The period when a young adventurer, committing himself to his own guidance, first launches on the ocean of hope, is very interesting and important: sensible of the variableness of the winds, and of the treachery of the smooth surface on which he sails, he pushes his vessel from the shore with a trembling hand; but although clouds and storms sometimes ob scure the horizon, yet while industry presides at the helm, and discretion is his polar guide, he will rarely fail to perform the voyage of life with tolerable

success.

It was at this period, to which the recursive eye which contemplates his life is frequently turned, that Sir Robert Peel, leaving his paternal habitation, firstpruned his wings and attempted to fly. In conjunction with William Yates, Esq. a gentleman of the most benevolent and equable manners, he embarked in an extensive cotton-manufactory at Bury, in Lancashire; a partnership which has since continued with a harmony and success, that very rarely falls to the lot of such engagements.

After fourteen years of silent industry, and we may add, of uninterrupted success, an event took place more connected with his future domestic happiness than with his public eminence, and which no doubt contributed in the most endearing manner to cement a connexion, as fortunately commenced as happily continued. On the 8th day of July, 1787, Sir Robert Peel received at the altar the hand of the amiable Miss Yates, the present Lady Peel, the daughter of his partner, then little more than seventeen years of

age; and although his table has been already sur→ rounded with olive branches nearly as numerous as years have since elapsed, so profuse has Nature been of her endowments, that notwithstanding this amiable female has been the mother as well as the nurse of eleven very fine children, she yet appears but the eldest sister of the family.

It has often been a question of surprize, at what time, and by what means, Sir Robert Peel acquired those intellectual attainments, which he has since manifested; and the same answer, and with equal truth, has been given in this as in many other instances, that the powers of genius require not the plodding industry of common capacities. But whatever facility a quick mind, eagerly bent on its favourite object, may give to the acquisition of ideas and to the comprehension of truth; yet application and industry are indispensable to literary acquirements. For, could we distinctly mark the various sources of reading and instruction of a Shakespeare or a Chatterton, we should find that all is not intuition. The contemporaries of his youth are unanimous in their testimony, that he discovered a precocious attachment to books, and an insatiable thirst of knowledge. In his early as well as his more mature years, even when his commercial concerns were most urgent, he rarely omitted to devote some part of every day to reading. As the rude figure yields only to the plastic hand of the patient artist, and the landscape rises into existence by the daily exercise of the pencil,

so they only who have toiled and laboured in the acquisition of science can hope for the rewards of a well informed mind;

HOR.

Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam, Malta tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit. -The hours that others dissipated under pretence of recreation, were employed by him in books, and the midnight lamp incessantly witnessed the patient labour with which he cultivated his intellectual faculties. The plan of reading which he early prescribed to himself, and which he has never discontinued, was as judicious as it was singularly adapted to give originality and quickness to his perceptions: a plan which he not only recommended his children to pursue, but daily trains them in the practice of. His eldest son, a youth of the most promising talents, who is little more than fifteen years of age, has been so much in the habit of exercising the retentiveness of his memory, conformably to this method, that very few indeed of his age can carry with them more of the sentiments of an author than himself. When he reads a portion of a book, closing the volume, he immediately retraces the impressions which were made on his memory; and the mind, we know, when conscious that it is to reflect the images presented to it, embraces them with avidity, and holds them with more than common tenacity.

The first literary essay attempted by the subject of these memoirs, was a pamphlet published in 1780 on the national debt. The ingenuity and novelty of the inferences maintained in that work excited consider

able

able attention; and although they might then appear paradoxical to superficial minds, yet every subsequent year has more and more confirmed the truth of them. At the close of the American war, the fears of the nation were very powerfully excited by the vast increase of our funded debt: and the commercial part of the community suffered more than any other body of men, from apprehensions that our increased burdens would soon fetter our exertions, if not ultimately involve the nation in bankruptcy. Sir Robert Peel very carly discovered, and, if we are not mistaken, was the first to maintain, that the national wealth was not diminished by the increase of the national debt, and that statesmen had misconceived its operations by confounding a public with a private engagement.

With a view to correct this radical error, as well as to remove the apprehensions of the timid, and to restore confidence in the people, in respect to their own resources, he published his thoughts, under the title of "The National Debt productive of National Prosperity." He seems at that time to have stood almost alone in this novel opinion: but as the subject has since become better understood, and his arguments have derived strength from subsequent occurrences, the generality of men view with more complacency the present state of the nation, although the debt has been nearly trebled since the pamphlet appeared. In this work he maintained, that a domestic public debt, owed by the community at large to a part of the same community, cannot impair the aggregate wealth of that community: and that if a given sum, however

large,

large, was annually raised from the people, to pay the interest of the debt, the same sum being received by the public creditors, and laid out in the purchase of articles of necessity and comfort for themselves, provided by national industry, circulates at home, and in its transit from one possessor to another, gives birth to new sources and modifications of wealth.

The first instance of Sir Robert Peel's turning his attention to landed property was about the year 1787, in the purchase of a considerable estate in Lancashire. This was followed, in the course of a very few years. more, by extensive acquisitions in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Having thus realized a large landed property, which has been since augmented by several additions, he obtained that stake and consideration in his country, which entitled him to a seat in the legislature. Accordingly at the following general election, in the year 1790, he was returned member for the borough of Tamworth.

We have now traced the progress, and followed the steps, by which Sir Robert Peel, with circumspect and unremitting diligence, climbed the hill of prosperous fortune, surmounting every barrier opposed to his ascent. At At every successive elevation the prospect brightens, and the horizon expands itself: the path gradually widens, and the footing becomes more secure; until the attainment of the summit, from the comprehensive view which its eminence commands, inspires a variety of reflections of the most consolatory kind on the powers of the human mind. To watch the rise and progress of genius, resting on its own

resources: