smoked far more than he talked. Smoking was his principal evening's occupation when Brindley and Gilbert were pondering with him over the difficulty of raising funds to complete the navigation, and the Duke continued his solitary enjoyment through life. One of the droll habits to which he was addicted was that of rushing out of the room every five minutes, with the pipe in his mouth, to look at the barometer. Out of doors he snuffed, and he would pull huge pinches out of his right waiscoat pocket and thrust the powder up his nose, accompanying the operation with sundry strong short snorts.

He would have neither conservatory, pinery, flowergarden, nor shrubbery at Worsley; and once, on his return from London, finding some flowers which had been planted in his absence, he whipped their heads off with his cane, and ordered them to be rooted up. The only new things introduced about the place were some Turkey oaks, with which his character seemed to have more sympathy. But he took a sudden fancy for pictures, and with his almost boundless means the formation of a valuable collection of pictures was easy.

*

Lord Ellesmere says: "An accident laid the foundation of the Bridgewater collection. Dining one day with his nephew, Lord Gower, afterwards Duke of Sutherland, the Duke saw and admired a picture which the latter had picked up a bargain, for some 10., at a broker's in the morning. You must take me,' he said, 'to that fellow to-morrow.' Whether this impetuosity produced any immediate result we are not informed, but plenty of such 'fellows' were doubtless not wanting to cater for the taste thus suddenly developed.”

Fortunately the Duke's investments in paintings appear to have been well directed; and a discerning eye seems to have guided a liberal hand in selecting fine separate works, as well as the gems from Continental collections which were then dispersed and found their way hither, thus enabling him to lay the foundation of the famous Bridgewater Gallery, one of the finest private collections in Europe. At his death, in 1803, its value was estimated at 150,000l.

The Duke very seldom took part in politics, but usually followed the lead of his relative Earl Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, who was a Whig. In 1762, we find his name in a division on a motion to withdraw the British troops from Germany, and on the loss of the motion he joined in a protest on the subject. When the repeal of the American Stamp Act was under discussion His Grace was found in the ranks of the opposition to the measure. He strongly supported Mr. Fox's India Bill, and generally approved the policy of that statesman.

The title of Duke of Bridgewater died with him. The Earldom went to his cousin General Egerton, seventh Earl of Bridgewater, and from him to his brother the crazed Francis Henry, eighth Earl; and on his death at Paris, in February, 1829, that title too became extinct. The Duke bequeathed about 600,000l. in legacies to his relatives, General Egerton, the Countess of Carlisle, Lady Anne Vernon, and Lady Louisa Macdonald. He devised most of his houses, his pictures, and his canals, to his nephew George Granville (son of Earl Gower), second Marquis of Stafford and first Duke of Sutherland, with reversion to his second son, Lord Francis Egerton, first Earl of Ellesmere, who thus succeeded to the principal part of the vast property created by the Duke of Bridgewater. The Duke was buried in the family vault at Little Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, in the plainest manner, without any state, at his own express request. On his monument was inscribed the simple and appropriate epitaph Impulit ille rates ubi duxit aratra Colonus.

The Duke was a great public benefactor. The boldness of his enterprise, and the salutary results which flowed from its execution, entitle him to be regarded as one of the most useful men of his age. A Liverpool letter of 1765 says, "The services the Duke has rendered to the town and neighbourhood of Manchester have endeared him to the country, more especially to the poor, who, with grateful benedictions, repay their noble benefactor.”* If he became rich through his enterprise, the public grew rich with him and by him; for his undertaking was no less productive to his neighbours than it was to himself. His memory was long venerated by the people amongst whom he lived, a self-reliant, self-asserting race, proud of their independence, full of persevering energy, and strong in their attachments. The Duke was a man very much after their own hearts, and a good deal after their own manners. In respecting him, they were perhaps but paying homage to those qualities which they most cherished in themselves. Long after the Duke had gone from amongst them, they spoke to each other of his rough words and his kindly acts, his business zeal and his indomitable courage. He was the first great "Manchester man." His example deeply penetrated the Lancashire character, and his presence seems even yet to hover about the district. "The Duke's canal" still carries a large proportion of the merchandise of Manchester and the neighbouring towns; "the Duke's horses"† still draw "the

* History of Inland Navigation,' | in Manchester is, that the Duke's p. 76. Acts of Parliament authorising the construction of his canals, forbade the use of horses, in order that men might be employed; and that the Duke consequently dodged the provisions of the Acts by employing mules. But this is not the case, there being no clause in any of them prohibiting the use of horses.

†The Duke at first employed mules in hauling the canal-boats, because of the greater endurance and freedom from disease of those animals, and also because they could eat almost any description of provender. The Duke's breed of mules was for a long time the finest that had been known in England. The popular impression

Duke's boats; "the Duke's coals" still issue from "the Duke's levels;" and when any question affecting the traffic of the district is under consideration, the questions are still asked of "What will the Duke say?" will the Duke do?"*

"What

Manchester men of this day may possibly be surprised to learn that they owe so much to a Duke, or that the old blood has helped the new so materially in the development of England's modern industry. But it is nevertheless true that the Duke of Bridgewater, more than any other single man, contributed to lay the foundations of the prosperity of Manchester, Liverpool, and the surrounding districts. The cutting of the canal from Worsley to Manchester conferred upon that town the immediate benefit of a cheap and abundant supply of coal; and when Watt's steam-engine became the great motive power in manufactures, such supply became absolutely essential to its existence as a manufacturing town. Being the first to secure this great advantage, Manchester thus got the start forward which she has never since lost.†

But, besides being a waterway for coal, the Duke's canal, when opened out to Liverpool, immediately conferred upon Manchester the immense advantage of direct connection with an excellent seaport. New canals, supported by the Duke and constructed by the Duke's engineer, grew out of the original scheme between Manchester and Runcorn, which had the further effect of placing the former town in direct water-communication with the rich districts of the north-west of England. Then the Duke's

*There is even a tradition surviving at Worsley, that "the Duke" rides through the village once in every year at midnight, drawn by six coal-black horses!

+ The cotton trade was not of much importance at first, though it rapidly increased when the steamengine and spinning-jenny had become generally adopted. It may

be interesting to know that sixty years since it was considered satisfactory if one cotton-flat a day reached Manchester from Liverpool. In the Duke's time the flats always "cast anchor" on their way, or at least laid up for the night, åt six o'clock precisely, starting again at six o'clock on the following morning.