1830.] Notes of the Month, fyc. 695 



Christmas, if we happen to have a frost luckily followed by a rapid 

 thaw ; for then gather the skaters, and down they go. Why those 

 ponds should be twenty feet or fathom deep, instead of as many inches, 

 is to be of course accounted for on the Malthusian principle, that the 

 population is surcharged, and the fewer mouths the more bread. But 

 we have a capital exit at all seasons of the year in the canals. London 

 is fairly surrounded with them ; and no citizen can visit a tea-house out 

 of the smoke of Moorfields, no milliner's maid take a walk with her 

 admirer, and no disappointed candidate for the common council can 

 rove along their smooth and slippery banks, without finding a single 

 step a step from the sublime to the ridiculous enough to set him at his 

 ease in all matters respecting this world for the next thousand years. 

 We call Lord Lowther's attention to the subject, and we rely on his 

 humanity to his own character. 



One circumstance of prodigious national import has occurred since 

 our last publication ; Mr. Peel is no more ! Not that he has changed his 

 nature, but he has changed his name. He has had a legacy which we 

 suppose would be of peculiar value to him : he is now Sir Robert Peel, 

 a name which for almost a century designated a very respectable man. 



The late Sir Robert Peel began life in the humblest circumstances ; 

 no dishonour to him in a country where so many other men have risen 

 to eminence by the labour of their heads and hands. 



In 1773 the cotton manufacture started into vigour by the wonderful 

 inventions of Arkwright ; and Peel, then twenty-three years old, having 

 been employed in weaving from his infancy, commenced his speculation 

 by a small manufactory in partnership with Yates, a weaver, whose 

 daughter he in a few years after married. 



Fourteen years of well-judged speculation produced wealth. Nor 

 should it be omitted that success was attended by a proportionate care of 

 those by whose labour his fortunes were increased. No less than fifteen 

 thousand persons were at one period in his employment. He limited the 

 hours of work, that the growth of the children might not be injured by 

 labour; he provided for those children means of improvement; and he 

 brought a bill into Parliament for the regulation of other establish- 

 ments, in order to the preservation of the health and morals of the work- 

 people. 



In 1797j> Peel and his partner subscribed ten thousand pounds to 

 the voluntary contributions : he mainly contributed to forming and sup- 

 porting the Lancashire Fencibles and the Tamworth Armed Association, 

 and raised amongst his own artificers six companies, the Bury Loyal 

 Volunteers, of which he was Lieutenant-Colonel. 



Those exertions and his great opulence recommended him to the Go- 

 vernment, by which in 1800 he was created a Baronet. He now made his 

 way into Parliament, and took some part in questions relative to trade 

 and manufactures ; questions on which practical men, as they are called, 

 are proverbially prejudiced, partial, and absurd ; the cotton-manufac- 

 turer, of course, looking upon all other trades as public ruin, the pillars of 

 the Constitution as founded on packs, and the worldas altogether composed 

 of cotton. The wool-grower is an equal advocate for the necessity of our 

 swallowing nothing but wool ; and doubtless Mr. Baring, at least till he 

 is a lord, will persevere in his opinion that the Stock Exchange is the 

 true head and heart of the British Empire. But old Sir Robert, if he 



