The death of Sir Thomas Western creates a vacancy in
the Lord-Lieutenancy of Essex which it will be very difficult to fill up. There is scarcely a Peer in the county, and hardly a block out of which one might be carved, except, indeed, the new Sir Thomas Western, who is only not a Peer by accident. Lord Braybrooke, indeed, representative of one branch of the Nevilles, might accept the post ; and there is a Lord Rayleigh, but of no weight in the county ; while Lord Petre, with his old family and great property, is a Catholic. There are a Baronet or -two, but with the exception of those named there is scarcely a man with 5,000 acres, or one whose name would not be received without a feeling of surprise. The line of the Lord Dlaynards, the natural Lord-Lieutenants, is extinct, and we suppose the Speaker, who has a claim once recognised in his brother, is out of the question. The squirearhhical condition of Essex is curious, seeing that it is one of the few counties where a man with a couple of millions or so could in twenty years put together a grand estate.
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