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184 estates were mortgaged, and what incumbrances weighed upon them. Nor did his knowledge stop there: by dint of sundry kind attentions to the clerks of the leading banking-houses, he was aware of the balances they kept, and the credit attached to their names; so that, to the surprise of the borrower, he let him into the secrets of his own actual position. He gave excellent dinners, at which many of the highest personages of the realm were present; and when they fancied that they were about to meet individuals whom it would be upon their conscience to recognize elsewhere, were not a little amused to find clients quite as highly placed as themselves, and with purses quite as empty.

King had a well-appointed house in Clarges Street; but it was in a villa upon the banks of the Thames, which had been beautifully fitted up by Walsh Porter in the Oriental style, and which I believe is now the seat of one of the most favoured votaries of the Muses, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, that his hospitalities were most lavishly and luxuriously exercised. Here it was that Sheridan told his host that he liked his table better than his multiplication table; to which his host, who was not only witty, but