"This was in appeasing the disorders of his country usurpation he kept in retirement. He without the effusion of blood." His se- resigned his earldom into the hands of cond Countess was the Lady Jane Gor- Charles II., by whom it was granted, in don, third daughter of George, fourth 1662, to George, Lord Strathnaver, his Earl of Huntly, High Chancellor of Scot- eldest son. The Earl married, first, in land. She had been previously married || 1632, Lady Jean Drummond, only child to the notorious James, Earl of Bothwell; of James, first Earl of Perth. but the marriage was annulled (on ac- the best match in Scotland, at that time, count of a dispensation not having been either for means or friendship, or the perobtained) in order to make way for his son of the lady, who was wise, virtuous, unhallowed nuptials with Queen Mary. and comely." His Lordship married, seThe Earl of Sutherland's fourth son, by condly, in 1639, Anne, eldest daughter of his second Countess, was the Hon. Sir Hugh, eighth Lord Lovat. His eldest Robert Gordon, of Gordonstoun, the his- surviving son, by his first Countess, was, torian of the illustrious family whence he sprang. Dying in 1594, he was succeeded by his eldest son, || John, the twelfth Earl. His Lordship married, in 1600, Anne, or Agnes, eldest daughter of Alexander, fourth Lord Elphinston, High Treasurer of Scotland. By royal charter, in 1601, the earldom of Sutherland, and barony of Far, were | erected into an entire and distinct sheriffdom and jurisdiction of itself, to be called the sheriffdom of Sutherland. In the decreet of the Parliament of Scotland, in 1606, ranking the nobility, the Earl of Sutherland was placed after Angus, Argyll, Crawford, Errol, and Marischal; and, in the Union Roll, the Sutherland title ranks after Crawford, Errol, and Marischal (the other two having merged in higher dignities) although it is of indisputably greater antiquity than any of those earldoms. Indeed it is clear that no peerage in Britain can come into competition with the earldóm of Sutherland for antiquity. The Earl died in 1615, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving John, thirteenth Earl of Sutherland. "He had a charter of the whole earldom of Sutherland, regality and sheriffship of Sutherland, de novo unit. 4th September, 1631; and in 1633, he obtained from Parliament a confirmation of the sheriffship of Sutherland, and an erection of Dornoch into a royal borough." In 1641, he was appointed Privy Councillor for life; in 1644, he was sent north with a commission for disarming malignants; and, in 1650, he was constituted Keeper of the Privy Seal, and appointed Colonel of a regiment of foot, to be raised for the King's service for the north. During the George, fourteenth Earl of Sutherland, who succeeded to the title in 1663. His only son and successor, by the Lady Jean' Wemyss, eldest daughter of David, and relict of Archibald, Earl of Angus, eldest son and heir apparent of William, first Marquess of Douglas, was His John, the fifteenth Earl, one of the Privy Councillors of King William, and afterwards of Queen Anne. He had the command of a regiment of foot, and fol-` lowed the King in all his campaigns. He was one of the Sixteen Scottish Peers elected in 1707, 1715, 1722, and 1727. His numerous important services to the state were gratefully acknowledged by King George I., who, in June, 1716, invested him with the Order of the Thistle, and in September following settled a pension on him of £1,200 per annum. Lordship was thrice married: first, to Helen, second daughter of William, Lord Cochrane, eldest son of William, first Earl of Dundonald, by whom he had a son, William, who died before him, in 1720; secondly, to Lady Catherine Tolmash, second daughter of Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale, Countess of Dysart, by her first husband, Sir Lionel Tolmash, and relict of James, Lord Down, eldest son of Alexander, sixth Earl of Moray; thirdly, to the widow of Sir John Travel, an English lady of fortune. Dying in 1733, he was succeeded by his grand son, William, sixteenth Earl of Sutherland. He was the son of William, Lord Strathnaver, by Catherine, daughter of William Morison, of Preston Grange, in the county of Haddington, M.P., and one of the Commissioners for the treaty of Union--sister of Helen; Countess of Glasgow, and Jean, child, Viscountess of Arbuthnott. During the house, on the 9th of August, 1766." The rebellion of 1745, his Lordship displayed || Earl was succeeded by his only surviving great activity in the service of government, and essentially contributed towards the suppression of the disaffected in the north. By his Countess, the Lady Elizabeth Wemyss, eldest daughter of David, third Earl of Wemyss, he had a son, Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, now Marchioness of Stafford. Her Ladyship was born at Leven Lodge, near Edin|| burgh, on the 24th of May, 1765. On the death of her father, she, then only a twelvemonth old, was placed under the guardianship of John, Duke of Athol, Charles, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Sir Adam Fergusson of Kilkerran, and Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes, Baronets, and John Mackenzie of Delvin. A competition. arose for the title of Sutherland, to which claims were entered by the Countess, Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, Baronet, and George Sutherland of Forse. Ladyship's cause was ably defended by the professional gentlemen employed on her part, and superior ability, accuracy, and depth of research were evinced in the "Additional Case of Elizabeth, claiming the title and dignity of Countess of Sutherland," by Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes. After various proceedings, it was, on the 21st of March, 1771, resolved and adjudged by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, in her ladyship's favour. William, who succeeded to the title as seventeenth Earl of Sutherland, in 1750.|| He eagerly entered into the army on the breaking out of the rebellion, and had an ensign's commission in the first or royal regiment of foot, in November, 1745, in his eleventh year. He had a company in the 25th regiment of foot, in 1755; and in || 1759, when an invasion was expected, he raised a batallion of infantry, to which he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel. He was aide-de-camp to the King, with the rank of Colonel in the army, in 1763. In the same year, on the death of the Marquess of Tweeddale, he was elected one of the sixteen representative Peers. His Lordship married, in 1761, Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of William Maxwell, of Prestoun, in the stewartry of Kircudbright, Esq. The Earl and Countess both died in the year 1766, just after the former had completed his thirty-first year. The circumstances attending their deaths were particularly affecting." The loss of their eldest daughter made so deep an impression upon the spirits of the Earl and Countess, that they visited Bath, in hopes the amusements of that place would dispel their grief. After a few weeks' residence there, his Lordship was attacked with a fever; and the Countess devoted herself so entirely to the care of her husband, that she attended for twenty-one days and nights without leaving him, or retiring to bed. This constant watching and fatigue, and the apprehensions of his danger, affected her to such a degree, that she died 1st June, 1766, in her 26th year, sixteen days before the Earl fell a victim to disease. They were not less ennobled by their virtues than by their high rank; their untimely fate was deeply felt, and universally deplored; they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided. The bodies of this most affectionate pair being brought to Scotland, were interred in one grave; in the abbey church of Holyrood Her This decision was productive of the highest national satisfaction, the illus trious orphan having excited feelings of very lively interest;. and public rejoicings took place in different parts of Scotland, in consequence. The Countess passed her youth in her native country, every care being successfully bestowed on her education and improvement; and afterwards, visiting England, was presented at Court, of which she was justly considered a very distinguished ornament. In 1779, the Countess raised a regiment for the defence of Britain, called the Sutherland Fencibles, which was completed to the full number of 1,000 men, in twelve days, and the command given to her cousin-german, Lieutenant General William Wemyss, of Wemyss. At the commencement of the war in 1793, the Countess again raised a regiment of Fencibles, also under the command of the same able officer; that regiment, in 1798, volunteered its services to assist in quelling the rebellion in Ireland, where it was actively and successfully employed, till an end wa put to those unhappy disturbances. Being afterwards disbanded at the same time with the other corps raised on the same footing, it was incorporated into the line, and is now the 93d regiment of foot. The Countess of Sutherland was married, by special license, in London, on the 4th of September, 1785, to the Right Honourable George Granville Leveson Gower, then Viscount Trentham; now Marquess of Stafford, K.G.; Earl Gower; Viscount Trentham, of Trentham, in the county of Stafford; Baron Gower, of Stittenham, in the county of York; a Baronet; Recorder of the borough of Stafford; and (in right of his Marchioness) High Sheriff of the county of Sutherland. As Viscount Trentham, his Lordship, as soon as he had attained his majority (about the year 1779) was, through his father's interest, returned to Parliament as one of the representatives of the borough || of Newcastle-under-Lyme, in the county of Stafford. In the parliament of 1784, he was returned as one of the members for that county. On his father being created Marquess of Stafford, in 1786, he assumed the title of Earl Gower. In 1790, he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to Paris, where he remained till the breaking out of the war of the Revolution. In 1798, his Lordship was called up to the House of Peers by the title of his father's barony of Gower; and, on the decease of the late Marquess, in 1803, he succeeded to the family honours and estates. On the death of his uncle, Francis, the last Duke of Bridgewater, in the early part of the same year, he became the heir-general of that nobleman, acquired the whole income of the Bridgewater canal, and the Worseley estate for life; after which, the latter is entailed upon his second son, Lord Francis Leveson Gower. Thus, by the Stafford, the Sutherland, and the Bridgewater possessions united, the noble Marquess may be regarded as enjoying one of the largest incomes in the kingdom. || And it redounds to his honour that he expends that income nobly and munificently. His lordship is a most liberal patron of literature and the arts. From the late Duke of Bridgewater, and by his own extensive purchases, he possesses a superb collection of paintings, ancient and modern; which, during a certain portion of the year, he was accustomed to open to the public at his residence, in Cleveland Row, St. James's. Subsequent to the decease of the Duke of York, the Marquess of Stafford purchased the splendid mansion which had been erected for his Royal Highness in St. James's Park; and to that mansion, many pictures have since been removed-the Bridgewater part of the collection remaining in Cleveland Row, where Lord Francis Leveson Gower now resides. As related in our memoir of the Countess Gower, it was determined, on the visit of his late Majesty to Scotland, in 1822, that the right of carrying the sceptre before the King was in the Earls of Sutherland; and, accordingly, His Majesty was graciously pleased, on that occasion, to permit Lord Francis Leveson Gower, the second son of the Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford, to act as deputy for his mother, the Countess of Sutherland. The Marchioness of Stafford has had a family of six children, four of whom survive. We have before named them, in the order of succession; but, that the present sketch may be complete in itself, we shall here commit the sin of repetition : 1. George Granville, Earl Gower, born August 8, 1786; married, May 28, 1823, the Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgianna, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle :- 2. Lady Charlotte, born in 1788; married, in 1814, to Henry Charles, Earl of Surrey, only son of Bernard Edward, Duke of Norfolk ;3. William, born in 1792; died in 1793;4. William, died in 1804 ;-5. Francis, born in 1799; married, in 1822, Harriet Catherine, daughter of Charles Fulke Greville, Esq.-6. Lady Elizabeth, born in 1797; married, in 1819, to Richard Viscount Belgrave, son of Robert, Earl Grosvenor. THE EAGLE PLUME. A TALE OF GREECE. It was in the year 18-, that I set out to join the cause of liberty in Greece, and aid, by my feeble efforts, her noble strug- || gle for independence. I was young, ardent, and enthusiastic. My fortune was large, my relations few and distant; if I fell, there would be none to regret me, and if I lived, it would not be in vain; but I might look back, in my old age, with pleasure, on the remembrance that I, too, had been "a Grecian." I lingered on my progress to the principal scene of action, and was induced to visit, for a short period, the beautiful island of Scio. Description would, indeed, fail to depict its loveliness, yet my heart is too full of its memories to remain quite silent. If the wild and lofty rocks seemed Freedom's throne, at their feet reposed a land, alas! so fair, as to tempt the luxurious inhabitant to repose in languid indolence, and the bold invader to appropriate its treasures. Whilst they pressed the rich juice from the luscious grape, or trod nature's carpet in the graceful dances of their country, their soft skies forming a canopy kings might envy, while they gazed on the dark eyes of their noble maidens, and read love there in his own mirror; the modern Greeks might almost be forgiven, if, in this degenerate age, they forgot they were slaves, since in ruder climes even liberty herself cannot offer such seducing engagements. And the blue sea, that sea whose waves as they sank and died softly on the golden sands, seemed to prate of glories gone by ; || perhaps the very blaze of past splendour, which spread from shore to shore like their gorgeous setting sun, blinded their senses to the dark night that was following. They reposed on the shield of their dead heroes, and forgot to start up and use it in that defence for which alone it was worthy. Perhaps I am pleading my own cause whilst offering these excuses for the Greeks: certain it is, I lingered longer than I ought in this enchanting island of Scio; and yet my whole thoughts, soul, No. 79.-Vol. XIV. and words, were directed to the cause of freedom. But, gentle reader, these thoughts and words were often addressed to a lovely being who walked beside me, treading her native mountains with the step of one of those nymphs of fable so appropriate to the scene. And if my zeal for liberty have proved a pure and enduring light, a sacred fire, instead of that meteor that leads thousands astray, to that being under heaven, I owe it. She was the grand-daughter of one of the most illustrious men of the island, and though his head was silvered with the frost of ninety years, his heart was as warm for his country as any of her youngest and bravest sons. The father of the beauteous Ianthe had been a victim to Turkish tyranny; and the story appeared one of peculiar agony, as, in protecting the beauty and fame of his wife, he had, alas! perished. The whole family lived since in the deepest retirement; the venerable Mantholoni seeking to shelter the two last fair scions of his noble race, Ianthe, and a young brother of about five years old, from the storms of fate in their quiet ̧ home. But a tempest was now about to burst, from which they fondly anticipated that their long-darkened atmosphere would clear, and the sun of hope irradiate once more its horizon. The old man was ready to spend his little remnant of life, his lessened fortune, and his extensive, though secret influence, to aid the last indignant rising of outraged Greece. But the sweet Ianthe was the truest patriot! It was no revenge of her martyred parents (for her mother too was gone to peace) it was no youthful enthusiasm, far less indifference to the horrors of intestine war, which lent to her pure spirit its unquenched and unquenchable glow. She was, in truth, no ancient heroine, either in person or mind. Her slight form rather resembled the flexible palm, than the stately column. Her soft blue eyes thrilled the soul by their expression of mind and courage; but it was courage tempered by more than her sex's gentleness, and her sentiments were neither B exaggerated nor stern. They had their rise in the only sources of true human greatness, religion, and humanity: the first told her that the sacred worship of her fathers, the blessed cross, was being trampled by the infamous sign of an impostor; and, should the Christian look on for ever in tame and slavish indifference, nor wake to vindicate its honour? The next pointed to the violation of every tie of nature by the Turks, the oppression of the weak, the slaughter of the brave, the poor peasant reaping in tears the harvest that was sent for him; and thus urged, she held it the first duty of every reasoning Greek, howsoever little his power, or weak his arm, to lend it to this holy cause. When she marked some gleams of my enthusiasm for the tented field, the pomp and panoply of war, she rather sought to repress it. "O, my friend," would she say in that low, kindly voice, no heart could resist, "do not take to the dreadful field of battle, where thousands are to dye their native soil in blood, thousands of immortal souls to be dismissed to eternity, any thoughts but such as you would cherish in your last hour. Let no fierce passions, no imposing vanities, sully the lustre of his spirit, who goes to combat for the right in the holy cause of just and rational liberty." be so called, that she invariably wore, in her picturesque Greek cap, or placed amid the waving gold of her hair. It was an eagle's plume; and on no occasion of festivity, nor in the most perfect retirement, did she lay it aside. I verily believed she wore it in her sleep. This partiality to so unusual a decoration, her never alluding to it, and a casual blush at the mention of one particular name, had excited fears I longed to disperse by inquiry, yet feared that a word might confirm. We stood on a steep and almost dizzy rock; behind us was a deep defile-the day yet lingered gloriously on the spot we had gained, but the shades of evening fell darkly on the chasm. "I do not love to stay here so late," said little Alexis, pulling his sister gently by her robe, as she stood on the height, apparently quite absorbed in reverie, gazing across the waters. "Come home, dear sister, it will soon be dark;" and the boy's voice slightly trembled. "What, you turned coward, my little hero?" said I, playfully, and taking his hand, "you who are as agile and daring as the chamois?, I should not be surprised to see you perched one day on yonder cliff;" and I pointed to a remarkable peak towering above us, piercing, as it were, into the very heavens. The boy shudder - Who could wonder that I became a convert to her doctrines, had they beheld me in the still hour of evening, as it dyeded and hid his face. "Oh! not there!" the sky and the ocean in roses, standing he cried, "I have been there once."beside the youthful patriot on some lofty "There! impossible; no human foot ever promontory of her native Scios, musing, trod it." "Ask Ianthe,” replied the as it might be, of the past or the future, child, "I cannot tell you." His sister in a silence that was all " our own;" stood listening to us in some agitation, and whilst her little brother clung fondly to her cheek was unusually pale.—“ Yes,” her robe, looking up into her speaking said she, "I will tell you, my Lord, toface, whence he drew all the inspiration morrow, the whole story; but now let us of his young day-dreams; for the boy was return with this little trembler, whose reher inseparable companion, dear to her, collections of the spot might shake firmer ay, even as her country. It is easy to nerves than his. It is time," added she, guess that I loved the fair Greek with the with a sigh and a look of mournful meanmost reverent admiration; but whether ing, "it is time, my Lord, to place this my feelings were returned, was yet a pro- confidence in your friendship for my fablem to me of the deepest interest. Some mily; and the same narrative will satisfy circumstances led me to think her heart you that I have dear and sacred reasons was already occupied, and yet so slight for wearing this singular decoration." were my grounds of suspicion, that I was And she slightly touched the eagle plume. almost ashamed to adduce them to myself. The head and front of them, strange to say, consisted in an ornament, if it might Strange, it may seem, but this preparation for a simple narrative chilled my heart, and I felt persuaded that the story |