6027 



PEQASU5 



ucceawve budget* along the path 

 toward* free trade upon wlu.h 

 Huakiwon had entered before him 



!n- pim. i|. I.- ( increasing 

 lesi-i, inK tarillii so that 



the goods were cheapened and tin- 

 demand fur them increased, where* 

 by an actual increase of revenue 



The Com I.AW, however, waa tho 

 grand problem thr problem of 

 maintaining; tin- price* which were 

 deemed neoeeaary for tin- pri-aerva- 

 tion of the agricultural m<i 



:inc meeting the 

 I for cheap bread. Peel 

 relied upon tin- >li.lmu .scale. but 

 the sliding scale proved a failure. 

 At last the In-ii potato famine of 

 1845, coupled with tho gradual 

 working upon \u-< mind <>l tho argu- 

 ments of the Anti-Corn LAW 

 League, convinced him that cheap 

 bread waa more necessary than the 

 protection of agricultural interests. 

 the mmi.-trv had taken 

 office as a protectionist government, 

 I Vel \\ ;us unwilling himself to intro- 

 duce a measure repealing the Corn 

 Laws, though he succeeded in per- 

 suading most of his colleagues in 

 the Cabinet of the necessity for the 

 change. But a Whig or Liberal 

 cabinet could not be framed, and it 

 was Peel himself who courageously 

 introduced the measure which was 

 supported by the Whigs and 

 vigorously opposed by the no- 

 surrender section of the Tory party. 



At the very moment when the 

 bill for t ho repeal of the Corn Laws 

 paaaed its final stage Peel was de- 

 feated in the House of Commons 

 on an Irish question and resigned, 

 June 29, 1846. The Liberals came 

 into office, and were there main- 

 tained by the general support of 

 the Peelites, with whom they ulti- 

 mately coalesced in 1852. From 

 1846-50 Peel, though outeide the 

 ministry, remained the most not- 

 able figure in the House of Com- 

 mons. He died on July 2, 1850, 

 from injuries caused by a fall from 

 his horse. See Corn Laws. 



Bibliography. Speeches in the 

 House of Commons, 4 vols., 1853; 

 Memoirs, ed. Earl Stanhope ami I . 

 Card well, 1856; The Political Life 

 ..f Sir H. Peel, T. Doubleday, 1856 ; 

 Memoirs of Peel, F. Guizot, 1857 ; 

 Lives, F. C. Montague, 1888 ; J. R. 

 Thurefield, 1898 ; Peel from his 

 Private Papers, ed. C. S. Parker, 

 1899. 



Peele, GEORGE (<.. 1558-08). 

 Knuli>h poet and dramatist. Son 

 of a London silversmith, he was 

 educated at Christ's Hospital and 

 BroaJgates Hall and Christ Church, 

 Oxford. His court pastoral, The 

 Arraignment of Paris, influenced 

 A Midsummer Night's Dream, 

 his historical play Edward I 

 Shakespeare's Henry IV, and his 



i 1. 1 Wires' Tale the theme of 



Miltuu'n ('IIIIIIIK. HIM work*. which 

 also include the scriptural 



I'x'thsabe and a number of 

 pageant*, possess poetic beauty, 



mid fer\ 

 luit n<> l,i 



fiimli v. They were edited by A. H. 

 Hullen, IS.HH.' 



Peeping; Tom. Name given to 

 the iin|iiiMti\e tiiilt.r ->f < ..M-ntt v 

 who looked out 



ami henee applied to anv idlv 

 m. positive person. See Godiva. 



Peep o* Day Boys. < irganiza- 

 tion of 1'i-otcstant Ulstermen 

 formed to resist the Catholn- 

 l>cfendera. They were so named 

 from their habit of breaking into 

 the houses of their victims at 

 dawn. Their violence caused much 

 trouble yi Ulster, 1784-95. IV-m 

 1790 onwards many of the Peep o' 

 Day Boys were absorbed in the 

 Orange lodges. 



Peerage (Lat. par, equal). I. Her 

 ally, the body of peers. The word 

 is now applied, however, to peers 

 and members of their families, i.e. 

 to those who can succeed to titles. 

 In the United Kingdom there are 

 five ranks in the peerage, duke, 

 marquess, earl, viscount, tind 

 baron. Baronets have never been 

 ranked as peers. 



The possession of a peerage is 

 confined to countries ruled by a 

 monarch, because the root idea is 

 that of personal service to such. 

 Spain and Sweden have peerages, 

 not unlike that of the U.K. 

 Austria and Hungary had such 

 before the Great War. France had 

 a peerage before the country be- 

 came a republic. A peer of France 

 was one on whom the king con- 

 ferred that dignity, and from 1814 

 to 1848 there was a chamber of 

 peers. 



Originally a peer simply meant 

 an equal, but its present use dates 

 from the time it was restricted to 

 the possessors of hereditary titles. 

 This came about through the 

 ~ep.ii ation of the greater and lesser 

 barons in the 13th century. The 

 former, members of the House of 

 Lords, secured the right to be tried 

 by their equals, or peers, and thus 

 became known as peers. A peer 

 and a member of the House of 

 Lords are not quite the same, as 

 the bishops and the law lords are 

 lords of parliament, but not peers. 

 Peers are created by letters patent, 

 prescribing the conditions under 

 which a title may descend. 



A peer ge may be limited to 

 sons and their descendants, or be 

 extended, as in the case of that of 

 Earl Roberts, to daughters, or, as 

 with that of Earl Kitchener, to a 

 brother. The early peers owed 

 their position to tenure of land, 



I. nt this was soon superseded by 

 a writ of summons. There are 

 peers of Scotland, whose number* 

 cannot be increased ; peers of 

 Ireland who can nit in the House of 



. md peers of the i 

 Kingdom. A woman can I*- < 

 peeress, but does not Hit in tin- 

 House of Lords. A peerage is said 

 to be dormant when tin- heir !.--. 

 not assume the title. It becomes 



' when the heirs, a*. 

 to the patent, fail. Baronies can 

 fall into abeyance. Peerages, or 

 workn ^'tMiiL' biographical details 

 nf peers and th-ii f.inulii-, include 

 those of Burke. Cokayne, and 

 Debrett. There is also a Jacobite 

 peerage. See Baron ; Duke ; Lords, 

 House of ; ] 



Peerage Bill. Hill introduced 

 into the British Parliament in 

 1720, but not passed into law. Its 

 object was to prevent the sovereign 

 from creating more than six fresh 

 peerages, although it allowed him 

 to replace extinct ones. The bill 

 passed the Lords, but was rejected 

 by the Commons owing mainly to 

 the vigorous opposition of Sir 

 Robert Walpole. 



Peer Gynt. Dramatic poem by 

 lleniik Ibsen, first published in 

 1867. Peer Gynt himself is one of 

 the half mythical and fan: 

 personages from the peasant life of 

 modern Norway, a typical man of 

 indecision, ever afraid of doing the 

 irretrievable. The work is alter 

 nately satirical, fantastic, and 

 finely poetical. E. Grieg made the 

 drama the theme of a well-known 

 suite. Pron. Pair Ghint. 



Peg. Small pointed or tapered 

 piece of wood, metal, or other 

 material used to fasten together 

 various objects. Such objects are 

 often said to be pegged, e.g. the 

 soles of boots. 



The word is also used for a pro- 

 jecting piece of wood or metal ustd 

 to hang or fasten things on to, e.ij. 

 a hat peg, or the peg of a st : 

 instrument. Tent ropes are strum* 1 

 on pegs driven into the ground. A 

 clothes peg is one with two prongs 

 used for fastening clothes on a line. 

 The word is also used in such phrases 

 as to peg out a claim, meaning to 

 mark out the boundaries of a min- 

 ing claim according to the law. Set 

 Bone Implements. 



Pegasus. In (.int-k mythology. 

 the winged horse which sprang 

 from the blood of the Gorgon 

 Medusa, when her head was struck 

 off by Perseus. Pegasus created 

 Hippoerene, the spring of tin- 

 Moses, with a kick of his hoof, but 

 his further connexion with the 

 Moses, often alluded to in modern 

 poetry, has not been traced earlier 

 than the Italian poet Boiardo (d. 

 1494). See Bellerophon. 



