the library, and the Duke sits on the sofa by the Queen for the rest of the evening until eleven o’clock, the Prince and the gentlemen being scattered about in the library, or the billiard-room which opens into it. In a large conservatory beyond, the band of the Duke’s Grenadier regiment plays through the evening.” The Queen and Prince Albert returned on the 23rd of January to Windsor Castle, and the brief amusements of the early year speedily gave place to those important duties which are necessarily associated with the government of a great Empire. Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 4th of February. The Royal Speech referred with satisfaction to the decline of political agitation in Ireland. It was mentioned that, as a natural result of this change, private capital had been more freely applied than previously to useful public [Illustration: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AT WINDSOR CASTLE.] enterprises, undertaken through the friendly co-operation of individuals interested in the welfare of that country. Sir Robert Peel made his annual financial statement on the 14th of the same month. The Bank Charter Act of 1844, for separating the issue from the banking department of the great establishment in Threadneedle Street, limiting the issue of notes, and requiring the whole of the further circulation to be on a basis of bullion, had already placed the monetary affairs of the country on a better footing. As regarded the Budget, the Premier calculated the revenue for the ensuing year at £53,100,000, and the expenditure at £49,000,000. Notwithstanding this surplus of more than £4,000,000, Sir Robert Peel considered it advisable to continue the Income Tax for a further period of three years, as he found it necessary to increase the expenditure on account of the public service, and desired to apply his surplus to the reduction of the sugar duty, together with the abolition of the duties on glass, cotton, and wool, and on the importation of Baltic staves. It was also proposed to abolish the duty on all those articles which yielded merely nominal amounts--a step which, it was calculated, would sweep away four hundred and thirty articles from the tariff. These proposals met with no great opposition, and were rapidly carried through Parliament by large majorities.