In the midst of these various reforms, which the government under Lord John Russell prosecuted with great zeal and ability, and by which a marked improvement took place in the condition of the people, Sir Robert Peel was thrown from his horse in London, June 29, 1850, and survived but a few days.  His accidental death created universal lamentation, for everybody felt that a great national loss had occurred.  In spite of the bitterness of the monopolists, disappointed in their gains, no death was ever more seriously and universally lamented in England.  Other statesmen blazed upon their contemporaries with more brilliant original genius than Peel, but no one ever had more force of character than he, or was more respected for his candor, truthfulness, and patriotism.  If he had not the divination to originate, he showed transcendent ability in appropriating and making his own the worthy conceptions of others.  He was among those few statesmen who are willing to renounce the dearest opinions of youth and the prejudices of manhood when convinced of their unsoundness.

Peel was a great administrator and a great debater.  His character was austere, his temperament was cold, his manners were awkward and shy; he was chary in the bestowal of pensions and rewards; and by reason of his rather unsympathetic nature he never was a favorite with artists and literary men.  It was his conviction that literary men were not sufficiently practical to be intrusted with political office.  Hence he refused to make Monckton Milnes an under-secretary of state.  When Gladstone published his book on Church and State, being then a young man, it is said that Peel threw it contemptuously on the floor, exclaiming, “What a pity it is that so able a man should injure his political prospects by writing such trash!” Nor was Peel sufficiently passionate to become a great orator like O’Connell or Mirabeau; and yet he was a great man, and the nation was ultimately grateful for the services he rendered to his country and to civilization.  Had his useful and practical life been prolonged, he probably would again have taken the helm of state.  He was always equal to the occasion; but no occasion was sufficiently great to give him the eclat which Pitt enjoyed in the wars of Napoleon.  Under the administration of Peel the country was at peace, and no such internal dangers threatened it as those which marked the passage of the Reform Bill.

Sir Robert Peel was one of the most successful ministers that England ever had.  Certainly no minister was ever more venerated than he; and even the Duke of Wellington did nothing without his advice and co-operation.  In fact, he led the ministry of the duke as Canning did that of the Earl of Liverpool; and had he been less shy and reserved, he would not have passed as so proud a man, and would have been more popular.  There is no trait of character in a great man less understood than what we call pride, which often is not pride at all, but excessive shyness and reserve, based on sensitiveness and caution rather than self-exaggeration and egotism.