One was inseparably at her side, but one must now
leave it; and she and the Prince met their inevitable loss with the
dignified outward acquiescence that was fitting, but with sorrow not
less real. The Queen would have bestowed on Peel as distinguished an
honour as she could confer--the Order of the Garter; Peel deemed it
best to decline it gratefully. "He was from the people and of the
people," and wished so to remain, content if his Queen could say,
"You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty to the
country and to myself."

In hapless Ireland, torn by agitation and scourged by pestilence and
famine, the general misery had reached a point where no fiscal
measures, however wise, could at once alleviate it. The potato famine
held on its dreadful way, and the darkest moment of Irish history
seemed reached in the year when one hundred and seventy thousand
persons perished in that island by hunger or hunger-bred fever. The
new plague affected Great Britain also; but its suffering was
completely overshadowed by the enormous bulk of Irish woe, which the
utmost lavishness of charity seemed scarcely to lessen. That there
should be turbulence and even violence accompanying all this
wretchedness was no way surprising; but in most men's minds the
wretchedness held the larger place, and deservedly so, for the
sedition, when ripe enough, was dealt with sharply, though not
mercilessly, in such a way that ere long all reasonable dread of a
civil war being added to the other horrors, had passed away; and the
country had leisure for such recovery as was possible to a land so
desolate.

[Illustration: Thomas Chalmers.]

There was contemporaneous distress enough and to spare in Great
Britain: failures in Lancashire alone to the amount of L16,000,000;
failures equally heavy in Birmingham, Glasgow, and other great towns;
capital was absorbed by the mad speculations in railway shares; and
even Heaven's gift of an abundant harvest, by at once lowering the
price of corn, helped to depress commerce. Many banks stopped
payment, and even the Bank of England seemed imperilled, saving
itself only by adopting a bold line of policy advised by Government.
At the same time, the Chartist movement was gathering the strength
which was to expend itself in the futile demonstrations of 1848.

[Illustration: John Henry Newman. _From a photograph by_ Mr. H. J.
Whitlock, _Birmingham_.]

But as if it were not enough for every department of