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  gallery. On the following day he wrote to the prince consort, who heartily endorsed the project. The motion came on on 4 March, and was carried through both houses of parliament. On 6 June following a grant of 2,000l. was voted for the purpose. On 2 Dec. a board of trustees was formed, of which Stanhope was elected chairman on 9 Feb. following. Temporary premises were provided at 29 Great George Street, Westminster, and opened on 15 Jan. 1859. In 1869, when the collection numbered 288 pictures, it was removed to the eastern portion of the long building at South Kensington. A fire in the neighbouring exhibition in 1885 caused its removal to Bethnal Green Museum on loan. In May 1889 Mr. William Alexander of Shipton, Andover, offered to build a gallery at his own expense, if the government would provide a site. This was found at the back of the National Gallery, where the present National Portrait Gallery, erected at a cost of 96,000l., was opened on 4 April 1896. Sir George Scharf [q. v.] was first keeper, and the collection now (1898) includes over a thousand pictures, exclusive of engravings (Cat. Nat. Portrait Gallery, 1897, pref. pp. iii. et seq.)

On 1 March 1858 Stanhope was elected lord rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen University, and in the same year he carried a motion through parliament removing from the prayer-book the three state services. On 3 June 1864 he was created LL.D. of Cambridge, and on 30 Oct. 1867 he was appointed first commissioner to inquire into the state of the established church in Ireland. In 1869 it was mainly due to his exertions that the historical manuscripts commission was formed, and he was one of the first commissioners. He also, at the instance of the Society of Antiquaries, proposed a parliamentary grant for excavations on the site of Troy. This laid him open to Robert Lowe's sarcasm, but Schliemann's discoveries gave Stanhope ample revenge. Another of his proposals was that an order of merit should be established for men of letters. On 11 May 1872 Stanhope was made foreign associate of the Institute of France, and on 22 Sept. 1875 he was appointed chairman of the royal copyright commission ; he was also president of the royal literary fund from 1863 till his death. He died on 24 Dec. 1875 from an attack of pleurisy, at his eldest son's house, Merivale, Bournemouth. A marble bust of Stanhope was executed at Home in 1854 by Lawrence Macdonald; the original is at the family seat, Chevening, Kent. A copy was presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 1878 by the present Earl Stanhope, and a medallion in plaster, on a reduced scale, presented by Sir George Scharf, was placed over the entrance doorway. An engraving of a portrait painted by Lucas in 1836 is given in Doyle's 'Official Baronage.'

Stanhope married, on 10 July 1834, Emily Harriet, second daughter of General Sir Edward Kerrison, bart., and by her, who died on 31 Dec. 1873, had issue one daughter Mary Catherine, who married, on 18 Feb. 1868, Frederick Lygon, sixth earl Beauchamp and four sons, of whom Arthur Philip is the present Earl Stanhope; Edward Stanhope, the second son, is separately noticed.

Few men have deserved better of the world of letters and art than Stanhope. The Copyright Act, the National Portrait Gallery, and the historical manuscripts commission bear witness alike to the culture and liberality of his tastes, and to the energy and success with which he gave them effect. As a speaker he was clear, but not eloquent, and his literary and critical tastes probably militated against his success in politics. But he possessed great tact, and on committees generally got his way without provoking opposition.

As an historian the capacity in which he was best known he was honest and industrious, and, though without any pretensions to genius, he wrote in a clear and readable style. The value of his works consists largely in the use he made of valuable manuscript sources inaccessible to others. His first important contribution to English history was 'The History of the War of Suc- cession in Spain, 1702-1714,' 1832, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1836. It is based largely on the papers of Mahon's ancestor, James Stanhope, first earl Stanhope [q. v.] Macaulay reviewed it in the 'Edinburgh,' Ivi. 499-542, and praised Mahon's 'great diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing testimony, and great impartiality in estimating characters.' This was followed by 'The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713-1783' (7 vols. 1836-1853; an American edition of vols. i.-iv. appeared in 1849, and the portions in the early volumes relating to India were separately issued in 1838 as 'The Rise of our Indian Empire'). The work was praised by Sismondi (Hist, des Franqais, xxviii. 385), and still remains the best narrative of English history during the eighteenth century. In it Mahon develops the somewhat far-fetched theory that the whigs and tories interchanged principles and policy between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (cf., Hist, of England, vol. i.) Mahon's remarks on Washington involved him in a prolonged 