III
If it could be said of any man, indeed, it could be said of this statesman, that time in its progress turned him inside out. But the process was a gradual one, and it was only when you put the Peel of 1810 by the side of the Peel of 1850, that the totality of the change appears distinct. And yet, though the end of Sir Robert Peel’s career was at such variance with the commencement, there is a certain consistency that may be traced throughout it. Formed on those official habits which incline a minister to postpone or oppose the consideration of all questions which cannot be successfully dealt with, he never exposed a theory until it could be realized, nor brought forward a measure which he did not think he could carry. At the same time his tendencies were liberal whenever the object brought under his consideration became practical. It must also be said that in the matter on which these tendencies came most strikingly into view his objects were Conservative.
He was converted with respect to the Catholic question, and was converted to Liberal views, but when he professed this conversion, it was to save the country from civil war. He was converted with respect to the Corn Law, and was converted to Liberal convictions; but when he professed this conversion, it was to save the country from famine.
Those who have asserted that his natural bent was towards a change in established institutions and ancient customs, were, I think, decidedly wrong. His natural disposition was rather to maintain what he found existing, but he sacrificed old things without scruple when he considered them decidedly incompatible with new ideas. He had not that order of mind which creates and forces its creations on the minds of others. His mind was, on the contrary, a recipient which opened gradually to growing opinions, and became another mind as these opinions got by degrees possession of it. His changes were thus more sudden in appearance than in reality, because they always went on for a certain time, silently, and to a certain degree unconsciously to himself as well as to the world before they were fully felt; nor were they ever publicly announced till, having passed through a stage of doubt, they arrived at the stage of conviction. His convictions, moreover, were generally simultaneous with those of the public, when the public formed its convictions gradually. But any sudden and unexpected leap of opinion, as in the case of the Whig Reform Bill of 1872, took him unprepared. His manner in personal intercourse, however intimate your relations might be, were nearly always formal, though not cold; but in correspondence he was easy, natural, and remarkable for the simplicity and frankness of his letters.
I speak at least from the result of my own experience. In all matters of home policy he was thoroughly master of every subject that could interest an English statesman. In foreign matters he had general notions, but not much knowledge of particulars, nor any special plan or theory of policy; but a high idea of the power of England and the expediency of maintaining her dignity and prestige.
In the early part of his life I have no doubt that ambition, and the personal motives of ambition, had a certain influence over his actions. At a later period, in his last administration, and after quitting office, I believe he had no personal view that separated him in the slightest degree from an entire and disinterested devotion to the interests of his country. He was a scholar in the highest sense of the term; nor did the attention he could give to the driest details of business damp his sympathy for the elegancies of literature, or his appreciation of what was beautiful, whether in painting or sculpture. He had no hatred—no inveterate prejudices against persons or things. His domestic virtues are too well known to make it necessary to allude to them.
In short, without pretending to raise him above the defects and littlenesses of human nature, I do not know where to point to any one who united such talents for public business with such qualities in private life.