No. 15.
PETER LEOPOLD FRANCIS NASSAU, FIFTH EARL COWPER.
In Peer’s Parliamentary robes
BORN 1778, DIED 1837.
By Northcote.
HE was the second son of the third Earl, born at Florence, godson to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, married, in 1805, Emily, only daughter of Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne (afterwards Viscountess Palmerston), by whom he had three sons,—George, his successor, William, and Spencer, and two daughters, the Countess of Shaftesbury and Viscountess Jocelyn. He succeeded his brother. Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, concludes his notice of the first Earl Cowper with a sincere tribute of admiration to Peter Leopold, the fifth earl:—
‘He had too much delicacy of sentiment to take a leading part in public life, but to the most exquisitely pleasing manners he joined a manly understanding and a playful wit. From him I received kind and encouraging notice when I was poor and obscure; and his benevolent and exhilarating smile is one of the most delightful images in my memory of pleasures to return no more.’