nical powers to the abridgment of manual labour. But the blind hostility of the common people to every species of machinery tended to throw considerable difficulties in the way of such improvements, and actually impeded them for a time; however, the perseverance of the manufacturers finally triumphed over this desolating zcal: a fortunate event for the future employment of thousands, as the success of an enterprize of great national importance depended on those very improvements against which their vengeance was so ignorantly directed. The father of Sir Robert Peel possessed intellcctual faculties in an eminent degree acute. Without the advantages of scholastic knowledge, his shrewdness of observation and accuracy of judgment placed him far above many, who although better educated, yet were not so bountifully endowed by nature. With a numerous progeny of seven sons and a daughter, and strongly impressed with the opinion that happiness as well as prosperity was best promoted by brotherly intercourse, fenced round by family connections, it became his early intention to establish them in a trade so circumstanced, as to afford the best prospect of success to ingenuity, industry and enterprize; and by pointing out different branches accommodated to the different faculties which early marked their respective characters, he lived to enjoy the enviable happiness of seeing his children prosper in situations agreeable to themselves, and beneficial to their country, in the different branches of the cotton trade; branches greatly dependent on each other, and and much assisted by well founded attachments and mutual confidence. Thus established, and with their separate departments severally assigned to them, they have, without exception, enjoyed a degree of success highly honourable to themselves, and advantageous to the community. The comparatively rude state of this infant trade at that time, furnished a wide field for the display of the inventive faculties and persevering industry of Sir Robert Peel. He devoted himself very early to explore the powers of mechanical combinations, particularly where they could be converted to the use of his leading pursuit. Genius, naturally ardent, and frequently desultory, often loses by its volatility the reward of its merit, and too often sacrifices the attainment of the end proposed, by an impatience of restraint and an impetuosity of pursuit. It is only when controled by prudence, yet stimulated by laudable ambition, that the acmé of its attainments baffles all calculation. Sir Robert Peel soon became sensible of the improvements of which machinery was susceptible, as applied to the purposes of commerce; and the success which has rewarded his labours, proves the correctness of this opinion, and is an encouraging instance of the potency of talents when united with prudence and industry. It is the general complaint of commercial men that a liberal education renders the drudgery of trade irksome to youthful minds; that literary pursuits destroy all taste for pursuits of profit; and that to explore the intellectual B 3 intellectual mines of Greece and Rome gives disrelish to the attainment of wealth, through the medium of industry. Whether the father of Sir Robert Peel was influenced or not by these impressions is immaterial: certain it is, that he early initiated his sons in habits. of industry. Under the roof of this parent, not otherwise distinguished than by his assiduity and talents, with pre-eminence rendered amiable by conciliatory manners, and disdaining the indulgence of indolence, pollens vicibus, ingenio validus, non se luxui neque inertie corrumpendum dedit: et cum omnes gloria anteiret, omnibus tamen carus esse, Sir Robert Peel continued to the twenty-third year of his age: at which time, unrivalled in that particular trade, in which his attention had been principally engaged, he was deemed to possess very considerable knowledge of commerce in general, considered in a national point of view, as a pamphlet which he wrote not long afterwards on the national debt proves. Prosperity owes its success chiefly, perhaps, to a quick discernment of prominent occurrences, which it seems peculiar to talents sometimes to originate, but more frequently dexterously to appropriate to themselves: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat: And we must take the current when it serves, SHAKESPEARE. The 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 obscure 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, first pruned 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 B 4 of age; age; and although his table has been already surrounded 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, "Nulla dies sine linea ;" |