political prospects by writing such trash!" Nor was Peel sufficiently
passionate to become a great orator like O'Connell or Mirabeau; and yet
he was a great man, and the nation was ultimately grateful for the
services he rendered to his country and to civilization. Had his useful
and practical life been prolonged, he probably would again have taken
the helm of state. He was always equal to the occasion; but no occasion
was sufficiently great to give him the _éclat_ which Pitt enjoyed in the
wars of Napoleon. Under the administration of Peel the country was at
peace, and no such internal dangers threatened it as those which marked
the passage of the Reform Bill.

Sir Robert Peel was one of the most successful ministers that England
ever had. Certainly no minister was ever more venerated than he; and
even the Duke of Wellington did nothing without his advice and
co-operation. In fact, he led the ministry of the duke as Canning did
that of the Earl of Liverpool; and had he been less shy and reserved, he
would not have passed as so proud a man, and would have been more
popular. There is no trait of character in a great man less understood
than what we call pride, which often is not pride at all, but excessive
shyness and reserve, based on sensitiveness and caution rather than
self-exaggeration and egotism.

Few statesmen have done more than Peel to advance the material interests
of the people; yet he never was a popular idol, and his history fails to
kindle the enthusiasm with which we study the political career of Pitt
or Canning or Disraeli or Gladstone. He was regarded as a great
potentate rather than as a great genius; and he loved to make his power
felt irrespective of praise or censure from literary men, to whom he was
civil enough, but whose society he did not court. Politics were the
element in which he lived, and politicians were his chief associates