EGRIPOS EICHHORN. 



459 



liberal spirit, and patrician magnificence, for which 

 he was distinguished throughout his long life. 

 Naturally endowed with fine taste, his mind re- 

 ceived all that cultivation which wealth and rank 

 command, and which serve to make the well edu- 

 cated Englishman at once sound and solid in the 

 graver walks of knowledge, and accomplished in 

 those which adorn every birth and station. With- 

 out taking a very prominent part in the discussions 

 of that branch of the legislature of which he was a 

 member, his lordship always enjoyed much politi- 

 cal consideration. In times of pressure and peril, 

 his purse, his example, and his exertions were 

 nobly devoted to the cause of his country. In his 

 patronage of living artists and of our native school, 

 his munificence was conspicuous. Many of the 

 finest pictures produced in our day in England, and 

 certainly the very finest works of sculpture, were 

 the results of his unlimited commissions; and 

 while he added splendour to his palace by these 

 works (he built large galleries at Petworth House, 

 Sussex, purposely for their reception), he did not 

 neglect the more humble aspirant youth begin- 

 ning to toil for fame, merit obscured, and industry 

 too scantily requited. His native affection for the 

 fine arts was strengthened and confirmed by his 

 having, when about eighteen years of age, resided 

 for some length of time at Dresden and Vienna, 

 with his father-in-law, Count Bruhl ; when he con- 

 stantly spent a portion of almost every day in the 

 renowned galleries of those cities. He thus be- 

 came qualified to appreciate and enjoy the beauties 

 and excellencies of the important collection of pic- 

 tures and statues which he inherited, and inclined 

 to extend it during the whole course of his long 

 and useful life. At first he added pictures by the 

 older masters ; but he afterwards resolved to buy 

 none but modern productions ; observing, that he 

 could most beneficially patronize the arts, and 

 render them useful and honourable to the country, 

 by encouraging genius and talent sufficiently deve- 

 loped at home, and well worthy of support ; and 

 this amiable and patriotic resolution he steadily 

 maintained. Hence are to be seen, in his ex- 

 tensive and valuable collection, upwards of two 

 hundred modern British productions in painting 

 and in sculpture ; the greater part purchased by his 

 lordship from artists now living, the rest at public 

 or private sales, as circumstances permitted, or of 

 the artists themselves, during their lives. In all 

 other relations of society, lord Egremont was 

 equally liberal and magnificent. His charities were 

 as prompt and ample as their occasions were nume- 

 rous. He died on the llth Nov. 1837, and was 

 succeeded in the title by a nephew. By a lady now 

 deceased, who bore the name of Mrs Wyndham, 

 the daughter of the Rev. Mr Iliff, one of the under 

 masters of Westminster school, the earl of Egre- 

 mont had issue three sons and three daughters. 

 The former are, George Wyndham, Esq. now of 

 Petworth, colonel in the army ; Henry Wyndham, 

 Esq. of Sladeland, Sussex, a major-general in the 

 army ; and Charles Wyndham, Esq. of Rogate, 

 Sussex, a colonel in the army. The daughters are, 

 Frances, married to Sir Charles Merrik Burrell, 

 Bart. Mary, married in 1819 to George, earl of 

 Munster, eldest son of his late Majesty William 



IV., and married to John King, Esq. 



EGRIPOS ; a town of Greece, situated on the 

 west side of the island of Euboea, now commonly 

 called the Negropont, which forms a part of the 

 new kingdom of Greece. Egripos is in N. lat. 



38 26', E. long. 23 37', and stands at the nar- 

 rowest part of the channel, which separates the 

 island from the main land. Egripos were formerly a 

 Greek town, under the name of Chalcis ; but in 

 modern times once belonged to the Venetians, when 

 that mercantile and warlike state possessed a large 

 part of Greece, with many of the islands, and 

 carried its conquests and its commerce all over the 

 eastern part of the Mediterranean. Egripos is de- 

 | fended on the land side both by a ditch and wall, 

 ! which latter indeed runs all round it, and shows by 

 the numerous winged lions of St Mark that the 

 Venetians were the builders. The town is (or, 

 we should perhaps rather say, was) exclusively 

 inhabited by the Turks : the Greeks and Jews 

 dwell in a small suburb to the north of the town 

 and carry on a little trade. This place, if Greece 

 ever becomes populous and well-cultivated, would 

 serve as the place of export for the fertile island of 

 Eubcea, which has no port on its iron-bound eastern 

 coast, and would also furnish an outlet for the pro- 

 duce of the rich plains of Bceotia which lie oppo- 

 site the town on the west. 



The channel, which separates the island from 

 the mainland, presents a curious phenomenon. It 

 is here only forty yards wide ; and it is further di- 

 vided into two parts by a rock, on which a fort is 

 built. The passage between the rock and the 

 main land is the wider of the two, but has not 

 more than three feet water. The other passage 

 between the rock and the walls of the town is 

 thirty-three feet wide, and when the water is 

 highest is seven feet deep in the shallowest parts. 

 The Mediterranean, it is well known, like other 

 inland seas, is very little affected with tides, 

 though, undoubtedly, it has tides to some extent; 

 and these, from the configuration of the coasts, 

 may be felt more in some parts than others. This 

 deeper channel, however, presents most extraordi- 

 nary and irregular tides or currents, which, though 

 found by observation to depend in some degree like 

 other tides on the moon's attraction, are not re- 

 ducible to a regular system. Sometimes the water 

 will run as much as eight miles an hour, with a fall 

 of about one foot and a half under the bridge. It 

 is seldom at rest, changes its direction in a few 

 minutes, and will at once resume its usual velocity 

 of four or five miles an hour in either direction, as 

 it may happen to run. The greatest rapidity is 

 always to the south. The immediate cause of this 

 phenomenon must be the continued variation of 

 the relative level of the waters on the north and 

 south side of the channel, which is not wide 

 enough to allow such a free communication as 

 would ensure either a constant level, or a constant 

 current in one direction. But what cause this per- 

 petually varying level is owing to, or to what com- 

 bination of causes, is difficult to say. The chang- 

 ing winds, particularly those from the N. E., may 

 be one cause. The current from the Dardanelles 

 sets fairly on the east side of the island, and it is 

 therefore supposed can have no effect on the stream 

 of the Euripus, though this appears by no means 

 certain. Aristotle, it is said, laboured in vain to 

 find out the cause of this phenomenon, and accord- 

 ing to some accounts, drowned himself out of 

 chagrin at being thus foiled. However this may 

 be, Aristotle died at Chalcis or Egripos. 



EICHHORN, J. G., was born, 1752, in the prin- 

 cipality of Hohenzollern-Oehringen. He acquired 

 his first celebrity as professor, at Jena, by his his- 

 tory of the commerce of East India before Mo- 



