LORD BROUGHAM AND THE NEWSPAPERS.

THE Chancellor dearly loves notoriety ; and, we dare say, like a stage-player, generally prefers even censure to neglect. Yet it is probable that he would be glad to escape altogether for a time from public observation, rather than run the gauntlet of the whole press, in the way he is now undergoing it. The Times has followed up the onslaught of last week, by a series of articles, in which Lord BROUGHAM is severely handled. The Standard and the True Sun have contributed clever and contemptuous essays on his fallen state, and the causes thereof. The Morning Chronicle is the only newspaper that has shown an inclination to defend him; and it has wisely preferred the course of panegyric on his past services, to that of grappling with and re- pelling the charge of recent delinquency. The Chronicle has found it far easier to hit the Times titan to protect the Chancellor —to impute interested and unworthy motives to a hostile jour- ealist, than to prove that Lord BROUGHAM has not intrigued for Power and place, abandoned his former principles, and seriously damaged the Liberal cause, by his unsteady, tricky conduct and conversation.

It was only in March last that the Times lauded the Chancel- lors persevering assiduity, unexampled regularity, talents of the highest order, eloquence of matchless power, comprehensive and brilliant intellect, &c. Now," the furniture of Lord BROUGHAM'S aMIld " is likened, by the same paper, to "the specimens of an

upholsterer's show-room—lumber of fineries, odds and ends, at once more and less than necessary to the fitting of any one man-

sion of the understanding." Instead of the lofty independence and patriotism formerly attributed to Lord BROUGHAM by the Times, he is accused of treachery, effrontery, and a disposition to sacrifice all that is'estimable in his character, to gratify his love for intrigue and desi e to be considered the leading personage in the Ministry.

The contrast is certainly remarkable: at the same time, it should be observed, that it was chiefly towards the close of the session that Lord Beoueriem " broke out." No statesman ever

fell in public estimation so rapidly as Lord BROI7011 AM fell, from the period of MI% STANLEY'S resignation to his last fatal panegyric

on the Peers. The interval was tilled up with intrigues, shuttling, squabbling, and abortive attempts to gain that Cabinet influence which the distrust of his Sovereign and the decline of his own

influence in the country put beyond his reach. Lord Bito et; HAM'S

public conduct dm hug the last three or four months of the session, justifies a material change of tone in those writers who make his proceedings the subject of remark. But how much better service

would the Times have rendered to the public, and probably to Lord BROUGHAM hini,elf, had it reproved each deviation from

honest politics at the time it occurred, instead of rolling up the heap of misdeeds, in secrecy and silence, to hurl it in one huge mass at

the head of the deluded victim? snaking out oar bill of charges

against the Chancellor, we had only to refer for the separate items to our own columns, where we found them all duly entered under the right dates.

Although the Chronicle hiss failed to demonstrate that the recent eutbreaks of the Chaneellor may not be a fur or the real cause of the change in the Times, etill we do not mean to affirm

that patriotic motives have much to do in the affair, or that private feelings may not influence the wsifers in the Leading Journal.

It may be that they have es Wiwi' of Lord BROUGHAM having

tricked them as well as others; though in what precise way, does not am ear. It is manifestly wrong to imagiee that the Chan- cellor's design to repeal the Newspuper-tax is the origin of the

enmity now inallifested to him by the Times. No established journal, possessed of sufficient means to carry on its operations with vigour at present, would be injured by the repeal of the Stamp-tax. Newspapers woell occupy the same relative situa- tions to each other as at present ; but all w.eild gain, the Times at least as much as the others, by the increase of sale attendant upon a reduction of price.

But does Lord Benuenem really mean to procure the repeal of the Stamp-tax ? We are aware that he etronely recommends its abolitien, in the evidence given bullet:. the Libel Committee, which all the newspapers are now publishieg, and the substance, pith, and entertaiuing points of which, we furni,hed to the readers of the Spectator a menth or two since. III the same evidence, Lord BROUGHAM strongly reprobates Government prosecutions of the press, even although that press should recommend resistance to the levying of taxes; and yet we have Sir JOHN CAMPBELL'S assurance that Lord BROUGHAM concurred fully in the prosecution of the True Sun. With this fact before its eyes, it sound like irony in time Chronicle to say—" We trust that those who call them- selves Liberal, after perusing his evidence, will be slow to believe that Heelev BROUGHAM will ever desert the cause of the people." We should rather warn all those who call themselves Liberal, not to put fhith in Hemel( Beouettem ; who parade's his hatred of Government prosecutions of the press before a Committee of the House of Commons, and sanctions them in the Cabinet ; and who denounces the Taxes on Knowledge and the Law of Libel as in- jurious to public morality and freedom, and yet suffers them to remain untouched, after nearly four years* occupation of almost supreme power. Looking at the actual state of the law, aml then at Lord Beounnem's loudly-trumpeted declaration of its folly and injustice,—looking also at his power to remedy the evil,— what conclusion can plain men arrive at, but this, that Lord Beeuenem is not sincere in the professions which he thinks it politic to make and disseminate through the country for his own especial honour and glory ?