ame routine of business. I think there was more in
all this than met the eye, for work alone could not have done it. We
shall have no confirmation of this rumour in letters for a fortnight
or more.... Poor Canning! He leaves behind him sincere friends, but no
one who was much dependent on him.

In another letter he wrote:--

So Canning and his wife, as Dalhousie and his, have fallen victims to
India! Both however ruled here in stirring times, and accomplished
great things, playing their lives against a not unworthy stake. I do
not think that their fate is to be deplored.

A few days later he wrote from Barrackpore, where he had gone to seek the
change of air which his health now began imperatively to require:--

This place looks wonderfully green. At the end of the broad walk on
which I am gazing from my window, is Lady Canning's grave; it is not
yet properly finished. Who will attend to it now? Meanwhile, it gives
a melancholy character to the place, for the walk which it closes is
literally the only private walk in the grounds. The flower garden,
park, &c., are all open to the public.... Although Canning did not die
at his post, I thought it right, as his death took place so soon after
his departure from India, to recognise it officially, which I did by a
public notification, and by directing a salute of minute guns to be
fired.

While still oppressed with these sad thoughts, he received a blow which
went even deeper home, in the intelligence of the death of his brother
Robert, so well-known and so highly valued as Governor of the Prince of
Wales.

[Sidenote: Death of General Bruce.]

_Barrackpore.--July 26th._--I went into Calcutta on the morning of the
23rd, in time to write by the afternoon packet; but I did not write,
for I was met on my arrival by a telegraphic rumour, which quite
overwhelmed me.... I should hardly have allowed myself to believe that
the sad report could be true, had it not been for the account of
Robert's illness, which your last letters had conveyed to me.... Next
day another telegram by the Bombay mail of the July 3rd left no doubt
as to the name.... A week, however, must elapse before letters arrive
with, the intelligence.... I hurried over my business, and came back
here yesterday evening. It is more quiet than Calcutta; and sad, with
its _one_ walk terminating (as I hav