The young Earl of Buckinghamshire, who is the heir of
John Hampden, and naturally eager to justify his lineage by his political career, has determined to join the Gladstonians, and the Gladstonians, who are just now depressed by more indications of fallings-away than of accessions of strength,. are prepared to receive him with open arms. We do not grudge him to the party, though we firmly believe that John Hampden, if he were living now, would be much more' likely to leave the Gladstonians to turn Unionist, than to take the course which Lord Buckinghamshire is taking. That, however, is his affair, not ours. And we do not at all regret to see a young Peer going in for a little knight-errantry on that side of the House of Lords which is "in disgrace with for-. tune and men's eyes." Indeed, it is certainly true that a young nobleman who has pluck and mind is far more likely to make for himself a career by passing over from the vast majority of the Peers to the insignificant minority, than by staying hid in the crowd of Conservative commonplaces who swell Lord Salis- bury's ranks. A Gladstonian Peer is both congratulated as a rare and shining example, and decried as an awful warning ; and both processes glorify him.
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