sudden, that we cannot sit down calmly either to eulogize or
arraign the memory of the deceased. We cannot forget that it was not
a week ago we were occupied in recording and commenting upon his last
eloquent address to that assembly which had so often listened with
breathless attention to his statesmanlike expositions of policy. We
could do little else when the mournful intelligence reached us that
Sir Robert Peel was no more, than pen a few expressions of sorrow
and respect. Even now the following imperfect record of facts must
be accepted as a poor substitute for the biography of that great
Englishman whose loss will be felt almost as a private bereavement by
every family throughout the British Empire:--

Sir Robert Peel was in the 63d year of his age, having been born near
Bury, in Lancashire, on the 5th of February, 1788. His father was a
manufacturer on a grand scale, and a man of much natural ability, and
of almost unequaled opulence. Full of a desire to render his son and
probable successor worthy of the influence and the vast wealth which
he had to bestow, the first Sir Robert Peel took the utmost pains
personally with the early training of the future prime minister. He
retained his son under his own immediate superintendence until he
arrived at a sufficient age to be sent to Harrow. Lord Byron, his
contemporary at Harrow, was a better declaimer and a more amusing
actor, but in sound learning and laborious application to school
duties young Peel had no equal. He had scarcely completed his 16th
year when he left Harrow and became a gentleman commoner of Christ
Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of A.B., in 1808, with
unprecedented distinction.

The year 1809 saw him attain his majority, and take his seat in the
House of Commons as a member for Cashel, in Tipperary.

The first Sir Robert Peel had long been a member of the House of
Commons, and the early efforts of his son in that assembly were
regarded with considerable interest, not only on account of his
University reputation, but also because he was the son of such a
father. He did not, however, begin public life by staking his fame on
the results of one elaborate oration; on the contrary, he rose now and
then on comparatively unimportant occasions; made a few brief modest
remarks, stated a fact or two, explained a difficulty when he happened
to understand the matter in hand better than others, and then sat down
without taxing too severely the patienc