The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-19 00:00:00

THE LATE EARL OF ELLESMERE,

We regret to announce the death of the Earl of
Ellesmere, which occurred at Bridgewater-house
yesterday after a very long and most painful illness.
li'rancis Egerton, first Earl of Ellesmere, of Elles-
mere, county of Salop, and Viscount Brackley, of
Brackley, county of Northampton, was born on the
Ist of January, 1800. His father was George Gran-
ville, Marquis of Stafford, who afterwards was raised
to the highest degree in the British Peerage as
Duke of Sutherland, whose father, the preceding
Marquis, had married Louisa, daughter and even-
tually co-heir of Scroope, first Duke of Bridgewater,
to whose magnificent estates the Earl just deceased
succeeded at the decease of his father in 1833, when
he assumed the surname and arms of Egerton alone
in the place of his patronymic of Leveson Gower.
He received his early education at Eton, whence hp
was in due time transferred to Christ Church, wheie
lie graduated B.A. in 1821. In the following year
Lord Francis Leveson Gower, as he was then styled,
was returned to Parliament as member for the
oocket borough of Bletchingley, and commenced
his public career in the Commons as a Liberal Con-
servative, and a warm supporter of Mr. Canning
and his party. He had, however, at an earlier
date displayed a taste for literature and the fine
arts ; and long before he had risked the broad
glare of publication he had printed for private cir-
culation some poems which were at least respectable.
He then pith ished a translation of "Faust," accom-
panied by flee and spirited versions of popular
lyrics selected from the works of Gcethe, Schiller,
Burger, Salis, and Korner, which passed through.
several editions before he resolved to withdraw it
from further circulation.
In 1828 Lord Francis Leveson Gower was sworn
a member of his Majesty's Privy Council, and not
long afterwards accompanied the late Marquis of
Anglesey to Ireland as Chief Secretary. From July
to November, 1830, he held the office of Secretary-
at-War under the latter part of the Ministry
of the Duke of Wellington. From 1826 to
the dissolution in 1834 he sat fir the county
of Sutherland. In the December'of the latter year
he was chosen for the Southern Division of Lane,'
shire, which he continued to represent down to Ins:
elevation to the peerage, in 1846. On most important
questions. he carefully abstained from identifying
himself with any faction or party. We ought, how-
ever, to mention that 20 years before Sir R. Peel
adopted the policy of free trade that measure bad
been strenuously advocated by Lord Francis Eger"
bviz IL" ILI VicLUG in Parliament ; that he warmly
supported the project of establishing the University
of London ; and that be actually carried on one
ocmsion a motion for the endowment of the Roman
Catholic clergy in Ireland.
In the year 1839 his lordship was recommended
by his medical advisers to spend a.winter in the
East, and he accordingly proceeded in his own
yacht to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land.
the results of his observations he afterwards gave
to the world in the form of notes to his poem en-
titled the "Pilgrimage " in which, having adopted
the staff and sandals of a palmer, he gave a highly
poetical picture of the various scenes and places
which he visited in the course of his tour. This
volume has been since reprinted, but it has been
withheld from further circulation for many years.
In the few years previous and subsequent to this
date Lord Ellesmere published his "Mediterranean
Sketches," and printed for private circulation save'
ral poems, among which the Lest known are
" Donna Charitea ;" -"Blue Beard, a Parody f'
the "Siege of Vienna," and the "Paria;" together
with " The Mill," and a "Monody on the Death
of Vie Duke of Wellington."
Lord Ellesmere had inherited the magnificent
pictures collected by the great Duke of Bridge-
water, and set a brilliant example to the possessors
of similar col'ections by erecting a noble gallery at
his town residence in Cleveland-gardens, to which
the public have found ready admi.sion.
Like most ducal houses, the House of Sutherland
is built of a series of successive stages, and part at
least of its fortunes may be said to have commenced
from a comparatively humble origin. Thomas
Egerton, the illegitimate son of Sir Ralph Egerton,
of Ridley, having been brought up to the bar, ar-
rived at the highest honours of his profession, and
filled during the reign of Elizabeth the posts of
Solicitor and Attorney General, Master of the Rolls,
and Lord Keeper of the Grr.at Seal. On the access
sion of King James Sir Thomas Egerton was ap-
pointed Lord High Chancellor of England, and
was raised to the peerage as Baron of Ellesmere_;
a few years later he was advanced to the viscountcy
of Brackley. An earldom had been already pro-
mised to him, when he died ; strange to say, the
King, though a Stuart, kept his word, and elevated
hi-) son and successor to the earldom of Bridge-
water. Not content with this mark of Royal favour,
he appointed him Lord President of Wales, and of
the marches thereof, and it is to this appointment
that the world of letters is indebted for Milton's

immortal masque of "Comus." His great-grandson
Scroope, fourth earl, who was created Duke of
Bridgewater in 1720, left two sons, who successively
inherited the dukedom, and an only daughter,
Louisa, grandmother, as we have already said, to
the peer so lately deceased. The third and last
Duke of Bridgewater was the projector of the cele-
brated canal which still bears his name, and which

realised a princely fortune for himself and his suc-
cessors. The dukedom became extinct on his death,
in 1803, though the earldom of Bridgewater con-
tinued for some 25 years longer in a distant branch
of the family ; and the magnificent property of
that house was devised by his grace to his nephew,
George Granville, second Marquis of Stafford and
first Duke of Sutherland, with remainder to his
second son, who, as our readers are aware, has
been successively known as Lord Francis Leveson
Gower, Lord Francis Eget ton, and Earl of Ellesmere.
It only remains for us to add that the nobleman
who has so recently passed away from among us
married in 1822 Harriett Catherine, eldest daugh-
ter of Mr. Chafes Greville and granddaughter of
the late Duke of Portland, by whom he had issue
two daughters, of whom the elder is married to the
Hon. G. C. H. Byng, grandson of Field-Marshal
the Earl of Strafford ; and also five sons, the
youngest of whom, Granville, was filled on the 27th
of Jan., 1851, by a musket shot received acciden-
tally at target practice on board one of her Majesty's
ships of the line. Of the other sons one is a cap-
tain in the navy, and another holds a captain's
commission in the Grenadier Guards. His Lord-
ship's eldest son, George Granville Frances, Vis-
count Brickley, who has now succeeded to the
Peerage as second Earl of Ellesmere, was born in
1823, and married in 1846 the Lady Mary Louisa
Campbell, daughter of the Earl of Cawdor, by
whem he had two children, Charles Granville, born
is 1847, and another son, born in 1854. His
Lordship was elected for the Northern Division of
Staffordshire at the general election of 1847, but
accepted the Chiltern Hundreds in Feb., 1851, en
the ground of ill-health.
The deceased Earl was a Knight of the Order of
the Garter, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Lancashire
Yeomanry, a Deputy-Lieutenant for the county of
Sutherland, a Vice-President of the Literary Fund,
one of the Council of King's College,
London, and
a Trustee of the National Gallery. He was alto

appointed Lord Lieutenant and Clistos Rotulorum
of the County Palatine of 'Lancaster On the death
of the late Earl of Sefton, in 1855.

General Baron de Rottenthourg, one of the four &VP
tants-general of the Old Guard, has just died at WO'
gem, uear Paris, at the age of 87.

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
LINCOLN HANDICAP.

Huntington
Tom Thumb,
Early Bird

16 Ran.
Arrived—Nicholas.

LINCOLN RACES.—(This Day).