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to teach. Others connect with an O. Ital. pedare, to tramp about | e.g. pedicree, pe de gre, peliegrew, petygru, &c. (Lat. pes, foot), of an usher tramping about with his pupils.

PEDEN, ALEXANDER (c. 1626–1686), Scottish divine, one of the leading forces in the Covenant movement, was born at Auchincloich, Ayrshire, about 1626, and was educated at Glasgow University. He was ordained minister of New Luce in Galloway in 1660, but had to leave his parish under Middleton's Ejectment Act in 1663. For 23 years he wandered far and wide, bringing comfort and succour to his co-religionists, and often very narrowly escaping capture. He was indeed taken in June 1673 while holding a conventicle at Knockdow, and condemned by the privy council to 4 years and 3 months' imprisonment on the Bass Rock and a further 15 months in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh. In December 1678 he was, with sixty others, sentenced to banishment to the American plantations, but the party was liberated in London, and Peden made his way north again to divide the remaining years of his life between his own country and the north of Ireland. His last days were spent in a cave in the parish of Sorn, near his birthplace, and there he died in 1686, worn out by hardship and privation.

See A. Smellie, Men of the Covenant, ch. xxxiv.

PEDERSEN, CHRISTIERN (c. 1480-1554), Danish writer, known as the "father of Danish literature," was a canon of the cathedral of Lund, and in 1510 went to Paris, where he took his master's degree in 1515. In Paris he edited the proverbs of Peder Laale and (1514) the Historia danica of Saxo Grammaticus. He showed signs of the spirit of reform, asserting that the gospels should be translated into the vernacular so that the common people might understand. He worked at a continuation of the history of Saxo Grammaticus, and became secretary to Christian II., whom he followed into exile in 1525. In Holland he translated the New Testament (1529) and the Psalms (1531)

It is generally

accepted that these point to a corruption of Fr. pied de grue, foot of a crane, and that the probable reference is to the marks resembling the claw of a bird found in old genealogies showing the lines of descent. Such etymologies as Minshea's par degrés, by degrees, or père degrés, descent by the father, are mere guesses.

PEDIMENT (equivalents, Gr. ȧerós, Lat. fastigium, Fr. ponton), in classic architecture the triangular-shaped portion of the wali above the cornice which formed the termination of the roof behind it. The projecting mouldings of the cornice which surround it enclose the tympanum, which is sometimes decorated with sculpture. The pediment in classic architecture corresponds to the gable in Gothic architecture, where the roof is of loftier pitch. It was employed by the Greeks only as the front of the roof which covered the main building; the Romans, however, adopted it as a decorative termination to a doorway, niche or window, and occasionally, in a row of windows or miches, alternated the triangular with a segmental pediment. It was reserved for the Italian architects of the decadence to break the pediment in the centre, thus destroying its original purpose. The earliest English form of the word is periment or peremint, probably a workman's corruption of "pyramid.

PEDIPALPI, Arachnida (q.v) related to the spiders, and serving in a measure to bridge over the structural interval between the latter and the scorpions. The appendages of the second pair are large and prehensile, as in scorpions, but are armed with spines, to impale and hold prey. The appendages of the third pair, representing the first pair of walking legs in spiders and scorpions, are, on the contrary, long, attenuated and manyjointed at feelers. from this structural feature that the term "pedibeen derived. In the tailless division of the Pedipalpi, opinion, he issued several Lutheran tracts. After his return to 24 buzues molubraq vynod & to list sili vd boots a Denmark in 1532 he set up a printing press at Malmö. Hes of land bootoi 4 raudbroq adT published a Danish version (Krönike om Holger Danske) ofsdote dons ditive bus aning 916 115 the French romance of Ogier the Dane, and another of the bago: Levom zi ti dew Charlemagne legends, which is probably derived immediately from the Norwegian Karlamagnus saga. His greatest work, the Danish version of the Holy Scriptures, which is known generally as "Christian III.'s Bible," is an important landmark in Danish literature. It was founded on Luther's version, and was edited by Peder Palladius, bishop of Zealand, and others. See C. Pedersen's Danske Skrifter, edited by C. J. Brandt, and B. T. Fenger (5 vols., Copenhagen, 1850-1856).

from the Vulgate, and, becoming a convert to the reformed palpi "e end. Like the antennae of insects, they act as

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PEDESTAL (Fr. piedestal, Ital. piedestallo, foot of a stall), a term generally applied to a support, square, octagonal or nord) or of smug and to circular on plan, provided to carry a statue or a vase. Although exó, tad majoⱭbac odi paired od in Syria, Asia Minor and Tunisia the Romans occasionally omits ibde seu noqu rednings no bombsh raised the columns of their temples or propylaea on square yadd in sol Loper ni gful to trieb FH 197 pedestals, in Rome itself they were employed only to give anotoqorq aid base 910m soqqe zuna vol greater importance to isolated columns, such as those of Trajan of ad fuodquoidiotubus uvad aim olun droitse and Antoninus, or as a podium to the columns employed decor-ide lo argia od: oftobunstimui bus ens to new air atively in the Roman triumphal arches. The architects of the iw bodmoorgɔnod smoɔed bad rehtampa, walch odT Italian revival, however, conceived the idea that no order was over noizzɔɔɔde luitoqmi sdi to aroga ada melar complete without a pedestal, and as the orders were by themed bed eseul rodgid od), „yrotomizingu 26 bubtsyar employed to divide up and decorate a building in several storeys, eum sandà fin bas „zovale odt lo noitsqin omo eni yd bo the cornice of the pedestal was carried through and formed the diɖw „slover yusifin & ai nolzenqzabawot insjac sills of their windows, or, in open arcades, round a court, thesd: lo mitibo bilos viganess oft word 0881 Tod balustrade of the arcade. They also would seem to have oro Scale. considered that the height of the pedestal should correspond in its proportion with that of the column of pilaster it supported; thus in the church of St John Lateran, where the applied order is of considerable dimensions, the pedestal is 13 ft. high instead of the ordinary height of 3 to 5 ft.

PEDICULOSIS, or PHTHIRIASIS, the medical term for the pathological symptoms in man due to the presence of lice (pediculi), either on the head (pediculus capitis), body (pediculus corporis, or vestimentorum), or pubes (pediculus pubis).

PEDIGREE, a genealogical tree, a tabular statement of descent (see GENEALOGY). The word first appears at the beginning of the 15th century and takes an extraordinary variety of forms,

Mexican tailed Pedipalp (Mastigoproetus giganteus).

namely the Amblypygi of which Phrynus is a commonly cited type, these tactile appendages are exceedingly long and lashlike, whereas in the tailed division, the Uropygi, of which Thelyphonus is best known, the limb is much shorter and less modified. Thelyphonus and its allies, however, have a long tactile caudal flagellum, the homologue of the scorpion's sting; but its exact use is unknown. A third division, the Tartarides, a subordinate group of the Uropygi, contains minute Arachnida differing principally from the typical Uropygi in having the caudal process unjointed and short. Apart from the Tartarides, the Pedipalpi

are large or medium-sized Arachnida, nocturnal in habits and spending the day under stones, logs of wood or loosened bark. Some species of the Uropygi (Thelyphonidae) dig burrows; and in the east there is a family of Amblypygi, the Charontidae, of which many of the species live in the recesses of deep caves. Specimens of another species have been found under stones between tide marks in the Andaman Islands. The Pedipalpi feed upon insects, and like spiders, are oviparous. The eggs after being laid are carried about by the mother, adhering in a glutinous mass to the underside of the abdomen.

Pedipalpi date back to the Carboniferous Period, occurring in deposits of that age both in Europe and North America. Moreover, the two main divisions of the order, which were as sharply differentiated then as they are now, have existed practically unchanged from that remote epoch.

In spite of the untold ages they have been in existence, the Pedipalpi are more restricted in range than the scorpions. The Uropygi are found only in Central and South America and in south and eastern Asia, from India and south China to the Solomon Islands. The absence of the entire order from Africa is an interesting fact. The distribution of the Amblypygi practically covers that of the Uropygi, but in addition they extend from India through Arabia into tropical and southern Africa. Both groups are unknown in Madagascar, in Australia, with the exception possibly of the extreme north, and in New Zealand. Very little can be said with certainty about the distribution of the Tartarides. They have been recorded from the Indian Region, West Africa and sub-tropical America. (R. I. P.) PEDOMETER (Lat. pes, foot, and Gr. μérpov, measure), an apparatus in the form of a watch, which, carried on the person of a walker, counts the number of paces he makes, and thus indicates approximately the distance travelled. The ordinary form has a dial-plate marked for yards and miles. The registration is effected by the fall of a heavy pendulum, caused by the percussion of each step. The pendulum is forced back to a horizontal position by a delicate spring, and with each stroke a fine-toothed ratchet-wheel connected with it is moved round a certain length. The ratchet communicates with a train of wheels which work the dial-hands. In using the apparatus a measured mile or other known distance is walked and the indication thereby made on the dial-plate observed. According as it is too great or too small, the stroke of the pendulum is shortened or lengthened by a screw. Obviously the pedometer is little better than an ingenious toy, depending even for rough measurements on the uniformity of pace maintained throughout the journey measured.

PEDRO II. (1825-1891), emperor of Brazil, came to the throne in childhood, having been born on the 2nd of December 1825, and proclaimed emperor in April 1831, upon the abdication of his father. He was declared of full age in 1840. For a long period few thrones appeared more secure, and his prosperous and beneficent rule might have endured throughout his life but for his want of energy and inattention to the signs of the times. The rising generation had become honeycombed with republicanism, the prospects of the imperial succession were justly regarded as unsatisfactory, the higher classes had been estranged by the emancipation of the slaves, and all these causes of discontent found expression in a military revolt, which in November 1889 overthrew the seemingly solid edifice of the Brazilian Empire in a few hours. Dom Pedro retired to Europe, and died in Paris on the 5th of December 1891. The chief events of his reign had been the emancipation of the slaves, and the war with Paraguay in 1864-70. Dom Pedro was a model constitutional sovereign, and a munificent patron of science and letters. He travelled in the United States (1876), and thrice visited Europe (1871-1872, 1876-1877, 1886-1889). PEEBLES, a royal and police burgh and county town of Peeblesshire, Scotland, situated at the junction of Eddleston Water with the Tweed. Pop. (1901), 5266. It is 27 m. south of Edinburgh by the North British Railway (22 m. by road), and is also the terminus of a branch line of the Caledonian system from Carstairs in Lanarkshire. The burgh consists of the new

town, the principal quarter, on the south of the Eddleston, and the old on the north; the Tweed is crossed by a handsome fivearched bridge. Peebles is a noted haunt of anglers, and the Royal Company of Archers shoot here periodically for the silver arrow given by the burgh. The chief public buildings are the town and county halls, the corn exchange, the hospital and | Chambers Institution. The last was once the town house of the earls of March, but was presented to Peebles by William Chambers, the publisher, in 1859. The site of the castle, which stood till the beginning of the 18th century, is now occupied by the parish church, built in 1887. Of St Andrew's Church, founded in 1195, nothing remains but the tower, restored by William Chambers, who was buried beside it in 1883. The church of the Holy Rood was erected by Alexander III. in 1261, to contain a supposed remnant of the true cross discovered here. The building remained till 1784, when it was nearly demolished to provide stones for a new parish church. Portions of the town walls still exist, and there are also vaulted cellars constructed | in the 16th and 17th centuries as hiding-places against Border freebooters. The old cross, which had stood for several years in the quadrangle of Chambers Institution, was restored and erected in High Street in 1895. The industries consist of the manufactures of woollens and tweeds, and of meal and flour mills. The town is also an important agricultural centre.

The name of Peebles is said to be derived from the pebylls, or tents, which the Gadeni pitched here in the days of the Romans. The place was early a favourite residence of the Scots kings when they came to hunt in Ettrick forest. It probably received its charter from Alexander III., was created a royal burgh in 1367 and was the scene of the poem of Peblis to the Play, ascribed to James I. In 1544 the town sustained heavy damage in the expedition led by the 1st earl of Hertford, afterwards the protector Somerset, and in 1604 a large portion of it was destroyed by fire. Though James VI. extended its charter, Peebles lost its importance after the union of the Crowns. On the north bank of the Tweed, one mile west of Peebles, stands Neidpath Castle. The ancient peel tower dates probably from the 13th century. Its first owners were Tweeddale Frasers or Frisels, dingtonshire, earls of Tweeddale. It was besieged and taken by from whom it passed, by marriage, to the Hays of Yester in HadCromwell in 1650. The third earl of Tweeddale (1645-1713) sold it to the duke of Queensberry in 1686. The earl of Wemyss succeeded to the Neidpath property in 1810.

PEEBLESSHIRE, or TWEEDDALE, a southern inland county of Scotland, bounded N. and N.E. by Edinburghshire, E. and S.E. by Selkirkshire, S. by Dumfriesshire, and W. by Lanarkshire. Its area is 222,599 acres or 547-8 sq. m. The surface consists of a succession of hills, which are highest in the south, broken by the vale of the Tweed and the glens formed by its numerous tributaries. South of the Tweed the highest points are Broad Law and Cramalt Craig on the confines of Selkirkshire (each 2723 ft.), while north of the river are, in the west centre, Broughton Heights (1872), Trahenna Hill (1792), Penvalla (1764) and Ladyurd Hill (1724), and in the north-west the Pentland eminences of Mount Maw (1753), Byrehope Mount (1752) and King Seat (1521). The lowest point above sea-level is on the banks of the Tweed, where it passes into Selkirkshire (about 450 ft.). The principal river is the Tweed, and from the fact that for the first 36 m. of its course of 97 m. it flows through the south of the shire, the county derives its alternative name of Tweeddale. Its affluents on the right are the Stanhope, Drummelzier, Manor and Quair; on the left, the Biggar, Lyne, Eddlestone and Leithen. The North Esk, rising in Cairnmuir, forms the boundary line between Midlothian and Peeblesshire for about four miles, during which it presents some very charming pictures, especially at Habbie's Howe, where Allan Ramsay laid the scene of the Gentle Shepherd. For 4 m. of its course the South Medwin divides the south-western part of the parish of Linton from Lanarkshire. Portmore Loch, a small sheet of water 2 m. northeast of Eddlestone church, lies at a height of 1000 ft. above the sea, and is the only lake in the county. The shire is in favour with anglers, its streams being well stocked and unpolluted, and few restrictions being placed on the fishing.

Geology. The southern elevated portion of the county is occupied | The hill-side terraces at Romanno are conjectured, somewhat by Silurian rocks, mainly by shales and grits or greywackes of fancifully, to be remains of a Roman method of cultivation. On Llandovery age. Owing to the repeated folding and crumpling of the rocks in this region there are numerous elliptical exposures the retreat of the Romans the Gadeni came into their own again, of Ordovician strata within the Silurian tract; but the principal and although they are said to have been defeated by King Arthur area of Ordovician rocks lies north of a line running south-west at Cademuir in 530, they held the district until the consolidation from the Moorfoot Hills through Lyne and Stobo. Here these of the kingdom after Malcolm II.'s victory at Carham in 1018, rocks form a belt some four to five miles in breadth; they are composed of radiolarian cherts and mudstones with associated conbefore which the land, constantly harried by Danes, was nomitemporaneous volcanic rocks of Arenig age, and of shales, grits nally included in the territory of Northumbria. This tract of and limestones of Llandeilo and Caradoc age. The general direction Scotland is closely associated with the legend of Merlin. David I. of strike of all these formations is south-west-north-east, but the made the district a deanery in the archdeaconry of Peebles, dips are sometimes misleading through occasional inversion of the strata. Patches of higher Silurian, with Wenlock and Ludlow and it afterwards formed part of the diocese of Glasgow. fossils, are found in the north of the country in the Pentland Hills, Towards the middle of the 12th century it was placed under and resting conformably upon the Silurian in the same district is the jurisdiction of two sheriffs, one of whom was settled at the Lower Old Red Sandstone. The Old Red Sandstone here consists of a lower division, red and chocolate marls and sandstones; Traquair and the other at Peebles. At Happrew, in the valley a middle division, volcanic rocks, porphyrites, tuffs, &c., which are of the Lyne, the English defeated Wallace in 1304. The Scottish unconformable on the lower marls in this area; and an upper sovereigns had a lodge at Polmood, and often hunted in the division, sandstones and conglomerates. The south-west extremity uplands and the adjoining forests. English armies occasionally of the Edinburgh coalfield just enters this county over the north- invaded the county, but more frequently the people were harried west border where a slice of Carboniferous strata is found let down between Silurian and Old Red rocks by two important faults. by Border raiders. Many castles and peels were erected in the Both Calciferous sandstone and Carboniferous limestone occur, valley of the Tweed from the Bield to Berwick. Several were with useful beds of coal, limestone, ironstone, fireclay and alum renowned in their day, among them Oliver Castle (built by Sir shale. An outlier of Carboniferous limestone, surrounded by Oliver Fraser in the reign of David I.), Drumelzier, Tinnis or Lower Old Red Sandstone, lies south of Linton. Much glacial boulder clay with gravel and sand rests upon the higher ground, Thane's Castle, and Neidpath. Three miles south of Romanno while morainic deposits are found in the valleys. stand the ruins of Drochil Castle, designed for the Regent Climate and Industries.-The annual rainfall averages from Morton, who was beheaded at Edinburgh in 1581, and the 33 to 41 in.; the mean temperature for the year is 47.5° F., building was never completed. Memories of the Covenanters for January 38° F., and for July 59° F. The character of the cluster around Tweedhopefoot, Tweedshaws, Corehead, Tweedssoil varies considerably, peat, gravel and clay being all repre- muir, Talla Linns and other spots. In the churchyard of sented. The low-lying lands consist generally of rich loam, Tweedsmuir is the tombstone of John Hunter, the martyr, composed of sand and clay. The farming is pastoral rather than which was relettered by "Old Mortality." The "men of the arable. The average holding is about 200 acres of arable land, moss hags" did little fighting in Peeblesshire, but Montrose first with pasturage for from 600 to 800 sheep. Roughly speaking, drew rein at Traquair House after he was defeated at Philipone-fifth of the total area is under cultivation. Oats are the haugh on the Yarrow in 1645. The plain of Sheriffmuir near chief grain and turnips the chief root crop. The hill pastures are Lyne is the place where the Tweeddale wapinschaws used to be better suited to sheep than to cattle, but both flocks and herds are held in the 17th century. The Jacobite risings left the county comparatively large. Cheviots and half-breds are preferred for untouched, and since the beginning of the 19th century the shire the grass lands, the heathery ranges being stocked with black- has been more conspicuous in literature than in politics. faced sheep. Crosses of Cheviots, black-faced and half-bred ewes with Leicestershire rams are common. The favourite breed of cattle is a cross between Ayrshires and shorthorns, the cows being Ayrshire. Many of the horses are Clydesdales bred in the county. Pig-keeping is on the decline. A few acres have been laid down as nurseries and market gardens, and about 10,000 acres are under wood, especially at Dalwick, where larch and horse-chestnut were first grown in Scotland. Apart from agriculture, the only industries are the woollen factories and flour mills at Peebles and Innerleithen.

The North British railway crosses the county in the north from Leadburn to Dolphinton, and runs down the Eddlestone valley from Leadburn to Peebles and Thornielee, while in the south the Caledonian railway connects the county town with Biggar in Lanarkshire.

Population and Administration.-In 1901 the population numbered 15,066 or 43 persons to the sq. m. In 1901 one person spoke Gaelic only, 72 Gaelic and English. The chief towns are Peebles (pop. 5266) and Innerleithen (2181). West Linton, on Lyne Water, is a holiday resort. The shire combines with Selkirkshire to return one member to parliament, the electors of Peebles town voting with the county. Peeblesshire forms a sheriffdom with the Lothians and a sheriff-substitute sits in the county town. There is a high school in Peebles, and one or more schools in the county usually earn grants for secondary education.

History. The country was originally occupied by the Gadeni, a British tribe, of whom there are many remains in the shape of camps and sepulchral mounds (in which stone coffins, axes and hammers have been found), while several place-names (such as Peebles, Dalwick and Stobo) also attest their presence. The standing stones near the confluence of the Lyne and Tweed are supposed to commemorate a Cymric chief. The natives were reduced by the Romans, who have left traces of their military rule in the fine camp at Lyne, locally known as Randal's Walls.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Pennecuick, Description of Tweeddale (1715); William Chambers, History of Peeblesshire (Edinburgh, 1864); Dr C. B. Gunn, Innerleithen and Traquair (Innerleithen, 1867); Sir George Reid, The River Tweed from its Source to the Sea (Text by Professor Veitch) (Edinburgh, 1884); Professor Veitch, History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1893); Border Essays (Edinburgh, 1896); Rev. W. S. Crockett, The Scott Country (Edinburgh, 1902).

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PEEKSKILL, a village of Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Hudson river, about 41 m. N. of New York City. Pop. (1910, census), 15,245. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway, and by passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Hudson river. The village is the home of many New York business men. At Peekskill are the Peekskill military academy (1833, nonsectarian); St Mary's school, Mount St Gabriel (Protestant Episcopal), a school for girls established by the sisterhood of St Mary; the Field memorial library; St Joseph's home (Roman Catholic); the Peekskill hospital, and several sanatoria. Near the village is the state military camp, where the national guard of the state meets in annual encampment. Peekskill has many manufactures, and the factory products were valued in 1905 at $7,251,897, an increase of 306.7% since 1900. The site was settled early in the 18th century, but the village itself dates from about 1760, when it took its present name from the adjacent creek or "kill," on which a Dutch trader, Jans Peek, of New York City, had established a trading post. During the latter part of the War of Independence Peekskill was an important: outpost of the Continental Army, and in the neighbourhood several small engagements were fought between American and British scouting parties. The village was incorporated in 1816. Peekskill was the country home of Henry Ward Beecher.

PEEL, ARTHUR WELLESLEY PEEL, IST VISCOUNT (1829- ), English statesman, youngest son of the great Sir Robert Peel, was born on the 3rd of August, 1829, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He unsuccessfully

contested Coventry in 1863; in 1865 he was elected in the liberal interest for Warwick, for which he sat until his elevation to the peerage. In December 1868 he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the poor law board. This office he filled until 1871, when he became secretary to the board of trade, an appointment which he held for two years. In 1873-1874 he was patronage secretary to the treasury, and in 1880 he became undersecretary for the home department. On the retirement of Mr Brand (afterwards Viscount Hampden) in 1884, Peel was elected Speaker. He was thrice re-elected to the post, twice in 1886, and again in 1892. Throughout his career as Speaker he exhibited conspicuous impartiality, combined with a perfect knowledge of the traditions, usages and forms of the house, soundness of judgment, and readiness of decision upon all occasions; and he will always rank as one of the greatest holders of this important office. On the 8th of April 1895 he announced that for reasons of health he was compelled to retire. The farewell ceremony was of a most impressive character, and warm tributes were paid from all parts of the house. He was created a viscount and granted a pension of £4000 for life. He was presented with the freedom of the City of London in July 1895. The public interest in the ex-Speaker's later life centred entirely in his somewhat controversial connexion with the drink traffic. A royal commission was appointed in April 1896 to inquire into the operation and administration of the licensing laws, and Viscount Peel was appointed chairman. In July 1898 Lord Peel drew up a draft report for discussion, in five parts. Some differences of opinion arose in connexion with the report, and at a meeting of the commissioners on the 12th of April 1899, when part 5 of the draft report was to be considered, a proposal was made to substitute an alternative draft for Lord Peel's, and also a series of alternative drafts for the four sections already discussed. Lord Peel declined to put these proposals, and left the room. Sir Algernon West was elected to the chair, and ultimately two main reports were presented, one section agreeing with Lord Peel, and the other-including the majority of the commissioners presenting a report which differed from his in several important respects. The Peel report recommended that a large reduction in the number of licensed houses should be immediately effected, and that no compensation should be paid from the public rates or taxes, the money for this purpose being raised by an annual licence-rental levied on the rateable value of the licensed premises; it at once became a valuable weapon in the hands of advanced reformers.

Lord Peel married in 1862, and had four sons and two daughters (married to Mr J. Rochfort Maguire and to Mr C. S. Goldman). His eldest son, William Robert Wellesley Peel (b. 1866), married the daughter of Lord Ashton; he was Unionist M.P. for South Manchester from 1900 to 1905, and later for Taunton, and also acted as Municipal Reform leader on the London County Council.

At Harrow, according to the accounts of his contemporaries, Peel was a steady industrious boy, the best scholar in the school, fonder of country walks with a friend than of school games, but reputed one of the best football players. At Christ Church, where he entered as a gentleman commoner, he was the first who, under the new examination statutes, took a first class both in classics and in mathematics. His examination for his B.A. degree in 1808 was an academical ovation in presence of a numerous audience, who came to hear the first man of the day. From his classical studies Robert Peel derived not only the classical, though somewhat pompous, character of his speeches and the Latin quotations with which they were often happily interspersed but something of his lofty ideal of political ambition. To his mathematical training, which was then not common among public men, he no doubt owed in part his method, his clearness, his great power of grasping steadily and working out difficult and complicated questions. His speeches show that, in addition to his academical knowledge, he was well versed in English literature, in history, and in the principles of law, in order to study which he entered at Lincoln's Inn. But while reading hard he did not neglect to develop his tall and vigorous frame, and, though he lost his life partly through his bad riding, he was always a good shot and an untiring walker after game. His Oxford education confirmed his atachment to the Church of England. His practical mind remained satisfied with the doctrines of his youth, and he never showed that he had studied the great religious controversies of his day.

In 1809, being then in his twenty-second year, he was brought into parliament for the close borough of Cashel, which he afterwards exchanged for Chippenham, and commenced his parliamentary career under the eye of his father, then member for Tamworth, who fondly saw in him the future leader of the Tory party. In that House of Commons sat Wilberforce, Windham, Tierney, Grattan, Perceval, Castlereagh, Plunkett, Romilly, Mackintosh, Burdett, Whitbread, Horner, Brougham, Parnell, Huskisson, and, above all, George Canning. Lord Palmerston entered the house two years earlier, and Lord John Russell three years later. Among these men young Peel had to rise. And he rose, not by splendid eloquence, by profound political philosophy or by great originality of thought, but by the closest attention to all his parliamentary duties, by a study of all the business of parliament, and by a style of speaking which owed its force not to high flights of oratory, but to knowledge of the subject in hand, clearness of exposition, close reasoning, and tact in dealing with a parliamentary audience. With the close of the struggle against revolutionary France, political progress in England was soon to resume the march which that struggle had arrested. Young Peel's lot, however, was cast, through his father, with the Tory party. In his maiden speech in 1810, seconding the address, he defended the Walcheren expedition, which he again vindicated soon afterwards against the report of Lord Porchester's committee. It is said that even then his father had discerned in him a tendency to think for himself, and told Lord Liverpool that to make sure of his support it would be well to place him early in harness. At all events he began official life in 1810 as Lord Liverpool's under-secretary for war and the colonies under the administration of Perceval. In 1812 he was transferred by Lord Liverpool to the more important but unhappy post of secretary for Ireland. There he was engaged till 1818 in maintaining English ascendancy over a country

PEEL, SIR ROBERT, BART. (1788-1850), English statesman, was born on the 5th of February 1788 at Chamber Hall, in the neighbourhood of Bury, Lancashire, or, less probably, at a cottage near the Hall. He was a scion of that new aristocracy of wealth which sprang from the rapid progress of mechanical discovery and manufactures in the latter part of the 18th century. His ancestors were Yorkshire yeomen in the district of Craven, whence they migrated to Blackburn in Lancashire. His grandfather, Robert Peel, first of Peeltold, and afterwards of Brookside, near Blackburn, was a calico-printer, who, appre-heaving with discontent, teeming with conspiracy, and ever ready ciating the discovery of his townsman Hargreaves, took to cotton-spinning with the spinning-jenny and grew a wealthy man. His father, Robert Peel (1750-1830), third son of the last-named, carried on the same business at Bury with still greater success, in partnership with his uncle, Mr Haworth, and Mr Yates, whose daughter, Ellen, he married. He made a princely fortune, became the owner of Drayton Manor and member of parliament for the neighbouring borough of Tamworth, was a trusted and honoured, as well as ardent, supporter of Pitt, contributed munificently towards the support of that leader's war policy, and was rewarded with a baronetcy (1800).

to burst into rebellion. A middle course between Irish parties was impossible, and Peel plied the established engines of coercion and patronage with a vigorous hand. At the same time, it was his frequent duty to combat Grattan, Plunkett, Canning and the other movers and advocates of Roman Catholic emancipation in the House of Commons. He, however, always spoke on this question with a command of temper wonderful in hot youth, with the utmost courtesy towards his opponents, and with warm expressions of sympathy and even of admiration for the Irish people. He also, thus early, did his best to advocate and promote joint education in Ireland as a means of reconciling

happy. And, cold as he was in public, few men could be more bright and genial in private than Sir Robert Peel.

In 1821 Peel consented to strengthen the enfeebled ministry of Lord Liverpool by becoming home secretary; and in that capacity he had again to undertake the office of coercing the growing discontent in Ireland, of which he remained the real administrator, and had again to lead in the House of Commons the opposition to the rising cause of Roman Catholic emancipation. In 1825, being defeated on the Roman Catholic question in the House of Commons, he wished to resign office, but Lord Liverpool pleaded that his resignation would break up the government. He found a congenial task in reforming and humanizing the criminal law, especially those parts of it which related to offences against property and offences punishable by death. The five acts in which Peel accomplished this great work, as well as the great speech of the 9th of March 1826, in which he opened the subject to the house, will form one of the most solid and enduring monuments of his fame. Criminal law reform was the reform of Romilly and Mackintosh, from the hands of the latter of whom Peel received it. But the masterly bills in which it was embodied were the bills of Peel-not himself a creative genius, but, like the founder of his house, a profound appreciator of other men's creations, and unrivalled in the power of giving them practical and complete effect.

sects and raising the character of the people. But his greatest | loved making his friends, dependants, tenants and neighbours service to Ireland as secretary was the institution of the regular Irish constabulary, nicknamed after him "Peelers," for the protection of life and property in a country where both were insecure. His moderation of tone did not save him from the violent abuse of O'Connell, whom he was ill advised enough to challenge an affair which covered them both with ridicule. In 1817 he obtained the highest parliamentary distinction of the Tory party by being elected member for the university of Oxford ---an honour for which he was chosen in preference to Canning on account of his hostility to Roman Catholic emancipation, Lord Eldon lending him his best support. In the following | year he resigned the Irish secretaryship, of which he had long been very weary, and remained out of office till 1821. But he still supported the ministers, though in the affair of Queen Caroline he stood aloof, disapproving some steps taken by the government, and sensitive to popular opinion; and when Canning retired on account of this affair Peel declined Lord Liverpool's invitation to take the vacant place in the cabinet. During this break in his tenure of office he had some time for reflection, which there was enough in the aspect of the political world to move. But early office had done its work. It had given him excellent habits of business, great knowledge and a high position; but it had left him somewhat stiff and punctilious, too cold and reserved and over anxious for formal justifications when he might well have left his conduct to the judgment of men of honour and the heart of the people. At the same time he was no pedant in business; in corresponding on political subjects he loved to throw off official forms and communicate his views with the freedom of private correspondence; and where his confidence was given, it was given without

reserve.

At this period he was made chairman of the bullion committee on the death of Horner. He was chosen for this important office by Huskisson, Ricardo and their fellow-economists, who saw in him a mind open to conviction, though he owed hereditary allegiance to Pitt's financial policy, and had actually voted with his Pittite father for a resolution of Lord Liverpool's government asserting that Bank of England notes were equivalent to legal coin. The choice proved judicious. Peel was converted to the currency doctrines of the economists, and proclaimed his conversion in a great speech on the 24th of May 1819, in which he moved and carried four resolutions embodying the recommendations of the bullion committee in favour of a return to cash payments. This laid the foundation of his financial reputation, and his co-operation with the economists tended to give a liberal turn to his commercial principles. In the course he took he somewhat diverged from his party, and particularly from his father, who remained faithful to Pitt's depreciated paper, and between whom and his schismatic son a solemn and touching passage occurred in the debate. The author of the Cash Payments Act had often to defend his policy, and he did so with vigour. The act is sometimes said to have been hard on debtors, including the nation as debtor, because it required debts to be paid in cash which had been contracted in depreciated paper; and Peel, as heir to a great fundholder, was even charged with being biased by his personal interests. But it is answered that the Bank Restriction Acts, under which the depreciated paper had circulated, themselves contained a provision for a return to cash payments six months after peace.

In 1820 Peel married Julia, daughter of General Sir John Floyd, who bore him five sons and two daughters. The writers who have most severely censured Sir Robert Peel as a public man have dwelt on the virtues and happiness of his private and domestic life. He was not only a most loving husband and father but a true and warm-hearted friend. In Whitehall Gardens or at Drayton Manor he gathered some of the most distinguished intellects of the day. He indulged in free and cheerful talk, and sought the conversation of men of science; he took delight in art, and was a great collector of pictures; he was fond of farming and agricultural improvements; he actively promoted useful works and the advancement of knowledge; he

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In 1827 the Liverpool ministry was broken up by the fatal illness of its chief, and under the new premier, George Canning, Peel, like the duke of Wellington and other high Tory members of Lord Liverpool's cabinet, refused to serve. Canning and Peel were rivals; but we need not interpret as mere personal rivalry that which was certainly, in part at least, a real difference of connexion and opinion. Canning took a Liberal line, and was supported by many of the Whigs; the seceders were Tories, and it is difficult to see how their position in Canning's cabinet could have been otherwise than a false one. Separation led to public coolness and occasional approaches to bitterness on both sides in debate. But there seems no ground for exaggerated complaints against Peel's conduct. Canning himself said to a friend that "Peel was the only man who had behaved decently towards him." Their private intercourse remained uninterrupted to the end; and Canning's son afterwards entered public life under the auspices of Peel. The charge of having urged Roman Catholic emancipation on Lord Liverpool in 1825, and opposed Canning for being a friend to it in 1827, made against Sir Robert Peel in the fierce corn-law debates of 1846, has been withdrawn by those who made it.

In January 1828, after Canning's death, the duke of Wellington formed a Tory government, in which Peel was home secretary and leader of the House of Commons. This cabinet, Tory as it was, did not include the impracticable Lord Eldon, and did include Huskisson and three more friends of Canning. Its policy was to endeavour to stave off the growing demand for organic change by administrative reform, and by lightening the burdens of the people. The civil list was retrenched with an unsparing hand, the public expenditure was reduced lower than it had been since the Revolutionary war, and the import of corn was permitted under a sliding scale of duties. Peel also introduced into London the improved system of police which he had previously established with so much success in Ireland. Bui the tide ran too strong to be thus headed. First the government were compelled, after a defeat in the House of Commons, to acquiesce in the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Peel bringing over their High Church supporters, as far as he could. Immediately afterwards the question of Roman Catholic emancipation was brought to a crisis by the election of O'Connell for the county of Clare. In August Peel expressed to the duke of Wellington his conviction that the question must be settled. He wrote that out of office he would co-operate in the settlement but in his judgment it should be committed to other hands than his. To this the duke assented, but in January 1829, owing to the declared opinions of the king, of the House of Lords, and of the Church against a change of policy, Wellington came to the

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