from his hands. He was fortunately alone. The estimates for the
completion of his works, and the purchase of the rest of the furniture,
exactly equalled the sum already expended. Sir Carte added, that the
works might of course be stopped, but that there was no possible way
of reducing them, with any deference to the original design, scale, and
style; that he had already given instructions not to proceed with the
furniture until further notice, but regretted to observe that the orders
were so advanced that he feared it was too late to make any sensible
reduction. It might in some degree reconcile his Grace to this report
when he concluded by observing that the advanced state of the works
could permit him to guarantee that the present estimates would not be
exceeded.

The Duke had sufficiently recovered before the arrival of his
confidential agent not to appear agitated, only serious. The awful
catastrophe at Brighton was announced, and his report of affairs
was received. It was a very gloomy one. Great agricultural distress
prevailed, and the rents could not be got in. Five-and-twenty per cent,
was the least that must be taken off his income, and with no prospect
of being speedily added on. There was a projected railroad which would
entirely knock up his canal, and even if crushed must be expensively
opposed. Coals were falling also, and the duties in town increasing.
There was sad confusion in the Irish estates. The missionaries, who were
patronised on the neighbouring lands of one of the City Companies, had
been exciting fatal confusion. Chapels were burnt, crops destroyed,
stock butchered, and rents all in arrear. Mr. Dacre had contrived with
great prudence to repress the efforts of the new reformation, and had
succeeded in preventing any great mischief. His plans for the pursual
of his ideas and feelings upon this subject had been communicated to his
late ward in an urgent and important paper, which his Grace had never
seen, but one day, unread, pushed into a certain black cabinet, which
perhaps the reader may remember. His Grace's miscellaneous debts
had also been called in, and amounted to a greater sum than they had
anticipated, which debts always do. One hundred and forty thousand
pounds had crumbled away in the most imperceptible manner. A great slice
of this was the portion of the jeweller. His shield and his vases would
at least be evidence to his posterity of the splendour and the taste
of their imprudent anc