TOPICS OF THE DAY.
KISSING THE ROD.
THE Cabinet seems to be principally composed of the Very humble servants of the Duke of WELLINGTON and his set; and among these, notwithstanding his occasional sallies of seeming indepen- dence, Lord BROUGHAM is perhaps on the whole the most osten- tatiously submissive. A striking proof of tha accommodating nature of' his disposition, when Tory Lords are to be conciliated, occurred on the night of their rejection of his Local Court Bill. We allude to the manner in which.he expressed himse1f in one of the concluding passages of his speech on that occasion. After telling their Lordships "plainly," that if they threw out his bill, he would, notwithstanding, persevere in his projects • of Law Reform,—" that they reckoned without their host, and had mistaken their man," if they supposed that they could damp or discourage him,—after having thus roared like the lion, he sunk down all at once into the softness of a lamb, and assured the House that if his bill was rejected, he would in future only pro- pound moderate and inadequate measures of reform, such as would be palatable to their Lordships—that, as they would not allow him to move boldly forward, he was quite ready to creep along, " half an inch " at a time, in their company. Of course, nothing could suit the possessors of hereditary Wisdom better than this obliging frame of mind; and if it should so happen that Earl GREY'S Cabinet should be kicked out of Downing Street, we doubt not that Lord BROUGHAM will be permitted to retain his seat on the woolsack, and still have the felicity of bringing forward mode- rate and inadequate measures, in company with a Tory Premier.
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