The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-31 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

They did not appreciate either the resources
or the spirit of the country. They thought
the game was now in their hands, and that the
Prince must submit. A resolution had been
carried in the Commons (May 21) by a majo-
rity of four against Ministers for an address to
the Regent, praying him to form a strong and
efficient Administration. Lord Grenville
writes to his brother (May 29):

The violence and contempt expressed of [for?) the
Prime Regent are beyond all imagination, and are truly
shocking to hear of.

It seemed that he must place 'timself abso-
lutely in the hands of Opposition, and ac•
cordingly he empowered Lord Wellesley to
form an Administration, leaving it to Lords
Grey and Grenville to name four or five mem-
bers of the new Cabinet for his approval.
This proposal they declined to entertain.
" The times imperiously require an Adminis-
" tration united in principle ;" they must feel
sure of support for those holding measures
which the public safety demanded, and they
could not consent to be opposed by influences
which might counteract the totiforna
they proposed. The neg. tiation fell to the
ground. Lord Moira, to whom the Prince
next applied, fared no better than Lord Wel-
lesley. The Regent had to retain an Admi•
nistration of whose general policy he heartily
approved, or to throw himself wholly into the
arms of the Whigs with a probability that that
policy ould be entirely reversed. He chose
the former alternative, and of course got
savagely abused by the disappointed faction.
All the patriots flew at him, from Sir Samuel
Romilly down to little Tommy Moore.

I ord Liverpool was appointed Premier, and
Lord Sidmouth Home Secretary. As Castle-
reagh had foreseen, the Legislature concurred
in what seemed to be a necessity. The
Ministry had a majority, and soon afterwards
came intelligence of the glorious victory of
Salamanca to raise the enthusiasm of the na-
tion, and to cast contempt on the party which
looked coldly on the contest.

The noble editor of these volumes appears
swayed by adverse influences. He thinks the
Regent should have resigned him self to Whig
guidance, but he thinks it fortunate that Lord
Castlereagh was in a position to carry out his
war policy. If the Regent was right in
cordially supporting Castlereagh, how could
he be wrong in refusing to submit to the Grey-
Grenville dictation? How greatly changed
might have been the whole course of our
national history had Grey instead of Castle-
reagh been the ruling spirit of the Govern
ment in 1812!

The disinclination of the Whigs to coalesce
with the Ministerial party is intelligible. We
can understand how Mr. Francis Horner
might write that the Whigs had been saved
front a great peril, "by the triumph of in-
" veterate duplicity and the low acts of a
.‘ palace. over an inflexible and proud in-
" tegrity." But we don't understand how any
one can endorse such opinions, while exult-
ingly recording the glorious consequences
which resulted from a continuance of the
Ministry in office, and from the splendid
administrative talents of Lord Castlereagh
Another negotiation to induce Canning to
join the Ministry proved abortive, through the
determination of Castlereagh to retain the
lead of the Commons. The Ministry, in the
swelling tide of victory, soon ceased to feel
weakness, and Lord Liverpool's Administra-
tion—the weakest at its commencement ever
known—brought the nation triumphantly
through a crisis of great difficulty, and con-
ducted it to the zenith of greatness.
It is to the credit of the noble editor that,
with all his Grenville predilections, he does
full justice to the genius and patriotism of
Lord Castlereagh. The life of that great states-
man has yet to be written, and materials con-
tinue to accumulate for the task.

- -
The volumes, from the skilful eonneeting
narrative of the editor, arc thoroughly readable.
and let us behind the scenes of the transac-
tions to which they relate. The outlines and
colours are here for masterly portraits of the
Grenville family, but the artist to tit, them has
yet to owe.

SATURDAY,

SIR ROBERT PEEL.
I. Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, Bart., Af.p.
Published by the Trustees of his Papers,
Earl Stanhope and Right Hon. E. Card-
well, M.P. Part I.—The Roman Catholic
Question. London : Murray.
2. The Political Lift of Sir Robert Peel. An
Analytical Biography. By Thomas Double.
day, Esq. Two Vuls. London : Smith,
Elder, and CO.
(Seoond Notloo.)
_

AIDED even by Sir Robert Peel's own attempts
at painting his character, it is extremely diffi-
cult to render critical justice to its mingled
merits and defects. He was not, in our judg-
ment, a great original nature ; he had neither
the sudden inspiration nor the deliberately
creative faculties of genius. Yet the sustained
force of his intellect, and the immense extent
of his political accomplishments, command our
willing admiration of his great powers. "He
" was the greatest Member of Parliament that
" ever lived."

But when we consider his claims to be
reputed as a great statesman of the first class,
we see that even his posthumous apology
painfully couviets him of being of a must
wavtring disposition. It is curious to turn to
Johnson's Dictionary, to look out for the verb
" to waver," and then to think of Sir Robert
Peel's career in association with the meanings
of that word. "To waver," we are told by
Johnson, is "to play to and fro—to move
" loosely—to be unsettled—to be uncertain or
" inconstant—to fluctuate—not to be deter-
" mined "; and the lexicographer concludes
with the final equivalent, " to totter—to be in
" danger of falling." There was, however, a
strange sort of audacity in turning against his
own long avowed opinions, and setting at
nought all the precedents upon which British
chiefs of parties have acted towards their sup-
porters. Even that kind of firmness was not
so great as has been supposed. He acknow-
ledges in his apology that when at last he had
made up his mind that the Catholic claims
should be conceded, his fist intention
was to resign office, to support the Govern-
ment in his private capacity, and to become a
simple member of Parliament. If he had
taken that course, he might have been exposed
to some taunts about change of opinion, but
he would not have placed himself in the
highly invidious position of getting the laurels
always given to a Minister who is said, or sup-
posed, to have carried a great question.
On January 12, 1829, he wrote to the Duke
of Wellington that his mind was made up
upon retirement:—
My retirement will not only be the single step which I
can take that will be at all satisfactory to my own feelings,
but followed, as it shall be, by the warmest support of any
Government of which you are the head, and by an explicit
declaration of the opirions which I have thus placed upon
retard, it certainly appears to me to be the step better cal-
culated than any other which I can take to facilitate the
settlement of the Catholic question by an Administration
conducted by you.
If I were to go out of office resisting the question and
encouraging resistance by others, I can well conceive, in
the present excited state of the country, that my retirement
might be productive of serious embarrassment ; but I need
not assure you that the course which I should take in a
private capacity would be decidedly the opposite to that. I
repeat, therefore, the proposal which I made to you in
August last respecting my retirement. . _

Within less than seven days he came to an-
other conclusion. After receiving a letter
from the Duke of Wellington, he wrote on 17th
January :
The Duke of Wellington brought this letter to me on
the 17th of January. I read it in his presence, and at
once told him that I would not press rry retirement from
°Moe, but would remain in office and would propose
(with the King's consent) the measures contemplated
by the Government for the settlement of the Catholic
question.
And all this vacillation was upon a ques-
tion upon which Sir Robert Peel bad over
and over again taken up the strongest ground,
and with which he was more identified than
any other contemporary statesman ! But we
shall not re-argue this matter; it would be in
some respects very painful, as we should have
to express some severe disparagement of a
celebrated man for whom (with all his grave
political faults) we entertain feelings of high
respect. We shall turn to broader views
opened by a conoidersUoi4of his career.