This eccentric nobleman died in February, 1829, and by his will, dated February 25th, 1825, bequeathed 8,000_l._ for the writing, printing, and publishing of the well-known _Bridgewater Treatises_. The Denisons, and the Conyngham Family. The history of the Denison family, the last representative of which died in 1849, leaving a fortune of more than two millions and a half, affords a lesson which the mercantile world cannot study too curiously. Somewhat more than one hundred and twenty years ago, the elder Denison made his way on foot to London from Skipton-in-Craven, his native place, with a few shillings in his pocket, and, being a parish-boy, not knowing even how to read or write. Another account states that he was a woollen-cloth-merchant at Leeds, and came to London in a waggon, being attended on his departure by his friends, who took a solemn leave of him, as the distance was then thought so great that they might never see him again. He was recommended by a townswoman of his own (of the name of Sykes, whom he afterwards married) to the house of Dillon and Co., where she was herself a domestic servant; and for some time the lad was employed to sweep the shop and go on errands. His zeal and industry recommended him, however, to his employers, and having been taught to read, he rose to a clerkship. After the death of his wife he obtained an independence by marrying one Elizabeth Butler, daughter of a rich hatter in Tooley Street, and set up in business for himself in Princes Street, Lothbury, where by incessant attention to business and strict parsimony, he managed to scrape together a considerable fortune. He finally removed to St. Mary Axe, where he lived and died, after having purchased the estates in Surrey and Yorkshire (of Lord King and the Duke of Leeds), Denbies and Seamere; by joining the Heywoods, eminent bankers of Liverpool, his wealth rapidly increased. The _Annual Register_ of 1806, in recording these facts and his end, states that through life Mr. Denison was a dissenter: he remained to the last an illiterate man. By his second wife he had one son and two daughters. The son, William Joseph, a man of sound principle and excellent character, though less penurious than his father, who, when he entertained a friend at dinner in St. Mary Axe, used to walk to the butcher's and bring home a rump-steak in a cabbage-leaf in his pocket, was remarkable for his disinclination to detach even the smallest sum from his enormous capital. Thus, when the nephew to whom he bequeathed 85,000_l._ per annum, fell into railway difficulties (the speculation having been undertaken with the sanction of his uncle), he permitted him, to avoid legal proceedings, to withdraw to Boulogne-sur-Mer, and reside there a twelvemonth with his young family, rather than pay for him the sum of 2,000_l._