Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/617

jections of carbolic acid or of Condy s fluid. Concretions, consisting of accumulations of wax, often hard and adherent, may block up the external meatus. Frequently these may not impair the sense of hearing, but they give rise to dis tressing noises of various kinds. They may be got rid by the careful use of injections of soap and hot water. Polypi, usually hard and firm, but sometimes soft and gelatinous, occur in the external meatus. The external ear may become hypertrophied, as in idiots ; it may contain concre tions of urate of soda, as in gout ; and it may be the seat of fibrous tumours. In the insane, large tumours, filled with blood, termed hcematoma, sometimes occur. One of the most common causes of deafness in children is chronic enlargement of the tonsils from repeated quinseys or from a strumous habit. Frequently also the Eustachian tube is occluded, but by passing a delicate catheter along the tube, and sometimes by inflating artificially the tympanum with air, hearing may be restored. It is difficult to diagnose, and still more difficult to treat, diseases of the internal ear, in consequence of its delicacy of structure and inaccessible situation. Pathological states of the internal ear may give rise to distressing entotic phenomena, such as whizzing, buzzing, hissing, blowing, or clanging sounds; and if they are not relieved by washing out the external ear, or by in flating the middle ear by the Eustachian tube, or by counter-irritation by means of small blisters or the applica tion of tincture of iodine behind the ears, nothing more can

be done.

(j. g. m.)

EARL (Latin, comes; French, compte), a title and rank of nobility now the third in the order of the British peerage, and, accordingly, intervening between marquis and viscount. Earl, however, was the highest title and rank of the English nobles post conquestum until the year 1337, when by Edward III. the Black Prince was created duke of Cornwall. The " earl " of England was identical with comte or compte of France ; and, so long as Norman-French continued to be spoken in this country, the English " earls " were styled " counts " as well in England as on the Con tinent. These powerful barons represented and succeeded the Saxon thanes who were ealdormen, their own title evidently having been derived from the jarl of Scandinavia.

The nature of a modern earldom is readily understood, since it is a rank and dignity of nobility which, while it confers no official power or authority, is inalienable, in divisible, and descends in regular succession to all the male heirs of the body of the grantee until, on their failure, it merges in the; Crown. Not so was it with either the nature or the descent of the ancient earldoms of England. In early feudal times titles independent of office did not exist. The earls, or comites, of those days, therefore, were actual officers, each having supreme authority in his own earldom, or " county," under the Crown ; each one of them also deriving from his earldom a certain fixed revenue, the possession of which was at once an apanage of his official dignity as earl, and the evidence of his lawful and recognized title to it. But an earldom has long ceased to be endowed with any official associations whatever, and has become merely a title by which its owners in male succession inherit and hold the dignity, third in rank, of a peerage. In like manner, the descent and tenure of the ancient earldoms differed in many highly important particulars from the simple succession of the modern dignity. In the course of their chequered history, we find ancient earldoms, instead of passing by a quiet and clearly defined succession from father to son, constantly depending on the rights of femalo inheritance ; they are seen to have been obtained by many a husband jure uxoris; they appear to have been transferred in an arbitrary manner, or actually to have been divide 1 between coparceners, or to have been retained for a while by the Crown and let out to farm. At the same time, under such strangs conditions as these, and amidst conflicting vicissitudes, until they finally merged in the Crown, the ancient earldoms retained their vitality. They might descend very irregularly, and become vested in successive families, but still they did not become extinct ; nor were the claims of legal inheritance wholly forgotten or superseded ; and, even if for a time they had been latent or had actually been superseded, they emerged under more favourable circumstances, and under fresh arrangements or modifications they were again recognized by the Crown.

An earl is " Ixight Honourable," and is styled " My Lord." His eldest son bears his father s "second title," and therefore, that second title being in most cases a viscounty, he generally is styled " Viscount ; " under all circumstances, however, the eldest son of an earl takes precedence immediately after the viscounts. The younger sons of earls are " Honourable," but all their daughters are " Ladies." In formal documents and instruments, the sovereign, when addressing or making mention of any peer of the degree of an earl, usually designates him " trusty and well-beloved cousin," a form of appellation first adopted by Henry IV., who either by descent or alliance was actually related to every earl and duke in the realm. The wife of an earl is a countess ; she is " Eight Honour able," and is styled " My Lady."

Earl's Coronet.

The coronet of an earl has, rising from a golden circlet, eight lofty rays of gold, each of which upon its point supports a large pearl ; also, be tween each pair of rays, at their bases, there is a golden conven tional leaf, the stalks of all these leaves being connected with the rays and with each other so as to form a continuous wreath. In representations, five of the elevated rays with their pearls and four of the leaves are shown. The cap and lining of the coronet, if worn or represented, are the same as those of the ducal coronet. An earl s coronet without cap 01 lining is represented in the annexed figure.

In the monumental effigies of noble personages, which yet remain from the Middle Ages, there are many highly interesting representations of the varieties of coronets woni by the earls of those days and by their countesses, before this coronet had assumed its present fixed and definite character. Thus, early in the 15th century, effigies of an earl and countess of Arundel, at Aruudel, have very rich coronets. The earl s has a ceries of leaves and of clusters of three small balls or pearls alternating, all of them being raised to a considerable height above the circlet, the clusters rising rather higher than the leaves. The coronet of the countess differs in having the raised clusters set alternately with single balls or pearls that are less elevated.^[1]

The coronet of a countess now in all respects is the same

as that of an earl. The scarlet parliamentary robe of an earl has three doublings of ermine. The duke of Norfolk, who is premier duke, as earl of Arundel, Surrey, and Norfolk, is premier earl of England ; also he holds his

earldom of Arundel, a feudal dignity (as it was adjudged by

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1. In his effigy at Warwick, 1439, the crest of Richard Beauchamp_ earl of Warwick, rises from a plain circlet that is surmounted by a series of pearls slightly raised, but without any leaves. Still later in the century, 1483, Isabel Plantagenet, countess of Essex, in her brass at Little Easton in Essex, has a series of leaves, no less than thirteen in number, that rise to a uniform slight elevation above the front of an ample coronet ; and about the same time, 1487, the coronets of another earl and countess of Arundel have their circlets heightened with an uninterrupted series of architectural conventional leaves, and once more, at Hever, in Kent, the brass to Sir T. Boleyn, K.G., earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, represents the maternal grand father of Queen Elizabeth, with the insignia of the Garter, and wearing a rich coronet, the circlet of which is set with small pearls in contact, not raised, and so numerous that upwards of twenty are displayed.