BARON BROUGHTON "OF BROUGHTON DE GYFFORD, IN THE COUNTY OF
WILTS." AN addition to the Peerage usually forms one incident of a Minis- terial crisis ; and the ascent of Sir John Cam Hobhouse into the legislative empyrean, pending the late stoppage, may be held the complement of a life of some contrasts, if not of special wonder or moment. As the travelling companion of Byron, and chief pamph- leteer of the Westminster Rump, Lord Broughton acquired noto- riety, but never supremacy, though frequently enacting secondary parts with no little piquancy and force. His most successful effort was the showing up of Mr. Canning, who had con- temptuously designated him as the " Man " of Sir Francis Burdett, his once famous Radical colleague. Some inconsistency may doubtless be imputed to the new Peer ; but the term is often misapplied so as to import little more than progress or development. In the outset we are prone to extremes ; and perfectibility, ateliers nationaux, or other ultra type, is as in- separable from inexperience as teething or the measles from child- hood. One sin of renegades Mr. Hobhouse certainly avoided; he did not turn with bitterness on former co-disciples or their doc- trines. In his metamorphosis of Whig placeman, quietism seemed the status he most affected, and under the later Melbourne and Russell periods lie has led the noiseless tenour of his reign in Cannon Row. But duties as well as pay are annexed to high functions, and these have been languidly if not un- skilfully discharged by the virtual sovereign of the East. The disastrous war of Afghanistan was avowedly a mischief of the President's own brewing ; and positive reluctance, or a slug- gish acquiescence, has been manifested in respect of facilities for railways, steam-navigation, the growth of cotton for the European market, with other needful stimulants for quickening into life the resources of our Oriental possessions. The approach- ing termination of the East India Company's lease is likely to open important considerations bearing on the future state and government of the East ; and these, it seems, Sir John in- tended to pass over with a bill, unaided by the essential prelimi- nary of a Parliamentary inquiry. However, the shirking of interests of such magnitude could not be overlooked, and a retreat more congenial to indolence or indifferentism has obviously be- come indispensable to the President of the India Board.
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