How would you explain the full *magnitude* of the Duke of St. James's wealth to someone unfamiliar with 19th-century aristocratic fortunes, using specific textual details and illustrating its practical implications for his power and influence?

From the book

ly more cash than all the palaces of Vicenza are worth in fee-simple, with those of the Grand Canal of Venice to boot. As if this were not enough, he was an hereditary patron of internal navigation; and although perhaps in his two palaces, three castles, four halls, and lodges _ad libitum_, there were more fires burnt than in any other establishment in the empire, this was of no consequence, because the coals were his own. His rent-roll exhibited a sum total, very neatly written, of two hundred thousand pounds; but this was independent of half a million in the funds, which we had…

ted, when combined, a very excellent specimen of that style of beauty for which the nobility of England are remarkable. Gentle, for he felt the importance of the tribunal, never loud, ready, yet a little reserved, he neither courted nor shunned examination. His finished manner, his experience of society, his pretensions to taste, the gaiety of his temper, and the liveliness of his imagination, gradually developed themselves with the developing hours. The banquet was over: the Duke of St. James passed his examination with unqualified approval; and having been stamped at the mint of…

. This was the only weight that the Duke of St. James ever carried. It was a bore, but it was indispensable. It is done. He stops one moment before the long pier-glass, and shoots a glance which would have read the mind of Talleyrand. It will do. He assumes the look, the air that befit the occasion: cordial, but dignified; sublime, but sweet. He descends like a deity from Olympus to a banquet of illustrious mortals. CHAPTER VIII. _‘Fair Women and Brave Men.’_ MR. DACRE received him with affection: his daughter with a cordiality which he had never yet experienced from her. Though more…

e mothers; the widows, wild as early partridges; the budding virgins, mild as a summer cloud and soft as an opera hat! Think of the drony bores, with their dull hum; think of the chivalric guardsmen, with their horses to sell and their bills to discount; think of Willis, think of Crockford, think of White’s, think of Brooks’, and you may form a faint idea how the young Duke had to talk, and eat, and flirt, and cut, and pet, and patronise! You think it impossible for one man to do all this. There is yet much behind. You may add to the catalogue Melton and Newmarket; and if to hunt…

e Duke of St. James that among the human race he possessed the largest quantity of them all: he cut his private tutor. His private tutor, who had been appointed by Mr. Dacre, remonstrated to Lord Fitz-pompey, and with such success that he thought proper shortly after to resign his situation. Dr. Coronet begged to recommend his son, the Rev. Augustus Granville Coronet. The Duke of St. James now got on rapidly, and also found sufficient time for his boat, his tandem, and his toilette. The Duke of St. James appeared at Christ Church. His conceit kept him alive for a few terms. It is…