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EAKL EARLE 353 office, which was originally in the gift of the crown, and in recompense for his services re- ceived a part of the revenues of his province to his own use. Toward the close of the Saxon dynasty these provincial governors not only greatly enlarged their authority, but claimed the dignity as hereditary ; and in the time of Edward the Confessor the whole kingdom was divided between five powerful earls, including Godwin and his sons Harold and Tosti, of whom Harold subsequently usurped the throne. After the Norman conquest the territorial pos- sessions of the Saxon nobility were declared forfeited, and with many newly created fiefs were distributed among the chief followers of William the Conqueror, who thereupon sever- ally assumed the title of count, from the Latin comes. But this title was very soon replaced by the old one of earl, while the territory from which the new dignitary received his name or over which he exercised jurisdiction was thenceforth called a county, instead of a shire as previously under the Saxons, and the con- sort of the earl became a countess. According to Cruise, there were three sorts of earldoms under the early Norman kings : the first and highest, where the dignity was annexed to the possession of a whole county, with the jura regalia, in which case the county became a county palatine, and the person created earl of it exercised all the authority of a sovereign ; the next, where the earl was entitled to the third part of the revenues of the county court ; and the third, where a tract of land was erect- ed into a county and granted with civil and criminal jurisdiction to be held per sermtium unius comitatus. This statement, however, is open to controversy, and Sir Harris Nicolas is of opinion that the Norman earls, excepting in the counties palatine, possessed no jurisdiction over the counties from which they were de- nominated, the dignity being of a nature alto- gether personal. At present the title conveys no local jurisdiction or revenue, and is no longer confined to the names of counties, but may be derived from those of towns or villages, or of families. It remained the highest he- reditary dignity in England until the reign of Edward III., when the first dukedom was created, and is now the third order of the British nobility, being next below that of mar- quis, and above that of viscount. The style of an earl is " right honorable," and he is officially addressed by the crow r n as " our right trusty and well beloved cousin," an appellation at- tributed to Henry IV., who had his own rea- sons for flattering the powerful earls, with nearly all of whom he is said to have been al- lied by birth or marriage, by frequent allusions to the relationship. He bears also on some occasions the title of " most noble and puissant prince." The coronet of an earl consists of a circle of gold chased as jewelled, upon which rise eight pyramidical points, gold, each point bearing a large silver ball, while between the points close to the rim of the coronet are straw- berry leaves of gold. The cap is of crimson velvet with turned ermine and a golden tassel. Earls are now created by letters patent, in place of the old practice by which the sove- reign girded on the sword of the new earl and invested him with mantle and coronet. In 1872 there were 110 earls (and one countess) in the peerage of Great Britain, including 32 Scotch and 21 Irish earls ; besides which there were 34 earls in the Scotch and 20 in the Irish peerage; 9 Scotch and 10 Irish earls had seats in the house of lords as representative peers. The EAKL MAKSHAL is an officer of state in Eng- land^ who directs important ceremonies, takes cognizance of matters relating to honor, arms, and pedigree, and proclaims the declaration of war or of peace. The office was established in the reign of Richard II., who conferred it upon Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, and is now hereditary in the family of Howard, the head of which, the duke of Norfolk, is the present earl marshal of England. EiRLE. I. Pliny, an American inventor, born in Leicester, Mass., Dec. 17, 1762, died there, Nov. 19, 1832. In 1785 he became con- nected with Edmund Snow in the manufac- ture of machine and hand cards for carding cotton and wool. Mr. Earle at first made them by hand, but soon invented the machine still in use for their manufacture, by which the labor of a man for 15 hours could be performed in as many minutes. Aside from his inventive genius, he deserves a record for his extensive attainments in science and literature. II. Pliny, an American physician, son of the preceding, born in Leicester, Mass., Dec. 31, 1809. He was educated at the Friends' school in Provi- dence, R. I., where he was subsequently em- ployed as a teacher. He received his diploma of M. D. in 1837, and in 1840 was appointed resident physician of the insane hospital at Frankford, Pa., where he remained about two years. In 1844 he was appointed physician to the asylum for the insane at Bloomingdale, N. Y., where he remained till April, 1849, when he visited the insane hospitals of England, Bel- gium, Germany, Austria, Poland, and a part of those of France. In 1847 he declined an appointment of visiting physician to the New York city lunatic asylum, but accepted it in 1853. In 1841 he published a small volume of poems entitled "Marathon and other Poems;" and in the same year " Visit to thirteen Asy- lums for the Insane in Europe." In 1848 he published the " History, Description, and Sta- tistics of the Bloomingdale Asylum." After his return from his second European tour, he published in the "American Journal of In- sanity " a series of articles on institutions for the insane in Germany and Austria, which were subsequently collected in a volume. Another series of articles on "Bloodletting in Meptal Disorders " was published in 1854. His other contributions to the medical and psycho- logical journals are very numerous. HI. Thomas, a writer on law, brother of the preceding, born