Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/169

Egerton first wife he was father of two sons and a daughter. The younger son John ia separately noticed. The elder son Thomas went the islands' voyage in 1597; was then knighted; was baron of the excequer of Cheshire from 1596; was killed in Ireland in August 1599, and was buried in Chester Cathedral 27 Sept. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Venables of Kinderton, Cheshire, by whom he had three daughters. The chancellor's daughter Mary was wife of Sir Francis Leigh of Newnham Regis, Warwickshire. Ellesmere had no issue by his second and third wives. His third wife, whose daughter married her stepson, John Egerton, 'long survived him, and continued to live at Harefield, where in 1634 Milton produced his 'Arcades.'

Egerton was highly esteemed by his contemporaries. Sir George Paule, in his 'Life of Whitgift,'1612, mentions him as 'a loving, faithful friend to the archbishop in all his Affairs,' 'a lover of learning, and most constant favourer of the clergy and church government established,' Camden mentions an anagram on his name, 'Gestat Honorem,' and gives unstinted praise to the whole of his career. Hacket, Fuller, and Anthony à Wood are equally enthusiastic. Sir John Davies credits him with all the characteristics of on ideal chancellor, and paid a compliment to his literary taste by dedicating his 'Orchestra' to him. (The dedicatory sonnet is in manuscript in a copy of the volume at Bridgewater House, and is not printed in the ordinary editions.) Although always dignified, in his bearing on the bench. Bacon ascribes to him some severely sarcastic apophthegms spoken to suitors in his court. His venerable presence is said to have drawn many spectators to his court, 'in order to see and admire him'. Literary men praised him lavishly. Ben Jonson wrote three epigrams in his honour, Samuel Daniel an epistle in verse, and Joshua Sylvester a sonnet.

Ellesmere published nothing except his judgment in the case of the 'postnati' in Colvin's case. He left to his chaplain Williams manuscript treatises on the royal prerogative, the privileges of parliament, proceedings in chancery, and the power of the Star-chamber. Williams owed, according to his biographer, whatever success he achieved as lord keeper to his diligent study of those papers (, Life of Willliams, pp. 30-1). Williams afterwards presented them to James I. Blackstone refers to the treatise on the Star-chamber in his 'Commentaries,' iv. 267; it is now in the British Museum Harl. MS. 1226. In 1641 'The Priviledges of Prerogative of the High Court of Chancery' was issued as a work of Ellesmere. Of the other two manuscript treatises nothing is now known. It is highly doubtful whether 'Observations concerning the Office of Lord Chancellor,' 1651, and 'Lord Chancellor Egerton's Observations on Lord Coke's Reports,' edited by G. Paule about 1710, have any claim to rank as Ellesmere's productions, although they have been repeatedly treated as genuine. Engraved portraits by Simon Pass and Hole are extant.

[An elaborate life by Francis Henry Egerton, eighth earl of Bridgewater [q.v.] appears in Kippis's Biog. Brit. It was reprinted separately in 1793, and with various editions in 1798, 1801, 1812. and 1828. The Egerton Papers, edited by Mr. J. P. Collier, and published by the Camden Soc. in 1840, contain a number of the chancellor's official papers preserved at Bridgewater House. In the Miscellany of the Abbotsford Club, i. 219-225, are six of Ellesmere's letters, three to James I and three to John Murray; others appear in Cabala. See also Foss's Judges, vi. 135-52; Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, ii. 174-261; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 414; Nichols's Progresses of Elizabeth and James I; Gardiner's Hist, of England; Collins's Peerage, ii. 225-32; Birch's Memoirs; Spedding's Life of Bacon; Chauncy's Hertfordshire; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire; Ormerod's Cheshire; Cal. State Papers (Domestic), 1581-1617.]  EGG, AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD (1816–1863), subject painter, was the son of Egg the well-known gunmaker in Piccadilly, where he was born on 2 May 1816. Having mastered the first elements in drawing under Henry Sass, in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, he obtained admission as a student into the Royal Academy in 1836, and appeared as an exhibitor first in that institution in 1838, where he exhibited 'A Spanish Girl.' This was followed by 'Laugh when you can' in 1639, and a scene from 'Henry IV' in 1840. But his first work of importance, 'The Victim,' was exhibited at Liverpool, and subsequently was engraved in the 'Gems of European Art.' He also contributed for many years to the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. He suffered from a weak constitution, and during a journey in Africa, undertaken for the benefit of his health, he died at Algiers on 26 March 1863, and was buried there. Egg was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1848, and an academician in 1860, in which year he painted a scene from the 'Taming of the Shrew.' His portrait by Frith, engraved by J. Smyth, appeared in the 'Art Union Monthly Journal of 1847, p. 312. Works of his best quality are: 'Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young' (1848); 'Peter the Great sees Katherine for the first time' (1850); 'The Life and Death of