of their country,—­Wilberforce, Wyndham, Tierney, Perceval, Grattan, Castlereagh, Canning, Romilly, Brougham, Mackintosh, Huskisson, and others,—­all trained in the school of Pitt, Fox, or Burke, who had passed away.  Among these great men Peel made his way, not so much by force of original genius—­blazing and kindling like the eloquence of Canning and Brougham—­as by assiduity in business, untiring industry, and in speech lucidity of statement, close reasoning, and perfect mastery of his subject in all its details.  He was pre-eminently a man of facts rather than theories.  Like Canning and Gladstone, he was ultra-conservative in his early political life,—­probably in a great measure from his father’s example as well as from the force of his university surroundings,—­and, of course, joined the Tory party, then all-powerful.  So precocious were his attainments, and so promising was he from the force of his character, that at the age of twenty-four he was made, by Mr. Perceval, under-secretary for the Colonies; the year after (in 1812) he was promoted, by Lord Liverpool, to the more important post of secretary for Ireland.  In the latter post he had to combat Canning himself in the matter of Catholic emancipation, but did his best to promote secular education in that priest-ridden and unhappy country.  For his High Church views and advocacy of Tory principles, which he had been taught at Oxford, he was a favorite with the university; and in 1817 he had the distinguished honor of representing it in Parliament.  In 1819 he made his financial reputation by advocating a return to specie payments,—­suspended in consequence of the Napoleonic wars.  In 1820 he was married to a daughter of General Sir John Floyd, and his beautiful domestic life was enhanced by his love of art, of science, of agriculture, and the society of eminent men.  In 1822 he entered Lord Liverpool’s cabinet as home secretary; and when the ministry was broken up in 1827, he refused to serve in the new government under Canning, on account of the liberal views which the premier entertained in reference to Catholic emancipation.

The necessity of this just measure Sir Robert Peel was made to feel after Canning’s death, during the administration of the Duke of Wellington.  Conservative as he was, and opposed to all agitations for religious or political change even under the name of “reform,” the fiery eloquence of O’Connell and the menacing power of the Catholic Association forced upon him the conviction of the necessity of Catholic emancipation, as the cold reasoning of Richard Cobden afterward turned him from a protectionist to a free-trader.  He was essentially an honest man, always open to reason and truth, learning wisdom from experience, and growing more liberal as he advanced in years.  He brought the Duke of Wellington to his views in spite of that minister’s inveterate prejudices, and the Catholics of Ireland were emancipated as an act of expediency and state necessity.