Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . er resisted them on grounds ofprinciple; and he had tried to effect the compro-mise of 1825. He was an adversary of Parlia-mentary reform, but this great question, if plainlymaking its way, had not yet reached the first placein politics; indeed it was not deemed of much real,practical moment. The country, too, was in themain progressing; agriculture and commerce werenot unprosperous; there were few signs of wide-spread discontent; and Wellington, now universallyknown as the Duke, if not popular, was justlyest
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . er resisted them on grounds ofprinciple; and he had tried to effect the compro-mise of 1825. He was an adversary of Parlia-mentary reform, but this great question, if plainlymaking its way, had not yet reached the first placein politics; indeed it was not deemed of much real,practical moment. The country, too, was in themain progressing; agriculture and commerce werenot unprosperous; there were few signs of wide-spread discontent; and Wellington, now universallyknown as the Duke, if not popular, was justlyesteemed by the nation. His Government thereforepromised to be of long duration; it had the appear-ance of complete stability. But it fell on extraor-dinarily difficult times; it was destined to lead toa great constitutional change, and to cause thebreak-up of the dominant Tory party; to encountera revolutionary movement at home, made worse bygeneral and acute distress, and a violent revolu-tionary movement abroad; to make the long-dis-credited Whigs the depositories of power, and to. SIR ROBERT PEEL.(From the painting by John Linnell, in the National Portrait Gallery.) Prime Minister of England 333 transfer it practically, for a time, to the middleclasses in the State: and finally to succumb, after afew months, amidst indignation not wholly unde-served, and a tempest of popular passion, whichshook the institutions of England to their base. The Government of Wellington was not origin-ally a purely Tory Government; it comprised fourof Cannings distinguished followers, men of liberaland enlightened views, for liberal ideas were steadilyincreasing in strength. The command of the armywas conferred on Hill, perhaps the ablest companionin arms of the Duke; all seemed full of certain pro-mise for a time. The Test and Corporation Acts,bad legacies of the seventeenth century, which im-posed galling restrictions on Nonconformists, were ; it deserves notice that Wellington refusedt
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