n schemes for carrying
concession even farther than Canning or Huskisson ever dreamed of doing.
Canning was shamelessly deserted and betrayed on all hands. He displayed
wonderful ability, justifying the language of Byron: "Canning is a
genius, almost a universal one, a scholar, a wit, a statesman, an
orator, and a poet." He struggled against the factious opposition
treacherously carried on in the name of principles by men who, like
Peel, felt no homage for them, until his proud and sensitive heart
broke. The Peel and Wellington faction killed him. In the fourth month
of his premiership he died at his post, leaving to posterity a great
name, and an eternal reproach against his unprincipled persecutors.

Lord Goderich ("prosperity Robinson") could not carry on the government.
The duke was made premier, eight months after he had publicly
declared his own incapacity for such an office. One of his first
acts, notoriously under the influence of Peel, was to give office to
Huskisson, the champion of free trade, and the energetic colleague of
Canning! He added four more of Canning's colleagues. Thus, after he
and Peel had declared Canning and his cabinet to be irreligious,
revolutionary, and dangerous to the country, in all the cant phrases of
the time, their very first act was to take possession, as it were, of
the Canning cabinet itself, and next of the Canning policy, on account
of which the illustrious dead had been solemnly denounced by the one,
and vituperated, in a manner far exceeding parliamentary licence, by
the other. The repeal of the corporation and test acts, demanded by the
dissenters, the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and the claims of
the commercial community, and the political economist, for a relaxation
of the protectionist policy were now to be satisfied; but the policy
chosen was to keep all these parties at bay, to resist all melioration
of things as they were as long as possible, and then to concede nothing
on the ground of justice, or of human rights, but only what popular
power could force. This policy Peel did not manage happily, and the duke
was brought down with him as by a dead weight. The parliamentary tact
of Peel, his debating power, his aptitude for public business, and
the singular influence of the duke, worked wonders for a time; but
eventually much more had to be conceded to the public power, than, if at
first and generously, the government had shown a reforming spirit, would
have been