He will, I have no doubt, be regarded as a loss to the country, even a greater loss than if he had been more actively and conspicuously engaged in politics, for he stood nearly alone in the station he occupied, with vast wealth, unblemished character, esteemed by people of all parties, without an enemy in the world, and having no personal objects to pursue; and though never thrusting himself forward, alike fitted for either active or contemplative life, he was at all times ready to exert his best energies in the public service or to promote the benefit and happiness of his fellow creatures. He was sincerely religious, without intolerance and austerity, or the slightest particle of ostentatious or spiritual pride. It was not, however, in the annals of political history or in the modest and unambitious incidents of his public career that his best panegyric is to be found, but in the more placid walk of private life, in the strict and conscientious discharge of his domestic and social duties, which was at the same time congenial to his sense of moral obligation, and to the benevolent impulses of his heart. [Sidenote: CHARACTER OF LORD ELLESMERE.] Lord Francis Leveson Gower, upon the death of his father the late Duke of Sutherland, succeeded to the immense fortune entailed upon him by his great-uncle, the Duke of Bridgewater, in the shape of the Bridgewater Canal, and found himself the possessor of vast wealth, and surrounded by a population sunk in ignorance and vice. From the first moment of his succession he considered himself in the light of a trustee for working out the moral and spiritual improvement of the people who were in a great measure committed to his charge. He accepted the obligation in a spirit of cheerfulness and resolution, and the due discharge of it continued to be the principal object of his interest and care for the remainder of his life. He employed his wealth liberally in promoting the material comfort and raising the moral condition of those by whose labour that wealth was produced. Churches, schools, and reading-rooms rose around Worsley Hall. His benevolent efforts were crowned with success, and he reaped his reward in the blessings of the surrounding multitudes and in the contemplation of their enjoyment of all the good which his active bounty had bestowed upon them. Such qualities as were here displayed, and a life thus devoted to works of duty and beneficence, made Lord Ellesmere an object of general veneration and attachment; but those alone who belonged to his family, or who had familiar access to the sanctuary of his domestic life, could appreciate fully the excellence and the charm of his character, and comprehend the immensity of the loss which those who were nearest and dearest to him have sustained by his death. He regarded with indifference the ordinary objects of worldly ambition; he lived in and for his family, and he was their joy, their delight,