it does not excite sympathy. He did not confine himself within the absolute principles of the-old Tones, or within the ex- treme prerogatives of power ; he did not repel every innovation : on the contrary, lie proved himself solicitous about the new state of society, and alive to the necessity of granting it the moral satisfactions and material prosperities to which it aspired ; but he resolutely defended, against every direct or indirect attack, public and private property,-exis' ting rights and laws, the Crown, the Church, and all:the foundations of social and national order,—boldly inscribing on his banner the maxim, that, taken all in all, the institutions of England were good, and 'English society well regulated, and that every innovation, being on these grounds more deserving of suspicion than of favour, must be passed through severe trials of discussion and time before it could -be admitted at the expense of the established order of things.

*

"This enlightened goodeenee, conservative from uprightness of mind and moral intelligHence rather than from interest and tradition, did not give full satisfaction to the ideas or to the passions of the Tories of the old school ; and they followed Peel with some -uneasiness, occasionally mingled with murmurs, as an indispensable defender, and not as a true representative and a certain guide. In Ireland especially, the Orangemen would not allow themselves to he:restrained or directed by his prudent equity, and by the violence of their language and conduct towards the Catholics they often caused him as much displeasure as embarrassment. Me was thus, in this respect, the leader of a party to which he did not belong, either by his origin, or by his inmost opinions, or by his tastes. In return, his renown and. 'in- fluence with the bulk of the nation, among the middle classes,-the clergy, the mafiatraey, the bar, the men engaged in manufactures and commerce, grew visibly wider and stronger. From day to day, greater confidence was reposed in the prudent honesty. of his views, in his financial and administra- tive ability, in his comprehension of the national interests and his sympathy with the public feelings: With great attention and forethought, he allowed no opportunity to escape of rendering, either to these classes generally, or to their influential representatives, some important service." From the public nature of the subject, the. Memoirs have the broad and generalized character which appertains to historical narrative, rather than the individual portraiture which belongs to biography. The man is mostly sunk in the minister. Even the minister comes -before us in a somewhat abstract form—an as- semblage of qualities rather than a living man. The -exceptions to this remark relate to the personal experience of the author as Ambassador to England, and afterwards as leading. Minister of France; and these are the freshest and most interesting parts of the book. The following refers to the time of the ambassador- ship. " I saw him somewhat frequently during my.mission, and we conversed freely on all subjects : on France, England, and Europe ; on the relations of states among themselves, as well as on the internal condition of nations. In reference to foreign policy, and -particularly with regard to the Turco- Egyptian question, which at that time occupied our attention, he appeared to me to be more-inquisitive than decided ; to be animated by a great apirit of justice and peace, but to have hut vague and undetermiped notions on affairs of this nature, like a man who has not made them the habinial sub- ject of his reflections and resolutions. I more than once remarked the in- fluence, partly sympathetic and partly fearful, which was exercised over his mind by.our great revolution of 1789, and by the ideas and social forces which it has called into play. On this subject he shared neither the maxims nor-the passions of the Tories of the old 'school ; and in his inmost soul, in spite of all his moral, political, and national reservations, this great English Conservative was himself rather a child than an enemy of that new social order, which continues powerful and fruitful, in spite of its faults, its re- verses,. its miscalculations, and its-dark features. But what struck me most of all m the conversation of -Sir Robert Peel, was his constant and earnest solicitude with regard to the-condition of the labouring classes in England; a solicitude arising as much from moral as from political considerations, and in which, beneath the cold and compassed language in which lie ex- pressed himself, might be discerned the emotion of the man as well as the foresight of-the statesman. ' There he often said, 'too much suffering and too much perplexity in the condition of the working classes : it is a dis- grime as well as a danger to our civilization ; it is absolutely necessary to render their condition less hard and less precarious. We cannot do every- thing, far from it ; but we can do' something, and it is our duty to do all that we ean:' In the activity of his thought and the leisure of his life, this was evidently, as far as he was concerned, the dominant idea of the fu- ture."

M. Guizot bears an equally favourable testimony to the foreign policy of Sir Robert Peel—m a moral point of view the most fa- vonrable possible. The following passage refers to the year 1843. " He had continued to prove himself what he really was, the most liberal of Conservatives, and the most conservative of Liberals, and the most ca- pable man of all in both parties. He was firmly established in the eon- fldence of the Queen, and had not ceased to grow in the confidence of the Par- liament and the country. His foreign policy, equally worthy of esteem, and still more rare in its character, contributed no less materially to honour his name and to insure his influence.

" When I say ' his foreign policy,' my language is not perfectly accurate : properly speaking, Sir Robert Peel had no foreign policy that was really his own, of which he had a clear conception, which proposed to itself a special plan of European organization, and the adoption of which he assiduously applied himself to secure. It is the natural condition of free countries, that internal politics, questions of constitutional organization and public well- being, great measures of administration and finance, occupy the chief rank in their affairs. Unless the national independence is threatened, or a people is a mere instrument in the hands of a master, home affairs take precedence in its opinion, over foreign affairs. This is more especially the condition of England, defended by the ocean from external complications and dangers. ' Happy nation,' M. de Talleyramd used to say 'that has no frontiers !' I do not remember that at any period in English history the post of 'Minis- ter of Foreign Affairs has been held by the Prime Minister : custom, with its deep-lying reasons, has usually connected the Premiership with the office of First Lord of the Treasury. Sir Robert Peel was essentially a First Lord of the Treasury—the leader of the Home Government in the State, and of the Cabinet in the Parliament.

" But if foreign policy was neither his dominant idea nor his principal oc- cupation, he had two powerful and noble maxims, or rather feelings, on this subject ; he desired that peace and justice should prevail among states. And these mighty words were not for him merely a profession, a means of acting on the minds of men ; he desired that peace and justice should pre- vail in the relations of England with other nations, seriously and sincerely, as a good and habitual policy. Although very solicitous about the greatness of his coinitry, and even very accessible to popular impressions with regard to the national dignity and honour, he formed nodesign of aggrandizement for England, felt no selfish jealousy of foreign nations, and had no mania for domination abroad, no fondness for displaying an undesired and arrogant influence. He respected the rights and dignity of other states, small as well as great, weak as well as strong—and regarded the employment of menace or force solely as a last extremity, legitimate -only when it was absolutely ne- cessary. I repeat the same words, because they are the most simple and the most true,—he seriously desired that peace and justice should prevail in the foreign policy of his country ; that is to say, in order to express my mean- ing to his greater honour, he believed that morality-and good sense are ea- sential and practicable in the foreign relations, as well as in the Internal go- vernment of states : a commonplace, apparently, which all politicians re- peat with their lips, but which in reality very few of •them truly believe."

The judgment upon Lord Aberdeen is equally favourable.

" With rare good fortune or rather from a natural sympathy, Sir Robert Peel had intrusted the direction of foreign affairs in his Cabinet to a man animated with the same sentiments as himself, and better fitted than any one else to practise them. For five years I transacted the business of our two countries with Lord Aberdeen, and treated with him on all the questions that arose during that period, grande morttdis ssvi spatium.' I do net see why I should deny myself the pleasure of saying of hisrpolicy and of himself what I think, and what I have personally seen and-experienced. I pay no heed to affected reticence and modesty ;.now that I am far retired from the world, I feel no embarrassment in saying openly what I thought, felt, or desired, when I took part in its movement ; and whether any honour results to my friends or to myself, I willingly avail myself of any opportunity of placing in its true light the policy which in concert with them I endeavoured to render triumphant

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"As an ally of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen possessed two inestimable advantages : he belonged to the Tory party at the most brilliant period of their 'history, in their days of victor/4 and,yet he by no means shared in their frejudices their passions, their obstinate or rancorous traditions ; a man of iinfrttered yet judicious mind, as just as delicate, always ready to understand and admit the changes of time, the motives and merits of men -, an aristocrat with simple manners, liberal sentiments, and a sympathetic character; a fine scholar, without literary pretensions; very reserved in public, but full of charm in the intimacy of private life; thoroughly :Eng- Hal in troinciples and habits, and yet very familiar with the history, the ideas, t languages, and the interests of the peoples of the Continent. Like Teel, he desired that peace rand justice should prevail in the -mutual re- lationa of states ; better than any one else, he knew how to discern and ac- cept their conditions, and to employ only those means and that language which were calculated to secure their predominance ; and by inspiring the with whom he treated with confidence in his moderation and equity, he disposed -them to deal with him in'the same spirit."

It is universally considered that Sir Robert Peel was a minister of peace ; and so undoubtedly he was. If the interest or honour of 'the country were at stake, he would have been found resolute in upholding either. Everybody, remembers the Pritchard affair; the effervescence in France, and how the "pulpit drum ecclesias- tic" was beaten at Exeter Hall and elsewhere. M. Guizot gives along account of the Tahiti Protectorate business, and of the efforts of himself and Lord Aberdeen to maintain peace amid the surrounding difficulties. Strange to say, one of Lord Aberdeen's ffifficulties was with his chief.

" In order to maintain a policy of conciliating and friendly understanding between the two countries, Lord Aberdeen had constantly to struggle both against these public impressions and against these private feelings of dis- trust; he had not only to prevent any sudden or excessive resolution or proceeding on the part of the Cabinet, but frequently also, and this was perhaps his most difficult task, to keep back the head of the Government from uttering those words of suspicion or irritation which, in the heat or per- plexity of debate in the House of Commons, Sir Robert was prone to let fall."

When the arrest and deportation of Pritchard took place, and the Consul-martyr himself arrived as a living evidence of the fact, the Premier got more angry. (M. Guizot says he was prone to suspicion.) The discrepancy in the following passage between the fact as alleged by M. Guizot, and the statement of Peel, might be owing to the latter having given his orders but the despatch containing them not having arrived in Paris.

" In reply to a question put to him by Sir Charles Napier on the 31st of ir Robert Peel at once stated, if the newspaper reports are to be re- lied on—' We have received accounts from Tahiti, and, presuming on the ac- curacy of these accounts, which I have no reason whatever to call in ques- tion, .1 do not hesitate to say that a gross outrage, accompanied with gross indignity, has been committed upon the British Consul in that island. Her

Majesty's Government received information of this on Monday last, and the first opportunity was taken of making those communications to the French Government which her Majesty's Government considered the circumstances

of the case to call for Assuming that the statements we have re- ceived are correct, I must presume that the French Government will at once make that reparation which this country has a right to require.' "On reading the newspapers which reported these words, my own sur- prise was great, and there was a very strong feeling excited in the Cham- bers. We had received no communication from the British Government ; at the time when Sir Robert Peel spoke we had not yet made any to it ; on neither aide had the facts been examined and verified; how, then, could he have expressed himself with such hasty and inaccurate asperity ? When interrogated in my turn in both Chambers, I resolved to pursue a course of the completest reserve on the subject * • * • When his attention was called to the unseasonableness and inaccuracy of the words he had first used, Sir Robert Peel intimated to me that he did not admit any of the ver- sions of his speech which Ind appeared in the newspapers to be correct."

There is an account of the death of Sir Robert Peel, telling no- which was not known before, and a summary of the Royal and Parliamentary honours bestowed upon him, and the sponta- neous popular regard that followed him beyond the grave. The true summary, however, is in the opening address to the Academie.

"" Sir Robert Peel has taken his place in history, and nowhere has hie memory greater claims than in this hall. That which is the study of your lives, gentlemen, was the practice of his. Of the truths which you labour to disseminate he made laws for his country. You aim at establishing the political sciences ; he introduced them into government. " Not that Sir Robert Peel was a theorist, a philosopher governed by general ideas and abstract principles. He was, on the contrary, a man of essentially practical mind, consulting facts at every step, just as the mariner oonsults the face of heaven ; seeking success above all things, and prudent even to ciroumspectness. But if he was not the servant of principles, neither was he their detractor : he respected political philosopkv without adoring it ; believing it to be neither sovereign nor futile, and equally a stranger to the insane confidence of those who pretend to regulate all things according to the bent of their own mind, and to the impertinence of those who affect to despise the human mind, as if they themselves had some other. " The wise and glorious counsellor of a free people '—thus, after his death, was he designated in his own country. And I will add, he was as fortunate as glorious—fortunate in his last moments as through the whole course of his life, notwithstanding the lamentable accident which so fatally terminated it. For forty years Sir Robert Peel stood in the political arena, always •fighting and most frequently victorious. On the eve of his death he still stood erect, but at peace,. in his place in Parliament, shedding the light of his wisdom, without opNation, over the polities of his country, and se- renely enjoying his ascendancy which all recognized. He died lamented both by his Sovereign and by the people—respected and admired by the ad- versaries whom he had overcome, as well as by the friends who had con- quered with him.

" God seldom accords to a man so many favours. He had endowed Sir Robert Peel, at his birth, with the gifts of intellect as well as the gifts of fortune. Re had placed hint in an age when his great qualities could be employed with success on great objects. When success was achieved, He recalled him suddenly to Himself, m the full of his strength and glory, like a noble workman who has performed his task before the close of the day, and who .goes to receive his final reward from the master whom he has well served."