112 THE ELECTIONS. 



incorrigible; his prepossessions sprung from ordinary sympathy. 

 The sober maxims of tuition inspired him with a pious horror 

 of experiment ; the mechanism of his faculties responded to the strict 

 design of its projectors ; it was the work of an illiberal and selfish 

 school, emboldened by the strength of a corrupt and settled party ; 

 of a party cemented carefully by mutual interest, against the rising 

 spirit of Emancipation and Reform. The strength of public sentiment 

 at length defeated the conspiracy, of which Sir Robert Peel was an 

 essential and a. faithful member. The institutions of the country, in 

 despite of Tory combinations, were invigorated by sensible amend- 

 ments. Civil liberty, so shorn and stifled by the criminal antipathy 

 of an oppressive government, revived amid the freshness of a purer 

 atmosphere ; while Toryism drooped beneath the warm ascendant of 

 a bright and genial policy. Sir Robert Peel had still, in his be- 

 half, consistency of principle. Opinions on the Roman Catholic 

 emancipation were divided. Sir Robert Peel, throughout a long, 

 though a subordinate career, had uttered his convictions with a 

 sacred fervour, which the united arguments of Pitt and Fox, of 

 Sheridan and Grattan, of the greater part of the illustrious men 

 of parliament in the meridian glory of their faculties, could 

 not allay. Sir Robert Peel, in strict obedience to the dictates 

 of his conscience, declined the overtures of Mr. Canning, the stay and 

 champion of his former party, the aegis of his nurtured mediocrity. 

 The aulic exhortations of the Duke of Wellington completed in a 

 week what the united talents of the British parliament could not 

 effect through several successive lessons. The master spirits of a 

 brighter aera, who advocated Catholic emancipation, with the self- 

 same hand prepared concession and security. Sir Robert Peel's 

 inveterate hostility was unremittingly directed at the measure, in its 

 wise association with indemnity. Its impregnable opponent, the re- 

 presentative of Oxford University, the chosen warder of the cause of 

 Protestantism, was shortly afterwards the advocate of Roman Ca- 

 tholic emancipation. It would be superfluous to dwell on argu- 

 ments against or for a measure which has passed ; a shadow that ap- 

 peased an idle pertinacity in England, and disappointed all the 

 visionary expectations of the sister country. Look at the result of 

 its concession. Protestants deserted, and Roman Catholics inspired. 

 The former in disgust exclaimed against the treachery of an apos- 



