has spent so many years in the civil service of the crown. If no
account be taken of the short time he was engaged upon the bullion
committee in effecting the change in the currency, and in opposing for
a few months the ministries of Mr. Canning and Lord Goderich, it may
be stated that from 1810 to 1830 he formed part of the government, and
presided over it as a first minister in 1834-5, as well as from 1841
to 1846 inclusive. During the time that he held the office of home
secretary under Lord Liverpool he effected many important changes
in the administration of domestic affairs, and many legislative
improvements of a practical and comprehensive character. But his fame
as member of parliament was principally sustained at this period of
his life by the extensive and admirable alterations which he effected
in the criminal law. Romilly and Mackintosh had preceded him in the
great work of reforming and humanizing the code of England. For his
hand, however, was reserved the introduction of ameliorations which
they had long toiled and struggled for in vain. The ministry through
whose influence he was enabled to carry these reforms lost its chief
in Lord Liverpool during the early part of the year 1827. When Mr.
Canning undertook to form a government, Mr. Peel, the late Lord Eldon,
the Duke of Wellington, and other eminent tories of that day, threw up
office, and are said to have persecuted Mr. Canning with a degree of
rancor far outstripping the legitimate bounds of political hostility.
Lord George Bentinck said "they hounded to the death my illustrious
relative"; and the ardor of his subsequent opposition to Sir Robert
Peel evidently derived its intensity from a long cherished sense of
the injuries supposed to have been inflicted upon Mr. Canning. It
is the opinion of men not ill informed respecting the sentiments of
Canning, that he considered Peel as his true political successor--as a
statesman competent to the task of working out that large and liberal
policy which he fondly hoped the tories might, however tardily,