Apropos of Coutts and the Duchess of St. Al-ban's, who has just been mentioned, it should be added that a short time ago two of the richest Bankers in London were Peeresses; the Duchess, namely, and the Countess of Jersey, who, as the heiress of Josiah, already mentioned, is still the principal partner at Child's. Both ladies were at one time said to be in the habit of paying periodical visits to their respective establishments, and to have been distinguished by the affability and good sense with which they sustained their positions, inspected the books, and entered into general details. But this report was true, and that in part, only of the late Duchess of St. A lban's. Her 3

Grace was certainly fond of showing herself at the Bank in the Strand, and peering questions at the partners and clerks, with whom she was no favour-ite, being in truth somewhat of a bore. Lady Jersey7, as the representative of Sir Josiah Child's interest, only attends the Bank once a year, when the accounts are balanced and the profits struck. On this occasion, the partners dine together at the Bank, and the Countess, as the principal partner, takes the head of the table.

Glyn's in Lombard-street is a complete contrast to Coutts": here, in addition to a large portion of the accounts of the nobility and landed gentry, is the greatest number of commercial accounts in London; and here scenes of bustle and animation take place daily, of which it is not easy to convey an adequate idea. About three o'clock, all is life, activity, and vigour; the place is a fair, and more like a great change than the Royal Exchange itself used to be. Though the Bank is spacious, and the counters are packed with clerks as close as they can stand together, you may sometimes have to wait for twenty minutes before your turn to be served arrives. Such is the rush of business at Glyn's. Two mighty streams of money are constantly ebbing and flowing across the counters, and half a million is said to be no uncommon sum for the firm to settle at the clearing house8 of an afternoon.

7 The last Mr. Child left an only daughter, who was the heiress of his great wealth, and married to the Earl of Westmoreland. The eldest daughter of that marriage was the present Countess of Jersey, to whom her grandfather's interest in the Bank is understood to have descended.

In this respect, Grlyn's Bank, more than any other, is characteristic of the age. The rapid progress of modern discoveries, the exploring genius, the accumulated strength and ponderous force of the inventions and improvements of the nineteenth century, are all represented in this one Bank, and not by any means to an equal extent in any other. The talent by which this great concentration of interests has been effected, is of the highest order; it combines intelligence of the most vivid character, and judgment of the keenest power: it draws even more largely upon mental than pecuniary resources, great as the latter unquestionably are, and is equally felicitous and original. Several attempts have been made to emulate this unexampled fortune, but they have proved abortive. The persons who made them have not been at all equal to the aspiration; they have been deficient in knowledge of their own business, as much as in knowledge of mankind, without which there can be no good or safe Banking, and have exhibited sad examples of rashness and credulity, improvidence and culpability. Some have formed branch mercantile firms, and embarked in the tea trade, some in the East India, and some in the American trades, while a still greater number have involved themselves in the favourite speculations of their customers, until house after house has shared the common reverses of commerce, and suffered the fate of the various adventures, which, after first running them to a dead lock-up, have forced them to succumb in poverty and disgrace to one or other of the repeated shocks by which the credit of the mercantile and manufacturing interests of Great Britain have been of late years so disastrously assailed. No faults of this kind appear to have been committed at Glyn's Bank; the partners of which, taking admirable advantage of circumstances, have turned the spirit of the age largely to their profit, without violating in any known instance the established principles of sound and legitimate Banking.

8 The Clearing-house is what common people call "a poking place," in the corner of a court without a name, behind the Guardian Insurance-office, in Lombard-street. No Bankers are admitted to it but those in the immediate neighbourhood. The joint-stock Banks are specially excluded; and neither Child's, nor Hoare's of Fleet-street, nor Coutts', belong to it. It has now been established near sixty years. In 1810 forty-six Bankers settled their accounts at the Clearing-house; at present the number is only twenty-six. The great facilities afforded here for expediting business and economising the use of money, may be estimated by the fact, that the amounts settled on some days exceed five millions sterling, and yet not more than two hours are devoted to this labour; while a few thousands in cash, after the checks and bills of each house upon the others have been balanced, suffice to pay the differences.

If there were half a dozen houses in London such as Glyn's, one would be inclined to contend that private Banking had not yet reached the climax of its prosperity. But seeing as we do, that every year diminishes the number of private Banks in London and in the country; that, on the other hand, joint-stock Banks are everywhere on the increase, while not a single new private copartnership in Banking is now formed; it seems but reasonable to believe, that the general law of change which applies to everything in this world, and those alternations of maturity and decay which occur in all that nature creates or the art of man produces, will, ere long, work the ordinary effects in Banking also. If so, we are in a state of transition as to Banking, and the result will be not the less decided and complete because it will be neither precipitate nor unexpected.