1812 to 1826 for Malton, another borough in the nomination of the same noble patron. In 1826 he came forward as a candidate for the county of Kilkenny, and was returned after a hard contest, as he was again in 1831; but in 1832 he was driven from the field by the increased strength of the Repeal party, with whose views he could not coincide. He then came forward as a candidate for Nottingham, together with Sir Ronald Ferguson, and they defeated Capt. Gordon by a large majority

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Sir Ronald C. Ferguson Viscount Duncannon Captain Gordon . Though no orator, Lord Duncannon was for many years one of the most active members of the Whig party, and made himself particularly useful in his private intercourse with its members, being, in fact, the head "whipper-in" of the Opposition, and one of the chief councillors of their private coteries. So much was this the case, that when the preparation of the Reform Bill was entrusted to the late Lord Durham, that statesman called to his assistance Lord Duncannon, toge ther with Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham; so that the subject of this memoir was in fact one of the authors of that important measure. This circum stance, however, was not publicly known until three years after, when it was mentioned by Lord Durham in a speech delivered at Gateshead, Oct. 23, 1833.

In 1831, Lord Duncannon was appointed First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and was on that occasion sworn a Privy Councillor on the 23d Feb. He continued in that office till the month of July, 1834, and in discharging its duties he displayed great; aptitude for public affairs, and no inconsiderable knowledge of the particular department to which Lord Grey had appointed him. But he was removed from that position when Lord Melbourne became head of the Government, in Aug. 1834, and intrusted with the seals of the Home Office; this, however, proved to be only a temporary arrangement, for in less than three months Lord Althorp succeeded to a peerage, an event which led to the dissolution of the Whig ministry.

On the 18th July, in the same year, he was called up to the House of Peers by the title of Baron Duncannon, of Bessborough.

On the 18th April, 1835, on the restoration of Lord Melbourne's ministry, Lord Duncannon was not only replaced in his former office of First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, but also intrusted with the custody of the Privy Seal, which change doubled his official income without much

increasing his public services. These two offices remained thus united, until, on the 16th Oct. 1839, the Minister appointed the Earl of Clarendon Privy Seal, Lord Duncannon retaining the more onerous duty of presiding at the office of Woods and Forests, with which has long been united the functions formerly discharged by the Board of Public Works. Amongst the undertakings of that class in which the Melbourne Ministry engaged, the new houses of Parliament may be considered as the most remarkable, and it will be readily admitted that Lord Duncannon is fairly entitled to some share of the praise due to the Commissioners of Public Works for the labour bestowed by that department upon the reconstruction of our legislative halls. Of Lord Duncannon's official life it may be said, that he was a most diligent Minister, and that to his taste and indefatigable supervision the public is indebted for most of the improvements and embellishments of the parks and public places which have taken place since his first tenure of office. In the month of Sept. 1841, however, Lord Melbourne made way for Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Duncannon was succeeded by the Earl of Lincoln.

In the month of February, 1844, his father descended into the tomb, at the advanced age of 86; and the subject of this memoir became, in the 63d year of his age, fourth Earl of Bessborough.

When Lord John Russell became Premier, in July 1846, the Earl of Bessborough was appointed Lord Lieutenant in Ireland. He was the first resident Irish landlord who for many years had been called to that high position; and, having always been one of the principal opponents of the Irish Tories, his accession to power was very popular. The recent distress of that country has sadly eclipsed the splendour of his vice-royalty: but it is universally allowed that Lord Bessborough exerted his best efforts to alleviate the misery of the people, and that those efforts were, on the whole, wisely conceived and ably directed. In a speech which the Earl of Roden made in the House of Peers on the 6th of May, in de bate on the Irish Poor Law, he expressed his belief that in nothing had the noble lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government more shown his wisdom for the benefit of Ireland than in the choice he made of that illustrious individual to preside over the affairs of that country. His acquaintance with the state of the country, his anxiety to promote its interests, and the attention which he paid to everything calculated to advance the general welfare, had obtained for him the approbation and

affection of all grades and classes of the people. Ireland having so long suffered from the practice of sending over there as Lord-Lieutenant and Secretary men who, however well-meaning, knew nothing of the country, and only when about to leave it had learned anything as to what their duty was, he could not refrain availing himself of the present opportunity to express a hope that the same wise and judicious course which had been taken by Lord John Russell in the appointment of the Earl of Bessborough would be followed hereafter, and that, if possible, an individual of as unsullied a character and of as intimate an acquaintance with the state of that country might be placed over its affairs."

It is just sixty years since a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland died during his tenure of office, that having last occurred to George fourth Duke of Rutland in the year 1787. The cause of Lord Bessborough's death was hydrothorax or dropsy on the chest. His funeral was privately conducted, and his body was conveyed for interment to the family vault at Bessborough.

The Earl of Bessborough married, Nov. 11, 1805, Lady Maria Fane, third daughter of John tenth Earl of Westmoreland. She died on the 19th March, 1834; having had issue eight sons, of whom five now survive, and six daughters. Their names were as follows:-1. Lady GeorgianaSarah, married in 1839 to the Rev. Sackville Gardiner Bourke, Rector of Hatherop,

Gloucestershire, son of the late Dean of Ossory, and nephew to the Earl of Mayo, and has issue; 2. the Right Hon. John-George-Brabazon now Earl of Bessborough; 3. the Hon. William Wentworth Brabazon Ponsonby, who died in 1831, in his 19th year; 4. the Right Hon. Augusta-Lavinia-Priscilla Countess of Kerry, married first in 1834 to William Thomas Earl of Kerry, eldest son of the present Marquess of Lansdowne (the Earl died in 1836, leaving issue one daughter), and secondly in 1845 to the Hon. Charles Alexander Gore, brother to the Earl of Arran, and has issue a son; 5. the Hon. Frederick George Brabazon Ponsonby, M.A.; 6. Lady Emily-Charlotte-Mary; 7. Lady Maria-Jane-Elizabeth, married in 1838 to her cousin the Hon. Charles Frederick Ashley Cooper Ponsonby, eldest son of Lord de Mauley; 8. the Hon George Arthur Brabazon Ponsonby, who died in 1841, aged 21; 9. the Hon. and Rev. Walter William Brabazon Ponsonby, Rector of Canford, Dorsetshire; 10. the Hon. Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby, a clerk in the Foreign Office; 11. Lady Harriet - FredericaAnne; 12, Lady Kathleen-Louisa-Geor

giana; 13. a son who died an infant in 1838; and 14. the Hon. Gerald Henry Brabazon Ponsonby, who was born in 1829.

The present Earl of Bessborough was born in 1809, and married in 1835 Lady Frances-Charlotte Lambton, eldest daughter of the late Earl of Durham. Her ladyship died only two months after her mar riage. As Lord Duncannon, he has sat in the present Parliament for Derby, and is Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Carlow.

VISCOUNT ASHBROOK.

May 4. At his seat, Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, aged 70, the Right Hon. Henry Jeffrey Flower, fourth Viscount Ashbrook (1751), and Baron of Castle Durrow, co. Kilkenny (1733), in the peerage of Ireland.

His Lordship was born Nov. 19, 1776, the third son and youngest child of William the second Viscount, by Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Ridge (afterwards remar ried to the Rev. John Jones, D.D.)

On

He succeeded to the peerage on the death of his brother William the third Viscount, unmarried, Jan. 6, 1802. the 23d May, 1832, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Bedchamber to King William the Fourth, and he retained that office until his Majesty's death in 1837. We believe he never sat in either house of Parliament.

His Lordship was twice married; first, on the 26th May 1802, to Deborah-Susannah, daughter and heir of the Rev. William Maximilian Freind, which lady died April 25, 1810; and secondly, June 22, 1812, to Emily-Theophila, eldest daughter of Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, Bart. of Fernhill, near Windsor, and sister to the late Lord Metcalfe. That lady survives him. By the former marriage he had issue three sons and three daughters: 1. the Hon. Susan-Sophia, married first in 1824 to the Rev. William Robinson, and secondly in 1836, to William Wilson Campbell, esq. M.D., M.R.I.A.; 2. á son, who died an infant; 3. the Right Hon. Henry now Viscount Ashbrook; 4. the Hon. Caroline, who became, in 1829, the second wife of Henry Every, esq. eldest son of Sir Henry Every, Bart. and died in 1840; 5. the Hon. William, who died in 1813, in his 6th year; and 6. the Hon. Harriet-Elizabeth, who died in 1827, in her 18th year. By his second marriage he had further issue: 7. the Hon. Augusta-Emily, who died in 1827, in her 12th year; 8. the Most Noble Charlotte-Augusta Duchess of Marlborough, who became in 1846 the second wife of the present Duke of Marlborough, and has issue one son; and 9. the Hon. Sophia-Gegiana, who died in 1826, in her 6th ye

LORD SAYE AND SELE. March 31. In Grosvenor-street, aged 49, the Right Hon. William Thomas Eardley-Twisleton-Fiennes, Baron Saye and Sele (by writ 1447, and by patent 1603).

He was the only son of Gregory-William Lord Saye and Sele, by the Hon. Maria-Marion Eardley, eldest daughter and coheir of Sampson Lord Eardley. He succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father, Nov. 13, 1844. He supported the Whig party, but took no prominent part in public affairs. He was a distinguished member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and on one occasion-that of the re-election of the late W. H. Harrison, esq. to the post of commodorehe gave a piece of plate for competition. He was also Provincial Grand Master of the Freemasons in Kent.

His remains were removed for interment in the family vault at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire, attended by his successor, and Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Bart.

His Lordship having died unmarried, and his sister, who married GeorgeErnest Count von Gersdorff of Prussia, having had no issue, the peerage has devolved on his cousin the Rev. Frederick Twisleton, D.C.L., Canon Residentiary and Treasurer of Hereford Cathedral; son of the late Hon. and Rev. Thomas James Twisleton, D.D. His Lordship is the widower of the Hon. Emily Wingfield, second daughter of Richard fourth Lord Viscount Powerscourt, and has issue a numerous family.

The remains of the deceased lord were, April 7, removed for interment to the family vault at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire. Lord Saye and Sele and Sir Culling Eardley Smith attended the obsequies. The late lord has bequeathed his large estates in Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire, the mansion in Grosvenor-street, and other property over which he had any control, to his cousin, the present peer, Broughton Castle and the Oxfordshire property going with the title. Belvidere, near Dartford, reverts to Sir Culling Eardley Smith, in right of his mother, youngest daughter and co-heiress of the late Lord Eardley. He has bequeathed to the Lock Hospital 1,0007. and 10,0007. to each of his cousins-the Rev. Charles Twisleton, E. T. Twisleton, and Charles Twisleton Graves-and has appointed his cousin, the Rev. Frederick Twisleton, residuary legatee over all his property. The personalty alone was valued at 45,000%.

LORD COWLEY.

April 27. At Paris, in his 75th year, the Right Hon. Henry Wellesley, Baron Cowley of Wellesley, co. Somerset, G.C.B., a Privy Councillor, and late her Majesty's Ambassador at the Court of France.

His Lordship was the youngest brother of the Duke of Wellington, being the sixth son of Garrett first Earl of Mornington, by the Hon. Anne Hill, daughter of Arthur first Viscount Dungannon; and he was born on the 20th Jan. 1773.

At the age of twenty-two Mr. Henry Wellesley was appointed a precis-writer in the Foreign-office, and having spent nearly two years in that office, he accompanied the embassy of Lord Malmesbury to Lille, where he remained until Oct. 1797, when he accompanied his brother Lord Wellesley, who was newly appointed to the government of India, as private secretary. He had not been much more than a year in India when he was appointed one of the commissioners in Mysore. In the duties of that office he developed great talents for business; and the services of the commission proved so satisfactory to the East India Company that the Court of Directors presented to the commissioners 10,000 pagodas each (being about 4,000/. sterling). Mr. Wellesley was entrusted by his brother, the Governor-General, with a mission of great delicacy and importance at Oude, where he obtained the execution of a treaty by which the Nawab ceded to the company districts yielding a revenue of a million sterling per annum. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of the ceded districts, to the great dissatisfaction of the East India Company, who thought their own servants had been deprived of patronage duly belonging to them. The Court of Directors remonstrated with Lord Wellesley, who refused to annul the appointment, declaring that no consideration inferior to the most urgent demands of the public service could have induced him to withdraw his brother from the care of his domestic interests, and place him in the government of a distant province, in which his successful negotiations had proved of the highest importance to the public service. In Jan. 1803, Mr. Wellesley returned to Calcutta, after completing the settlement of Oude, and in the same year left India, to seek higher fortunes in his native country.

At the general election of 1807 Mr. Wellesley was returned as one of the members for the borough of Eye, in Suffolk, and at the same time took his seat as one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, under the Duke of Portland's government. He was remembered in the House

as a tolerably good speaker, but he never attracted unusual attention. He still turned towards diplomacy as the field for his ambition, and in 1809, having resigned his situation in the Treasury, he was sent to Madrid as British Envoy. Under this designation he represented British interests in Spain till the 10th Oct. 1811, when he was invested with the more dignified position of Ambassador at that court. In the year 1812 he was created a Knight of the Bath. His career in Spain, though often obstructed by serious difficulties, and often involving duties of the most embarrassing and delicate character, continued to yield him increasing reputation and high authority, not only with the Government of his own country, but amongst all the states of Europe; and it was not until the 3rd of March, 1822, that his mission was brought to a close. He was then deemed worthy to represent the majesty of England at that court which for almost half a century has had the renowned Prince Metternich for its prime adviser. He arrived at Vienna on the 5th of May, 1823, and continued to be ambassador at the Austrian Court until the 27th Aug. 1831. The manner in which his functions at Vienna were performed, and the length of his previous services, received on the 21st Jan. 1828, the satisfactory testimony of approbation which is conveyed in a patent of peerage; on that day, while his brother, the Duke of Wellington, was Prime Minister, Sir Henry Wellesley became Baron Cowley, of Wellesley, in the county of Somerset. Cowley, or Colley, as is well known, was the original patronymic of the Wellesley family, which assumed the name of Wellesley in the person of Richard first Lord Mornington.

*

On the accession of the Peel Ministry,

*When Sir Henry Sydney relinquished the government of Ireland in 1580 he recommended to Arthur lord Grey, his successor as lord deputy, "amongst other of my friends, Sir Henry Cowley, a knight of mine own making, who whilst he was young and the ability and strength of his body served, was valiant, fortunate, and a good servant, having by my appointment the charge of the King's County, to keep the county well ordered and in good obedience. He is as good a borderer as ever I found any there. I left him at my coming thence a counsellor, having tried him for his experience and judgment, very sufficient for the room he was called unto: he was a sound and fast friend to me, and so I doubt not but your lordship shall find when you have occasion to employ him."

in 1841, Lord Cowley was appointed as British ambassador at the court of the Tuileries. When the Whig party were once more invested with the powers of the Crown, Lord Cowley made room for Lord Normanby, but long before this event his health began rapidly to decline, and rumours were of daily occurrence that his lordship was on the point of resigning. Lord Cowley had so long been accustomed to live on the Continent, that after a short residence in England he returned to Paris, and there ended his days.

On

Lord Cowley was twice married. the 20th Sept. 1803 he was united to Lady Charlotte Cadogan, second daughter of Charles-Sloane first Earl Cadogan, then in her twenty-second year. By this lady he had four children: Henry-Richard, who succeeds to the title; William, a chaplain in the Royal Navy; Gerald, in holy orders; and Charlotte-Arbuthnot, married to Lord Robert Grosvenor. While Lord Cowley was in Spain an attachment sprung up between his wife and Lord Paget, now Marquess of Anglesey, which was followed by an elopement in 1809. On the 12th of May in that year an action brought against Lord Paget by Mr. Wellesley was decided in the Sheriff's Court. The damages were laid at 20,000%. and the jury awarded the full amount, counsel for the defendant stating that his client instructed him to say that he had no defence, that he wished to urge no grounds of extenuation, and would make no attempt to reduce the damages. This painful chapter in the history of Mr. Wellesley may be closed by stating that the brother of the lady sent a hostile message to Lord Paget, who received the fire of his adversary, and then, discharging his pistol in the air, declared he could never raise his hand against any member of a family which he had so deeply injured.

The marriage with Lady Charlotte Cadogan was dissolved in 1810, and on the 27th Feb. 1816 Lord Cowley married Lady Charlotte-Georgiana-Augusta-Cecil, eldest daughter of James 1st Marquess of Salisbury. The issue of this marriage was one daughter, born in 1817. Lady Cowley survives her husband.

The present Lord Cowley was at the time of his father's death Secretary of Legation at Constantinople. He was born in 1804, and married in 1833 the Hon. Olivia Cecilia de Roos, second daughter of the late Lord Henry Fitz-Gerald and Charlotte Baroness de Roos, and has issue.

The body of the late Lord Cowley was brought to England, and conveyed to the house of his brother-in-law the Marquess of Salisbury in Arlington Street; from whence on the 10th of May it was con

veyed for interment to South Audley Chapel. The Marquess of Salisbury, accompanied by the Marchioness, came to town from Walmer Castle; and the Duke of Wellington, the Marquess of Westmeath, the Earl of Mornington, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the Hon. and Rev. G. Wellesley, and other members of the deceased lord's family, assembled to attend his remains to the tomb. The body was deposited in a new catacomb in the rear of the chapel, where are the remains of Anne Countess of Mornington, the late Earl of Mornington, and other members of the Wellesley family. Lady Cowley continues in a very delicate state of health, at Paris, and has no intention at present of returning to this country.

RT. HON. SIR H. J. BRYDGES. March 17. At his seat, Boultibrook, near Presteign, aged 83, the Right Hon. Sir Harford Jones Brydges, Bart. and K.C. a Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire, and LL.D.

He was born Jan. 12, 1764, the son of Harford Jones, esq. of Presteign, by Winifred, daughter of Richard Hooper, esq. of the Whittern, in Herefordshire. He entered, at an early period of his life, the service of the East India Company, and acquired such proficiency in the Oriental languages that he was appointed Envoy-extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Persia in the created a years 1807-1811; and Baronet by patent dated Oct. 9, 1807. By royal sign manual, dated May 4, 1826, he assumed the additional name of Brydges, in commemoration of his descent (through his paternal grandmother) from the family of Brydges of Old Colwall, co. Hereford.

was

In 1832 he was sworn a Privy Councillor ; and in 1841 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Hereford.

He married Feb. 16, 1796, Sarah, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Gott, Knt. of Newland Park, co. Bucks, and widow of Robert Whitcomb, esq. of the Whittern before mentioned; by whom he had issue two daughters: Sarah-Laura, married in 1822 to John Lucy Scudamore, of Kentchurch Court, co. Hereford, esq.; and Sarah, married in 1833 to George Bentham, esq. only son of the late Sir Samuel Bentham; and one son, now Sir Harford Jones Brydges, Bart. born in 1808, B.A. of Merton college, Oxford.

Sir Harford Jones was in politics a decided Whig, and took a prominent part in favour of that party in the elections for Radnorshire, in which county he founded a political association termed the "Grey Coat Club," now defunct.

He is considered to have been in very affluent circumstances, and has left his large fortune to his only son.

RIGHT HON. JOSEPH PLANTA. April 5. In Queen Anne Street, Cavendish square, in the 60th year of his age, the Right Hon. Joseph Planta.

Mr. Planta was the only child of the late Joseph Planta, F.R.S., a native of Switzerland, who, long domiciliated in England, became at length Librarian to the British Museum, and secretary to the Royal Society. He died in 1827, and a memoir of him will be found in our vol. XCVII. ii. p. 564. The son was born July 2, 1787, at the British Museum. At the early age of 15, in 1802, he was appointed by Lord Hawkesbury a clerk in the Foreign-office. Mr. Canning, when Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1807, recognising Mr. Planta's talents, raised him to the post of Précis Writer, and attached him to himself by the office of private secretary; both of which appointments he continued to hold until Mr. Canning's resignation in 1809. Mr. Planta was similarly distinguished by Lord Castlereagh, and was selected by him to accompany him as confidential secretary on his mission to the Allied Sovereigns in 1813, which terminated by the Treaty of Paris in 1814, of which Mr. Planta was the bearer to London. Subsequently Mr. Planta attended Lord Castlereagh to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and afterwards to Paris, during the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Peace signed at Paris in Nov. 1815. Mr. Planta was also the bearer to England of that treaty. He moreover accompanied Lord Castlereagh to the Congress of Aix-laChapelle, in 1818.

On the retirement of the late Mr. Cooke, Mr. Planta was appointed one of the Under Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs; which post he filled from 1817 to 1827, under the successive ministries of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, having gained and justified the entire confidence placed in him during so many years by those two eminent statesmen, by his capacity and assiduity, and especially by that perfect integrity and uprightness of heart which, with the most benevolent and obliging disposition, formed the distinguishing characteristics of the man.

His appointment as one of the Joint Secretaries of Treasury in May 1827, which he retained till Nov. 1830, marked the estimation in which he was held by the governments of that period. In 1834, Mr. Planta was raised to the dignity of a Privy Councillor. He was elected member of Parliament for Hastings in 1827, and again in 1830. He subsequently came