The Egerton Family. 109 



Earl of Bridge water an honour followed in 1633 by his 

 appointment to the office of Lord President of Wales. 

 Interesting as this might be to the family, in connexion 

 with these our summer rambles the matter may seem 

 at first sight of little moment. But through this noble 

 name of ELLESMERE always delightful to every man of 

 taste and culture the associations of our district are 

 linked not only with the fine arts and the literature of 

 the present century, but with one of the most finished 

 and consummately beautiful poems that ever flowed from 

 human pen; and whatever is implied in the idea of 

 poetry as an oracle of wisdom and truth, and a perennial 

 abiding-place of eloquence and loveliness, that also is 

 implied in the true idea of nature, and in what we go 

 forth to seek in the fields and woods, which latter is not 

 so much to be entertainment as inspiration of heart and 

 soul, and enlarged capacity to enter into and receive its 

 inestimable sweet lessons, as bees suck honey from 

 flowers; for poetry and summer rambles, rightly used 

 and understood, are almost synonymes, and that which 

 speaks of the one breathes inevitably of the other. The 

 poem alluded to is the immortal "Comus" of John 

 Milton, with which the world would probably not have 

 been enriched save for the circumstance of the appoint- 

 ment in question. In 1634 the Earl resided at Ludlow 

 Castle. One evening, his son Lord Brackley, another 

 son, and his daughter, the lady Alice Egerton, threading 

 the^ " perplexed paths " of an adjacent forest called 



