765 



ELLENBOROUGH, EARL OF. 



ELLIOTT, EBENEZER. 



768 



and very sensual, and many acts of oppression and cruelty were per 

 petrated under her reign. She wa averse to the punishment of death, 

 but numerous persons were sentenced to the knout and to exile in 

 Siberia. Several ladies, amonij others Madame Lapoukin, a handsome 

 and clever woman, who had given offence to Elizabeth, experienced 

 the same fate. Elizabeth exerted herself to forward the compilation 

 of a code of laws for the Russian empire, a task begun under Peter 

 the Great, but which was not completed till the reign of Catharine II. 

 She was never married, but left teveral natural children. 



ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, FIRST EARL OF, eldest son 

 of the first Lord Ellenborough, was born in 1790, and succeeded to the 

 peerage as second baron in 1818; for a few years previous to which 

 time he had Bat in the House of Commons as member for the now 

 disfranchised borough of St. Michael's. His first political employment 

 wag bestowed upon him in 1828, when he became president of the 

 Board of Control under the Duke of Wellington's administration. 

 Under the abort-lived ministry of Sir Robert Peel in 1834-35, he again 

 filled the same office. In 1842 he was sent out to India to supersede 

 the late Earl of Auckland as governor-general On reaching India he 

 professed paciSo intentions, but soon found himself compelled to draw 

 the sword. Affairs in Afghanistan having been brought to a successful 

 issue, and General Sir Q. Pollock and his comrades having recovered 

 the persons of Lady Sale and the other captives from the hands of the 

 Afghan*, the Biitish forces evacuated the country of Afghanistan. 

 l'[io.'i -M the Ameers of Sinde took up arms; but the late General 

 Sir (.'. .N'iipier was despatched against them, and after one or two 

 decisive victories had been gained, Sinde was annexed to the British 

 dominion. la 1843 be invaded the independent Mahratta state of 

 Gwalior, in conjujction with General Sir Hugh (now Lord) Gough, 

 for the purpose of putting an end to the civil strife which was raging 

 there during the regency of the youthful raj.ih. Scarcely had the 

 war been brought to a close by the defeat of the Mahratta force by 

 the troops under Gough and Littler, when Lord Ellenborough was 

 recalled by the Board of East India Directors, contrary to the wishes 

 of the government of Sir Robert Peel, who in the following year 

 (1345) appointed him first lord of the a Imiralty. This post he only 

 held until 1846, when he resigned on the change of administration. 

 Since that time Lord kllenborough has kept his attention steadily 

 fixed on Indian affairs, which he criticuee from time to time with 

 considerable ability in his place as a member of the House of Peers. 



ELLKSMEKK, EARL OF. LORD FIIANCIS LEVESON OOWEB was 

 born in London, January 1, 1800. He is the second son of the first 

 Duke of Sutherland, and brother of the present duke. He was 

 educated at Eton College, and afterwards at Cbristchurch, Oxford. 

 He left the university in 1820, in which year he was returned as M.P. 

 for Bletchin.'ly in Surrey, siuce disfranchised by the Reform Act. At 

 a time when the German language was little studied in England, he 

 distinguished himself by a translation of the ' Faust ' of Gothe, in two 

 volumes, which was more than once reprinted before the author resolved 

 to withdraw it from circulation ; it has now been several years out of 

 print. The ' Faust ' was followed by ' Translations from the German, 

 and Original Poems, by Lord Francis Leveson Gower,' 8vo, London, 

 1824. This small volume consists of translations of seven lyrical poems 

 by Schiller, one by Gothe, one by Salis, and three by Korner, and of 

 thirteen original poems. He was M.P. for Sutherlandshire from 1826 

 to 1830. In 1827 he was made a lord of the treasury. From January 

 1821 to July 1S30 he wa? chief secretary for Ireland, and from July 

 to November 1830 he was secretary at war. After the death of his 

 father in 1833, having received as his inheritance the Bridgewater 

 estates, which his father had inherited from the last Duke of Bridge- 

 water, he assumed the name of EGERTON. From 1835 to 1846 Lord 

 Frnncis Egerton was M.P. for South Lancashire. In the autumn of 

 1839 he commenced a voyage in his own yacht up the Mediterranean 

 Sea, He wintered at Rome, whence he sailed for Malta in April 1840, 

 and having landed on the coast of Syria, wade a tour in Palestine. 

 In 1841 he was elected rector of the university of Aberdeen. In 1848 

 he published 'Mediterranean Sketches, by Lord Francis Egerton,' 

 12mo. In this volume the poem called 'The Pilgrimage' records 

 some of the most interesting impressions of his tour in Palestine. It 

 is followed by extracts from his journnl and by a few poems. A new 

 edition of these poetns, with several additions, hag been published this 

 year (1?56), 'The Pilgrimage, and other Poems,' 4to. In 1846 he was 

 created Earl of Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley, titles nearly corre- 

 sponding to those held by Lord Chancellor Egerton, who, at the time 

 of bis death, held the title of Viscount Brackley, and had previously 

 held that of Baron Ellesmere. [EoERTON, THOMAS.] The Earl of 

 Ellesmero was elected President of the Asiatic Society in 1849. In 

 1 8 J5 he was created a knight of the Garter, and in the same year became 

 colonel commandant of the Lancashire yeomanry cavalry; he is also 

 deputy lieutenant of Sutherlandahire. 



Besides the works before mentioned, the Earl of Ellesmere has 

 published the ' Camp of Wallenstien, and other Poems ; ' the tragedies 

 of ' Catherine of Cleves and Heruani ; ' ' The Sieges of Vienna by the 

 Turks, from the German of K. A. Schimmer, and other sources,' 16mo, 

 1847 ; ' Military Events in Italy, transcribed from the German,' 12tno, 

 1851 ; 'Life and Character of the Duke of Wellington,' 12mo, 1852; 

 1 History of the Two Tartar Conquerors of China, from the French of 

 J.P. D'Orlean.,' 8vo, 1854. 



The Euii of Ellesmere, at his residence, Bridgewater House, Cleve- 

 land Square, London, has one of the very finest galleries of paintings 

 possessed by any individual in the kingdom. He inherited the chief 

 portion of it as a part of the property of the Duke of Bridgewater, but 

 he has made some additions to it himself, and he has in a very band- 

 some manner made it accessible to the public. We ought to mention 

 that his lordship has recently presented to the nation his celebrated 

 portrait of Shakspere, known as the Chandos Shakspere, with a 

 view to its forming a portion of the projected National Gallery of 

 Portraits. 



* ELLIOTSON, DR. JOHN, was born in London towards the close 

 of the 18th century, and entered first at the university of Edinburgh, 

 and subsequently at that of Cambridge. His early medical education 

 was pursued in St. Thomas's and Guy's hospitals. In 1817 he 

 was appointed assistant physician of the latter, and in 1822 he became 

 physician, after some controversy with the governors, of St. Thomas's. 

 Here he introduced the practice of giving clinical lectures, a practice 

 at first opposed by the governors, but now become general. He also 

 gave lectures, which were numerously attended. Still his position 

 was rendered unpleasant by the opposition which his more advanced 

 views received, and in 1834 he resigned his appointment, when the 

 hospital of University College was established, having been appointed 

 professor of medical science in the college in 1831. This situation he 

 held till 1838, when he resigned in consequence of the opposition raised 

 to his system of mesmeric treatment of cases in that hospital. In 1849 

 a mesmeric hospital was established, of which he is the physician. 



It is not our purpose here to enter into details of the many and 

 violent di-putes in which Dr. Elliotson has been engaged in conse- 

 quence of his having adopted what was styled heterodox views and 

 practice in medicine. His peculiarly active and energetic mind seems 

 to have been ever open to the reception of novelties, but it must be 

 admitted that in many cases, his adoption of them, however exposed 

 to ridicule in the first instance, has not been without sufficient 

 grounds. His advocacy of the use of prussic acid as a preventive 

 of vomiting, and thus preparing the stomach for medicines it would 

 otherwise reject; of the use of larger doses of quinine than had been 

 previously administered ; of iron in cases of chorea, and creosote in 

 cases of vomiting and nausea ; and of the use of auscultation ; which 

 were all opposed, and are now established. Of the most doubtful of his 

 doctrines, that of the use of mesmerism in disease, we can only say 

 that at least it must have been adopted conscientiously, as he sacrificed 

 much to his belief, which he still practises according to, and ener- 

 getically maintains its truth in, the pages of the 'Zoist.' His lectures 

 were published in the ' Lancet,' and in the ' Medical Gazette ; ' and 

 he has been a large contributor to the ' Medico-Cuirurgical Transac- 

 tions.' In 1817 he published a translation of Blumenbach s 'Physiology,' 

 with annotations ; these in subsequent editions became so numerous, 

 and the modifications of the text so important, that at length the 

 work appeared as ' Human Physiology, Ike., with which is incorporated 

 much of the elemantary part of the Institutiones Physiologica of J. 

 F. Blumenbach.' In 1830 he issued his ' Lumleyan Lectures, on 

 the recent improvements in the art of distinguishing the various 

 Diseases of the Heart,' which he had delivered before the Royal 

 College of Physicians in the previous year. He is a Fellow of the 

 Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society, the 

 founder and president of the Phrenological Society, and has been 

 president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgic.il Society. 



ELLIOTT, EBENEZER, the Corn-law Rhymer, was born March 

 17th, 1781, at the New Foundry, Masbro', near Rotherham, Yorkshire. 

 His 1'ither, a clerk at the foundry, was an ardent politician and a stern 

 ultra culvinistic dissenter of the Berean sect ; and he employed his 

 " brother Berean, Tommy Wright, the Barnesley tinker " to baptise 

 his son as the poet relates in his ' Autobiography,' published soon 

 nfter jL. a death in the 'Athenaeum' (January 12, 1850). The elder 

 Elliott (also an Ebenezer) was accustomed to preach in his own room 

 every fourth Sunday, to persons of a similar persuasion, who used to 

 come twelve or fourteen miles to hear him ; and on the week-days ho 

 " delighted to declaim on the virtues of slandered Cromwell and of 

 Washington, the rebel," as be pointed to prints of them which hung 

 on the walls : and here, as Elliott wrote, " is the key which will unlock 

 all the future politics " of the Corn law Rhymer. The young Ebenezer 

 was regarded as a dull child, loved to be alone, made little progress 

 at school, where he could never master grammar, or attain to vulgar 

 fractions, was a frequent truant, and seemed to be a confirmed dunce ; 

 and eventually, out of sheer hopelessness, was sent by his father to 

 work in the foundry. At the foundry work however he was thought 

 to be even clever, but with the workmen's ekill he acquired also the 

 workmen's evil habits, and for awhile gave way to intemperance. 

 But from sinking into thoroughly vicious courses his early love of 

 nature saved him. A copy of Sowerby's ' English Botany,' lent him 

 ny an aunt, led him to collect botanical specimens, and after a while 

 je became interested in poetry that treated of his favourite flowers, 

 and of country scenes. He soon became a diligent reader, studying 

 'after Milton, Sliakspere then Ossian, then Juuius," and soon, while 

 'of Barrow," he says, "I was never weary; he and Young taught ma 

 ;o condense." In time too he began to write verses himself, though 

 iis early efforts, he confesses, were very unsuccessful ; and he set 

 limself doggedly to learn in his own way grammar, and even French, 



