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

THE LATE EARL OF ELLESMERE, K. G.

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.
Francis Egerton, first Earl of Ellesmere, of Elles-
mere, county of Salop, and Viscount Brackley, of
Brackley, comity of Northampton, was born on the
Ist of January, 1800. His father 'vas Gecrge 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 he
was in due time transferred to Christ Church, where
he 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
pocket 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 flue
arts ; and long before he had risked the broad
glare of publication he had printed for private cir-
culation some poems which wera at least respectable.
He then published a translation of " Faust," accom-
panied by free and spirited versions of popular
lyrics selected from the works of Goethe, 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
Inglesey to Ireland as Chief Secretary. From July
to November, 1830, he held the office of Secretary-
at-War under the latter part of the Ifinistri
of the Duke of Wellington. From 1826 to
the dissolution in 1834 he sat far the county
of Sutherland. In the December of the latter year
he was chosen for the Southern Division of Lana"
shira, which he continued to represent down to his
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. reel
adopted the policy of free trade that measure bad
been strenuously advocated by Lord Francis Eger'
ton in his place in Parliament ; that he warmly
supported the project of establishing the University
of London ; and that be actually carried on one
occasion a motion for the endowment of the Roman
Catholic clergy in Ireland.
In the your 1839 his lordship was recoil:km(ol
by his medical advisers to spend a winter the
East, and be accordingly proceeded in his own
yacht to the Mediterranean and the Holy Lana'
The results of his observations he afterwards gars
to the world in the form of notes to his poem on;
titled the " Pilgrimage " in which, having adopt ea
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. Vila
volume has been since reprinted, but it has been
withheld from further circulation for many yea"'
In the few years previous and subsequent to this
date Lord Ellesmere published his " Mediterranean
Sketches," and printed for private circulation see'
ral poems, among which the best known ar°
" Donna Cbaritea ;" " Blue Beard, a Parody ;
the "Siege of Vienna," and the "Paris;" too_aetbeir.
with " The Mill," and a "Monody on the Death
of the Duke of Wellington."
Lord Ellesmere had inherited the magnifieepi
pictures collected by the great Duke of Bridge",
water, and set a brilliant example to the possessor:
of similar collections by erecting a noble gallery.
his town residence in Cleveland-gardens, to whet'
the public have found ready admission.
Like most ducal houses, the House of Sutherland
is built of a series of successive stages, and part abast of is fortunes may be said to have commence
from a comparatively humble origin. Thonlas
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, 10";
filled during the reign of Elizabeth the posts 01
Solicitor and Attorney General, Master of the Iloilo,
and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. On the ance3"
sion of King James Sir Thomas Egerton was al);
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
his son and successor to the earldom of Bridge'
water. Not content with this mark of Rojal favour',
he appointed him Lord President of Wales, and e!
the matches thereof, and it is to this appointment
that the world of letters is indebted for Milton 'g
immortal masque of "Comus." His great-grandoon
Scroope, fourth earl, who was created Duke 01
Bridgewater in 1720, left two sons, who successively
inherited the dukedom, and an only daughter°
Louisa, grandmother, as we have already said,
the peer so lately deceased. The third and la"
Duke of Bridgewater was the projector of the cepa,:
brated canal which still bears his name, and which
realised a princely fortune for himself and his sue'
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 bran
of the family ; and the magnificent property t
that house was devised by his grace to his neplon
George Granville, second Marquis of Stafford and
first Duke of Sutherland, with remainder to l'
second son, who, as our readers are aware, has
been successively known as Lord Francis Leveson
Gower, Lord FrancisEgei ton, an d Ear, of Ellesmere.
It only remains for us to add that the nobleraan
who has so recently passed away from among VI
married in 1822, Harriett Catherine, eldest clang'',
ter
of Mr. Char es Greville and gianddaughter of
the late Duke of Portland, by whom he had issue
two daught era, of whom the elder is married to the
Hon. G. C. H. Byng, grandson of Field Marst
the Earl of Strafford ; and also five sons, the
youngest of whom, Granville, was killed on the 27th
of Jan., 1851, by a musket shot received accideir
tally at target practice on board one of her MajeatY
al„t1
ships of the line. Of the other sons one is a cts;
tain in the navy, and another holds a capt'a„
commission in the Grenadier Guards. His
ship's eldest son, George Granville Frances, v 1,,";
count Brackley, who has now succeeded to t":
Peerage as second Earl of Ellesmere, was born 0
1823, and married in 1846 the Lady Mary Lou
Campbell, daughter of the Earl of Cawdor,
ri';
whom be had two children, Charles Granville, 11/0
in 1847, and another son, born in 1854. of
Lordship was elected for the Northern Divisi°l,l
Ut
Staffordshire at the general election of 1847', "go
accepted the Chiltern Hundreds in Feb., 1851' -
the ground of ill-health. of
The deceased Earl was a Knight of the Orcleil..;re
the Garter, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Latwant
Yeomanry, a Deputy-Lieutenant for the countY
Sutherland, a Vice-President of the Literary Fun,l
one of the Council of King's College, London,
a Trustee of the National Gallery. He wasfura
appointed Lord-Lieutenant and Custos RotultEg_4l
of the County Palatine of Lancaster on the ae""
of the late Earl of Sefton, in 1855.

General Baron de Rottembourg, one of the four etlitlt:
tants-general of the Old Guard, has just died at MO
geron, near Farb', at the age of 87.