The late Sir Robert Peel was, both mentally and physically, one of the most picturesque figures in society.  Alike in his character and in his aspect the Creole blood which he had inherited from his maternal descent triumphed over the robust and serviceable commonplace which was the characteristic quality of the Peels.  Lord Beaconsfield described “a still gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock coat, with a ribboned button-hole; a well-turned boot; hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new.  There was something respectable and substantial about him, notwithstanding his moustaches and a carriage too debonair for his years.”  The description, for whomsoever intended, is a lifelike portrait of Sir Robert Peel.  His most salient feature as a talker was his lovely voice—­deep, flexible, melodious.  Mr. Gladstone—­no mean judge of such matters—­pronounced it the finest organ he ever heard in Parliament; but with all due submission to so high an authority, I should have said that it was a voice better adapted to the drawing-room than to the House of Commons.  In a large space a higher note and a clearer tone tell better, but in the close quarters of social intercourse one appreciates the sympathetic qualities of a rich baritone.  And Sir Robert’s voice, admirable in itself, was the vehicle of conversation quite worthy of it.  He could talk of art and sport, and politics and books; he had a great memory, varied information, lively interest in the world and its doings, and a full-bodied humour which recalled the social tone of the Eighteenth century.

His vein of personal raillery was rather robust than refined.  Nothing has been heard in our time quite like his criticism of Sir Edgar Boehm in the House of Commons, or his joke about Mr. Justice Chitty at the election for Oxford in 1880.  But his humour (to quote his own words) “had an English ring,” and much must be pardoned to a man who, in this portentous age of reticence and pose, was wholly free from solemnity, and when he heard or saw what was ludicrous was not afraid to laugh at it.  Sir Robert Peel was an excellent hand at what our fathers called banter and we call chaff.  A prig or a pedant was his favourite butt, and the performance was rendered all the more effective by his elaborate assumption of the grand seigneur’s manner.  The victim was dimly conscious that he was being laughed at, but comically uncertain about the best means of reprisal.  Sydney Smith described Sir James Mackintosh as “abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most successful ridicule.”  Whoever performs that process is a social benefactor, and the greatest master of it whom I have ever known was Sir Robert Peel.