I do not remember to have seen noticed. It was this-that his contemptuous aversion for everything that savoured of charlatanism or boasting led him, perhaps unconsciously, into the opposite extreme. Thus his great victory at Salamanca, the news of which reaching the retreating Russians at Borodino, changed their despondent, retrograde movement to a triumphal march, and darkened the French conqueror's victory with prophetic gloom, was immediately preceded by a despatch to the English ministry, stating that the British army was in such an unprovided condition that if some remedial measures were not immediately taken, a great military disaster must ensue on the eve of Waterloo he wrote home to say, that with the exception of his old Peninsular veterans he had got "the most infamous army in the world." It would have been therefore in precise keeping with these and many other antecedents that, had his Grace's much-canvassed letter to Sir John Burgoyne upon the then defenceless condition of England, except for the navy another magnificent exception like that of the Peninsular veterans,―been followed by an actual attempt at invasion, the Duke's commentary upon his own letter would have been the accustomed one, a despatch announcing decisive victory by the troops under his command, over enemies whom he never appears to have the slightest fear of, save when his hand grasped the pen instead of the sword.

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despotisms of the Continent, has been in many ways abundantly rewarded; and not the least of the material benefits derived from that wise and generous policy, was the introduction into England,-not long after the revocation of the Edict of Nantz had rendered France an unsafe abode for those of her children who were too honest and courageous to surrender their consciences into the keeping of the State,-of greatly improved methods in the art of calico printing, the rapid development of which branch of industry, from but the other day in the life of nations, is one of the most notable facts of an age of marvellous industries. Some families from the south of France associated and established themselves upon the banks of the Thames; and, by the processes they had invented or improved, produced printed stuffs which commanded a very high relative price in the market, and, as a matter of course, set numerous active brains at work to discover the mode or modes by which those graceful and ingenious designs were effected and multiplied with such ready, unexceptionable exactness. Failure and disappointment, as might be expected, attended the first gropings of English experimentalists in search of the golden and jealously-guarded secret of the foreigners; and amongst the earliest of those who, by force of ability and perseverance, were ultimately successful-not in pirating the processes of the French establishment, but in printing calico with a skill, economy, and expedition, which finally drove the fabrics of the Thames printing-works out of the market, was a Mr. Peel, of Fish Lane, Black

burn, Lancashire, a reputedly crotchety person, and projector of a score or two of broken-down experiments in mechanics and chemistry, who, wise men said, had much better devote his attention to the cultivation of his small farm in the neighbourhood of the town, than be perpetually throwing away time and money in the search after new-fangled schemes

and devices.

Mr. Peel was, however, not a man to be deterred by failures, however frequent and exasperating, from following out any new whim or project which chanced to flit across his scheming brain, and the new art of calico printing appears to have very early taken firm hold of his mind. His first successful experiment was a Parsley Leaf," which he engraved upon a pewter plate, and transferred in colour to a piece of cloth; Mrs. Milton, a next-door neighbour, performing the calendering process with a flat smoothing-iron, the experimentalist having chosen to make the venture in the temporary absence of his family, who had witnessed the falling through of so many abortive schemes. An essential condition of commercial success, in addition to a sharply defined, vivid impression of the pattern, was, that the mordent used should so bite in the colours that they would resist the dissolving action of soap and water. In this, too, it was found that the experiment had succeeded to admiration, and Parsley Peel, as he was afterwards called, exclaimed, with a shout of exultation, that he "was a made man."

No time was lost in turning this great success to account; the farm and stock were disposed of, and weaving and printing works on a small scale erected at Brookside, near Blackburn, where Mr. Peel's energy, skill, and perseverance, reinforced by the zeal and industry of his three sons, speedily laid the foundation of the splendid fortunes of the Peel family. Mr. Peel was constant in his efforts to perfect the mechanical processes of his art, and readily adopted all new and promising methods which the inventive genius of the country-once thoroughly aroused to the importance of the new industry, for such essentially it was—soon placed at his service; and he was the first, it is said, to recognise and avail himself of the advantages offered by the cylindrical carding machine.

It was noticed that Robert, the third and youngest son, and esteemed the most practical and earnest-minded of them all, evinced, soon after attaining his majority, a marked inclination to spend such leisure as was permissible at the house of his mother's brother, Mr. Haworth, near Bury; and it was not very long before he sought an opportunity of respectfully suggesting to his family that the works of Brookside, flourishing as they were, could hardly be so extended as to suffice for the eligible placement in life of all the sons, and that, for himself, he should prefer taking his chance in an independent position if his father would assist him in that object. In fact, his uncle, Mr. Haworth, had introduced him to Mr. Yates, whom they had all formerly known as the landlord of the "Black Bull," Blackburn, who had lately erected print-works on the Irwell, but had succeeded very poorly as yet, for want of practical knowledge of the business. Mr. Yates would, he, Robert Peel, had reason to know, admit him as a partner, and success, in that case, both

believed to be certain.

Much hilarity followed this announcement, which was, nevertheless, finally acquiesced in; and soon afterwards Robert Peel set off for Bury, entered into partnership with Mr. Yates, and by his skill, activity, and judgment, the firm of Yates & Peel speedily acquired a high degree of prosperity. Advertisements for skilled and unskilled workpeople of both sexes were placarded over the country, and very soon wagon-loads of paupers and children were amongst the numerous arrivals which came pouring into Bury, in search of the sudden El Dorado that had sprung up in its neighbourhood. Cotton-spinning and weaving were added to calico-printing-the entire process of the cotton-manufacture, from the pod to the piece, from the bale to the ball-dress, was carried on upon a vast scale; first at the Irwell works, and afterwards at Burtonupon-Trent, and Tamworth, by Robert Peel himself, who, moreover, had in the meantime espoused Miss Yates, the eldest daughter of the senior partner-a circumstance the anticipation of which no doubt caused the hilarity at Brookside when the youngest son first proposed leaving the paternal roof in search of fortune, and requiring a word or two in this place. The remarkable prosperity of the works at Brookside, aiding the general mania just then prevalent for embarking in the calico-printing business, in which it was believed a man possessed of some capital, and who had his head properly screwed on, could hardly fail of realizing a splendid fortune, had induced Mr. Yates to dispose of the "Black Bull," and invest the whole of his means in the Irwell printing-works. The speculation would, however, as did many others of a like kind, have proved a losing one, but for the subtle influence from which cotton-mills are no more exempt than cottages. Robert Peel, upon calling on Mr. Yates, in company with his uncle, Mr. Haworth, met there with the graceful little girl he had often noticed playing about the "Black Bull” inn, Blackburn, so wonderfully improved in both person and mind, that he at once mentally determined that she should be the wedded partner of that future greatness which he had for a long time felt, or affected, a presentiment he was destined to achieve. When the time came for asking the lady's consent to this long since foregone conclusion, she proved nothing loth to share Mr. Robert Peel's already prosperous fortunes. They were married amidst much jubilation; and on the 8th of July, 1788, Mrs. Peel gave birth, at a cottage near Chamber Hall, Bury, which was just then under repair, to a son-the Robert Peel whose name is now a household-word in every English home.

From childhood Robert Peel was destined by his father to be a statesman, after the pattern and example of Mr. Pitt; or, rather, to speak correctly, after the pattern and example of the father's interpretation of Mr. Pitt's career and policy-a very different matter. This early aspiration for the future political greatness of his eldest born was naïvely expressed by the first Sir Robert Peel, in the House of Commons, just before his distinguished son rose (1819) to move his celebrated currency resolutions, and acknowledge with the heroic candour natural to him that the notions with which his mind had been previously indoctrinated more extended experience and a closer study of the subject had convinced him were untenable.

"I have mentioned," said the elder Sir Robert, who spoke with sorrow, not anger, of his son's resolute self-emancipation from one of the strong prejudices in which he had been sedulously nursed and trained, "I have mentioned the name of Mr. Pitt. My own impression is certainly a strong one in favour of that great man. All of us have some bias, and I always thought him the first man of the country. I well remember, when the near and dear relative (his son) I have alluded to was a child, I observed to some friends that the man who discharged his duty to his country in the manner Mr. Pitt had done was the man of all the world the most to be admired, most to be imitated; and I thought at that moment that if my life and that of my dear relative should be spared, I would some day present him to his country, to follow in the same path."

The sincerity of this garrulous gossip may not be questioned; but the honourable baronet was not sufficiently far-sighted to discern the true and essential direction of Mr. Pitt's gigantic footsteps, mistaking, as he did, that great minister's temporary and necessity-compelled aberration from the course he would fain have pursued, for its chosen and permanent direction-much less to guide his son aright in that perilous, lofty, and ambitious path. Indeed, in one very essential point, the first Sir Robert Peel differed openly and entirely from Mr. Pitt, that of the repression of the slave trade, which the patriotic baronet held to be, in conjunction with inconvertible paper-money, essential to the prosperity of the British people, and the maintenance of the British throne and constitution. The currency maxims in which he educated his son were those of Mr. Vansittart and his own-(he published a pamphlet entitled "The National Debt, a National Blessing")-not Mr. Pitt's; and the intolerance which he untiringly inculcated with reference to the admission of Catholics to equality of civil privilege, was of Lord Eldon's school, and entirely opposed to the liberal views upon that point of Chatham's celebrated son. In nothing, in fact, did the first Sir Robert Peel comprehend or resemble Mr. Pitt, save in his ardent, enthusiastic, indomitable pride, and love of country, and earnest devotion to what he believed to be the truth-which great attributes, powerfully developed in his son, ultimately sufficed, as the world knows, to wither up annihilate the educational prejudices with which they were for a time associated and obscured.

and

Within the narrow circle of those prejudices did the well-intentioned baronet confine, as strictly as child and boy nurture might, the generous and plastic intellect of his son. The extrinsic influences of the menacing, unquiet time, strengthened those home-teachings. The war with France, whatever may be said of its origin, had become, when young Robert Peel was capable of appreciating the position of the country, an implacable, uncompromising struggle for national existence; and it is an unquestionable fact that the unquailing, stubborn opponents of French continental domination, who persisted, never abating for an instant one jot of heart or hope in foretelling that war's triumphal issue--by which result, to use Lord Eldon's significant expression," England gained all that she had not lost," were chiefly to be found amongst the high-flying