His Royal Highness was, on the 27th November, 1801, created Baron of Culloden, Earl of Tipperary, and Duke of Cambridge, and he accordingly took his seat in the House of Peers.

The Duke married, on the 7th May, 1818, at Cassel, her Serene Highness the Princess Augusta Wilhelmina Louisa, third daughter of the Landgrave Frederick, of Hesse-Cassel. This marriage was re-solemnized on the 1st June of the same year, according to the ritual of the Church of England.

On

The Duke gradually rose to the rank of Field Marshal; and, on the restoration of Hanover, he was appointed its Governor-General, or Viceroy, in 1816. His administration of the affairs of that kingdom was marked throughout with wisdom, mildness, and discretion. the breaking out of a popular commotion there in the revolutionary period of 1831, the Duke's conduct was such as to eventually pacify all parties, and to effect the perfect restoration of order, in fact, the great regard the people of Hanover had for a Prince so kind and conciliatory, and yet so firm and so tenacious of his honour, went a great way to preserve the Hanoverian Crown for his family. The Viceroyalty of the Duke ceased in 1837, at the death of William IV., when his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, succeeded to the throne of Hanover. On the evening of the 4th July, 1837, his Royal Highness left Hanover.

In this country his Royal Highness has been always popular, and certainly, most deservedly so. He took the greatest interest in the furtherance of every means likely to improve the knowledge or the happiness of his fellow-subjects. He was indefatigable in the cause of charity; he was a munificent contributor to most of the charitable establishments in this country; and, as every one knows, he was always ready to support them by his personal attendance and exertions, and by his patronage. The Times thus alludes

to his conduct in this respect. "He was not," says that journal, "found always in smooth water. He did not think it his sole duty to precide over turtle and venison, or to angle for bank-notes. He did not seek solely to dignify that which was harmonious, or to give grace and solemnity to the administrative skill of others. On the contrary, wherever there was difficulty or dispute, there was the Duke of Cambridge in the midst of it. If a close committee of some charity in which he was interested became split into parties or torn by professional rivalry, he would suddenly make his appearance on a committee-day, take the chair as president of the charity

without notice or ceremony, and, in a very short time, either compose the quarrel, or what was equally important, put the burden and disgrace of the dispute on the right shoulders. He would sacrifice none of his own dignity in investigating the most minute circumstances, and he took care that others should not peril the charity by their disputes or intrigues. This habit of rushing into the breach was strongly shewn in 1847, when the very existence of the German hospital at Dalston was perilled by a dispute amongst its officers, and still more successfully exhibited in the same year at the Middlesex Hospital, where, from similar causes, a disturbance had taken place.' He evinced, too, the same fostering care towards learning and the fine arts. His private character was ever unexceptionable. When young his habits were very studious, and his acquirements as a scholar were far more considerable than was generally supposed. His manners were affable and pleasing, no person, perhaps, possessing more completely that characteristic which the French term "bonhommie." He was a thorough English prince in habits, disposition, and bearing, and he seemed at all times at home with the English people, and they with him. His demise will be deeply regretted by all parties.

In the House of Lords the Duke of Cambridge spoke but rarely, and then only upon very important occasions. In politics, he had from the beginning of his career acted generally in favour of the Tory party: his deep affection for his father made him resist all overtures on the part of Fox, Sheridan, his brother the Prince of Wales, and the other Whigs of that day; and, though latterly always ready to support the measures of the government as chosen by his sovereign, if he conscientiously could, he on all occasions displayed Conservative calmness and caution. His mode of address, though not eloquent, was sensible and impressive, and he was ever listened to with attention and respect.

As a friend to the soldier's widow and the soldier's orphan, his royal highness worthily imitated the example set by his brother the Duke of York; he almost weekly visited the Military School at Chelsea.

The duke was the favourite son of George III., and the following anecdote marks the opinion that sovereign entertained of his merits. When it was proposed to grant his royal highness the allowance of £12,000 a-year (since raised to £27,000), George III. said, in speaking of him," that he had not committed

his first fault." The whole tenour of the duke's subsequent life perpetuated the truth of this assertion.

The duke leaves issue, with two daughters, one son, Prince George William Frederick Charles, now Duke of Cam⚫ bridge, K.G., G.C.H. and G.C.M.G., a Major-General in the army, and Colonel of the 17th Lancers. The daughters are the Princess Mary Adelaide Wilhelmina Elizabeth, and her elder sister, the Princess Augusta Caroline Charlotte Elizabeth Mary Sophia Louisa, who was married, June 28, 1843, to Frederick William Charles, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and has issue.

VISCOUNT CANTILUPE.

George John Frederick, Viscount Cantilupe, was eldest son and heir apparent of the present Earl De la Warr, and grandson, maternally, of the 3rd Duke of Dorset. He was born 25th April, 1814, and was formerly an officer in the Grenadier Guards. He sat in Parliament for several years, first for Helston, and afterwards for Lewes. His lordship had been for some days suffering from rheumatic fever, which at last attacked the brain and proved fatal. By his death, his next brother, the Hon. Charles Richard Sackville West, becomes Viscount Cantilupe, and heir apparent of the honours of the House of De la Warr.

SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART.

It has been generally said that the family of Sir Robert Peel was of humble origin, a tale probably emanating from that love of the marvellous, which could not be contented with a man's rising to the highest station by the simple means of talent pushed on by wealth and favoured by opportunity, but must needs lower the ground of his ascent that his flight might seem all the higher. The truth is that the great grand-uncle of Sir Robert, so far back as 1650, was a clergyman of the established church, and even in the beginning of the fifteenth century we find a branch of the family of Peele-for so the name was then spelt-seized of lands in the Salisbury and Wiltshire districts of the county of Lancaster.

The late minister was born on the 5th of July, 1788, in a cottage near the family residence of Chamber Hall, and not far from Bury, in the county of Lancashire, under circumstances the most favourable to his future eminence. When he was only two years old, his father who had amassed an immense fortune by manufactures, and found leisure as well as inclination to plunge into the vortex of politics, wrote a pamphlet entitled "The

National Debt Productive of National Prosperity." This new and somewhat startling view of the subject aroused a fierce spirit of controversy, and if it drew down upon him some assailants, it also procured for him many admirers, and brought him at once into public notice. We may suspect too that his success in this instance made him aim at a seat in parliament, which it was not long before he attained, being returned for Bury; and it certainly led to his acquaintance with Mr. Pitt, who was in the habit of consulting him upon all questions connected with manufactures and commerce. Henceforth the ambition of raising his family to political eminence took entire possession of him He determined that his son Robert should one day be Mr. Pitt's successor, and having once mounted this hobbyhorse he rode on right gallantly, though in the commencement the prize must have seemed at an almost immeasurable distance. For once too-a thing that does not often happen-the natural tendencies of the son ran in the same line with the wishes of the father. At a very early age the embryo prime-minister was sent to Harrow, where in 1803, we find him on the list of the upper fifth form. Byron in speaking of him long afterwards observes, "There were always great hopes of Peel amongst us all, masters and scholars. As a scholar he was greatly my superior. As a schoolboy out of school I was always in scrapes, and he never; and in school he always knew his lesson, and I rarely."

In 1804, Peel left Harrow, and entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he seems to have persisted in the same course of steady diligence, his parts being evidently more solid than shining-more distinguished, that is, for judgment and an even balance of the intellectual powers than for imagination. In taking his degree he obtained what is termed at Oxford a double first-class, or highest honour both in classics and mathematics.

This it must be owned was a promising commencement. Such had been the steadiness of the son's application, and so admirably had nature adapted him to the path chalked out for him, that in no one instance had the old man's schemes encountered the slightest check or deviation. As he had planned so had it happened, and so we shall see it continuing to happen up to the very last, with a regularity beyond all parallel. Had he been arranging the characters in a play or romance he could not have disposed of them more completely according to the suggestions of his own fancy.

In 1809, Peel came of age, when his father purchased for him the representa

tion of Cashel, that he might enter without loss of time upon his political career. Nor did the latter make the least secret of his expectations. He openly avowed his belief that his son would follow in the path of the great minister, and one day attain the same distinction, a hazardous prophecy to indulge in, for though Pitt, Burke, and Fox were gone, and Sheridan had lost all his youthful brilliance, still the house was not deficient in men of talent, and might even boast of men of genius in Canning, Palmerston, and Romilly. In addition to these potent names were Tierney, Windham, Wilberforce, Whitbread, Castlereagh, Croker, Brougham, Henry Petty, Percival, Horner, Robinson, and Sir Henry Parnell, all either dangerous rivals or existing obstacles to a young man entering upon his career. Circumstances, however, favoured him. Canning and Castlereagh fought their absurd duel-as indeed what duel is not absurd?-and both in consequence quitted office. The Duke of Portland also resigned. Percival became prime minister, the Marquis of Wellesley, Lord Liverpool, and Lord Palmerston, forming the principal supports of the new cabinet. Parliament was about to meet, and at the very opening the disastrous expedition to Walcheren had to be defended, or palliated, in order to carry through the address. Peel was not yet two and twenty, and consequently with none of those advantages which experience alone can give, when the cabinet determined to entrust him with the seconding of the address, either in the hope of rebuking his ambition by failure, or perhaps urged to it by the wealth and influence of his father. If the former was the motive it was destined to be utterly defeated. His speech-and it was his first-proved in the highest degree spirited, and led to an animated debate which ended in the government obtaining a great majority. This took place on the 10th of January,

1810.

Shortly afterwards he spoke again upon the bringing up of the report of Lord Rochester's committee, condemnatory of the expedition to the Scheldt, and again for the rejection of the Livery of London petition with regard to the committal of Sir Francis Burdett. If in these speeches he felt short of the expectations he had raised, he as much went beyond them when upon the 18th of March, 1811, he spoke upon the Peninsular war, and defended Lord Wellington, exclaiming, with the prophetic spirit of one whose keen eye already discerned the future"He could not help reminding the house that at this very hour Lord Wellington might be preparing for action to-morrow;

and when he reflected upon the venal abuse which had been disseminated against that illustrious character, he cherished sanguine expectations that the day would soon arrive when another transcendant victory would silence the tongue of eary and the cavils of party animosity; when the British commander would be hailed by the unanimous voice of his country with the sentiment addressed on a m morable occasion to another illustrious character-invidiam gloria superasti.”

This speech is said to have made a great impression upon the house, and so satisfied was Percival with it that be forthwith appointed the young orator Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. The same spirit of order and application, which had distinguished the boy at school and the youth at college, was not likely to desert his riper manhood. His atten

tion to the business of his office was undeviating, and being further guided by an excellent judgment, the minister began to look upon him as a useful and promising adherent, and avowed his intention of soon bringing him into the cabinet. The untimely death, however, of Percival anticipated the execution of this project. On the 11th of May, 1812, he was shot by Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, in revenge for the real or supposed neglect the assassin had experienced from the British ministry, though, as it appeared from his subsequent confession, his hatred was chiefly directed against Lord Leveson Gower, whom he would much rather have killed had he fallen in his way.

A singular phenomenon is said to have been observed by the surgeons on the dissection of the body of this determined murderer, who, there can be little doubt, laboured under partial insanity. The expanding and contracting powers of the heart continued perceptible until one o'clock in the day, or in other words to be alive for four hours after he had been laid open, a tenacity of life which, if it be true, is without a parallel. Had this extraordinary vigour of the heart anything to do with the resolution he displayed from first to last, as well in the perpetration of the deed, as in the whole business of the execution?

On the 1st of June the Marquis of Wellesley was sent to form an administration; but upon his failure Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister, when amongst other changes Peel was appointed to the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland. He found the business of his new office in extreme confusion. This he immediately set about correcting, and in a short time as much order prevailed throughout the whole department as before there had

been disorder, while his courteous manners and evident desire to improve the trade of Ireland endeared him to all the merchants and manufacturers who had access to him.

By this time the Catholic question had become the great difficulty of the day with ministers. Although not so much felt in England, it had already created no little movement in the sister isle, where O'Connell, then in the vigour of his life, was rousing the whole country with one general cry of emancipation. Canning at length became convinced of the necessity of granting what the Irish demanded, and on the 22nd of June, 1812, he carried, by a majority of 234 to 106, a motion pledging the house to consider the Catholic claims in the ensuing session. On this occasion Peel voted in the minority, so that he appeared in Ireland as the decided opponent of the question which so deeply interested a vast majority of the people, but it was not until the year 1813, when Mr. Grattan moved for a committee to take the Catholic claims into consideration, that he spoke determinedly upon the subject. Those however, who were capable of looking into him with considerate eyes, must have seen that he was actuated in this by no jealous party spirit, for sbortly afterwards in a debate upon the state of education in Ireland, he strongly argued for the right of the people to be taught.

The wisdom of the young statesman's views in this last matter could be as little doubted as the error of his policy in regard to Catholic emancipation. By the continued denial of this claim, the south of Ireland was brought in 1814 to a state closely bordering upon social disorganization. The Lord-Lieutenant had recourse to the simple expedient of force, suppressing the Catholic Board by proclamation, a measure which Peel strenuously defended, while he imputed the condition of the country to the agitators, and proposed to secure a better obedience to the laws by the appointment of superintending stipendiary magistrates and an organized police. This system was adopted, and in 1822 so extended that the constabulary of Ireland now forms an important addition to the standing army. In the meanwhile there occurred so deficient a harvest (1816) that to alleviate the famine, Peel obtained a treasury order for the admission of American flour free of duty; but notwithstanding this salutary measure distress and agrarian outrage increased on all sides, and, as if that had been a panacea for hunger, the cry became louder than ever for Catholic emancipation. On the 9th of May, 1817, Mr. Grattan again

brought the measure before the house. Peel replied to him, urging in a speech of unusual force and eloquence, that if this were once granted, the Catholics would use the political power thus attained to the destruction of the established church, and aspire, as was most natural, to the restoration of their own faith in all' its early splendour. Henceforth the task of defending Catholic exclusion and Protestant ascendancy was chiefly entrusted to him; and session after session he had to fight the same battle, his opponents, like Antæus when he touched the ground, seemed to gather fresh strength from each defeat. His labours, however, did not go entirely without recompense. Shortly after the debate in 1817, when Mr. Speaker Abbott, M.P. for the University of Oxford, was raised to the peerage, notice was given to Christ Church of Peel's intention to contest the vacancy, and the seat was secured for him before Canning's friends commenced their canvass

In the following year he resigned his office of Secretary for Ireland. We now come to one of the most important features of his political career.

When Peel first entered Parliament, he fully coincided with his father's views upon the subject of the currency, and in 1811 voted with Mr. Vansittart in favour of a paper resolution. But in 1819 we

find him one of a committee appointed to consider the state of the Bank of England with reference to the expediency of resuming cash payments. On the 24th of May he brought forward the report, advising a short extension of the restrictive period, a gradual resumption of cash payments, to become entire on May 1st, 1823, and the immediate repeal of prohibitions against the exporting and melting coin. Two years and a half before the specified time, the Bank began to pay in gold and silver, and this measure, which emanated from Peel, and was most ably defended against the attacks of William Cobbett, gained the ministry such credit with the commercial world as enabled Lord Liverpool to keep his party in office for some time longer. He himself, however, had no share in the administration.

In the same year that the currency question was finally settled, great distress prevailed throughout the manufacturing districts, in consequence of which loud demands were made by the people for Parliamentary Reform, and the abolition of the Corn Laws. On the 13th of July an attempt was made to stem this torrent by a proclamation forbidding seditious meetings. But the poorer classes had suffered much, and the consequent spirit

of disaffection fomented by those who had their own views in it, was not to be so easily put down. The people gathered on the 18th of August from all the neighbouring places, and assembled on Peterloo Field, the site of the present Free Trade Hall in Manchester. The melancholy result is still well remembered; but there can be little doubt that the terror produced by it was eventually the means of saving much bloodshed. l'eel himself defended the conduct of the Manchester magistrates, upon the ground of the secret societies among the people, and the dangers that might have followed had the meeting been allowed to pass without interruption.

In June, 1820, when Queen Caroline arrived in England, a bill of pains and penalties was introduced by the Ministry of the day to deprive her of her legal rank and privileges. In this measure Peel took no part; but on the 5th of February, 1821, he defended the government against the Marquis of Tavistock's motion, condemning their conduct towards the queen; at the same time he regretted the exclusion of her name from the Liturgy, and the refusal to comply with her demand for a palace and a ship of war, not as things being intrinsically important, but because the denial of them created an impression on the popular mind that the Queen was the object of persecution.

On the 28th February, 1821, Mr. Plunkett once again brought the Catholic claims before Parliament, in a speech that proved him worthy of being the successor of the celebrated Grattan. Peel, as usual, undertook the task of opposing Emancipation, but in the modified and somewhat wavering tone of his reply might be easily seen that he did not cleave to his old opinions with the same tenacity, or carry them to the same extent, that he had done before.

Towards the end of 1821 important changes took place in the ministry. Lord Sidmouth retired, and Peel again took office, but it was this time as Secretary of State for the Home Department. In this new and elevated post, he is said to have become exceedingly popular from his general urbanity of manners, while he fulfilled all its arduous duties with his usual regularity and perseverance. During the session, Lord John Russell brought forward his first motion for a reform in parliament, but the time was not yet ripe for so great a change, and upon this occasion Peel did not trouble himself to make more than a short reply. He, however, much distinguished himself Canning's motion, "for the restoration

on

of Catholic Peers to their political privileges," though he still remained on what we should now certainly term the wrong side of the question.

Another was rising fast and bright in the political hemisphere. The death of Lord Londonderry in the August of 1822, brought Canning into the Foreign Office, but it was not until the eleventh hour, nor without visible signs of the deepest reluctance on the part of the aristocratic leaders, who at no time seem to have either loved or trusted Canning. In their excuse it must be said, that Pitt entertained precisely the same distrust of this highly gifted man, and we have the testimony of Lady Hester Stanhope to his having roundly declared that so long as he continued to be Prime Minister, Canning should never be admitted into office. It was a time, however, of constant struggle with a powerful opposition, and required all the talent the ministry could allure into their ranks. Only a short time before Canning's reelection, Brougham had called the attention of the House to the threatened invasion of Spain by a French army, at the instigation of the Holy Alliance. On the 14th of April, 1823, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs laid the diplomatic papers on the table of the House, and in the debates that resulted from it, and continued throughout the month, we find Peel rising in his place to defend the pacific policy of the Government against the opposition which was endeavouring to drive the country headlong into a war for the sake of Spain.

The noble principles he laid down shewed that a considerable change was going on in the political creed of the Tory minister; but the change was slow, after the usual caution of his temper, and in the meanwhile Canning was far outstripping him in the race of popularity. The latter was favourable to the Catholic claims; his foreign policy was of a more liberal and decisive character; and in the debate upon the money-crisis of that year it can hardly be denied that he surpassed Peel on the ground that was more peculiarly his own. But if Peel had in this instance seemed inferior to himself and the expectation of his friends, he soon afterwards retrieved his lost honours and came out all the brighter from this tem porary eclipse. This was on the 9th of March, when he made one of his most brilliant speeches on the introduction of important measures for the consolidation and improvement of the criminal law.

On the 18th of February, 1827, Lord Liverpool was found senseless on the floor of his breakfast room in an apoplectic fit,