Government was defeated by an immense majority, and, of course, resigned.  Mr. Roebuck was chairman of the Committee of Inquiry; but the cabinet that came in discreetly declined to give him any official post in their ranks.  They knew too well the terrible uncertainty and inconsistency of the man’s conduct.  They could place no reliance either on his temper or his discretion.  In 1855 he was one of the numerous candidates for the chairmanship of the Metropolitan Board of Works, but failed to inspire the electors with any confidence in his capacity for the post.  In the following year he became the chairman of the Administrative Reform Association, and although the league had at first been highly successful, and aided much in awaking public attention to the miscarriages and mismanagement in the Crimea, yet, under this fatal presidency, it became speedily and ingloriously defunct.  This was his last great failure, before abdicating all his early liberal principles.  He has of late years endeavored to solace himself for the now irretrievable blunders of his career by an exaggerated indulgence in his idiosyncratic waywardness, paradox, and eccentricity.  He is proud of being considered the acquaintance of the Emperor of Austria, and rather pleased than otherwise at being assailed on this account.  He affects the society and friendship of conservative members of the House of Commons.  He has become tolerant of lords.  He may be seen sitting next to Lord Robert Cecil, indulging in ill-natured jocosities, from which his Lordship probably borrows when he indites ill-natured articles for the misguided “Saturday Review."[A] He hates the Manchester school of politicians, because their liberality and their sympathy with the cause of freedom and civilization in this country remind Roebuck of his own deflection from the right path.

[Footnote A:  This journal is now owned by Mr. Alexander James Beresford Beresford-Hope, (we dare not omit any portion of this august name,) who has ample means to enlist the talents of reckless, “smart” young men in search of employment for any work he may require, no matter how unprincipled the job in hand.]

His private undertakings have not been more fortunate than his public acts.  He was chairman of a bank, which was unsuccessful, to say the least of it.  He has been connected with other enterprises, which soon courted and obtained failure.

What he has recently said and done in reference to this country is too fresh in our memories to require that we should recite or recapitulate it here.  His past career, as we have reviewed it, may account for the now intolerable acerbity of temper and the ludicrous vanity which disgrace him.  Never was a Nemesis more just than that which has for the present consigned him to a melancholy obscurity.  The political extinguisher has certainly dropped upon his head, and this burning and shining light has gone out with an unpleasant odor into utter darkness.