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This of course is the partiality of friendship and the

license of a poet.

A great poet Addison was not. He was no orator; he showed but little talent as a statesman, his dramatical productions, regarded from a dramatic point of view, were but second rate; his learning though extensive, was not remarkable. Yet as a writer of pure, clear, lucid English prose, he is probably unequalled. He was almost the originator of the essay, he was a humorist of the first water, and a satirist without being a cynic. He was a sincere moralist, a brilliant conversationalist, and a good man. His influence on the men and manners of his age was as great as the influence of any writer on the men and manners of any particular age has been, and it was an influence that was always exerted in the cause of morality, of humanity, and of learning. It was however, only among his chosen friends that his sparkling wit and conversational wealth displayed themselves. With strangers he was mute, and in his own words "he could draw a bill for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket.” Indeed Lord Chesterfield declares that "he was the

most timorous and awkward man that he ever saw." Many memorials of Addison are treasured at Holland House, and most of the rooms are more or less connected with his name. There is the present dining room, a fine old fashioned apartment, with richly laden sideboard, and pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Kneller, and Lely-here Addison died. There is the library, upwards of ninety feet in length, bay-windowed at either end, containing within its bookcases treasures priceless to the antiquary, the bibliomaniac, and the literary man, manuscripts of Lope de Vega, music copied by Jean Jaques Rouseau, when he in this manner, earned a miserable subsistence, and books of value innumerable. To this room belongs the story of Addison's pacings to and fro, with a bottle of wine at either end, and assisting the muse, by regularly taking a glass from each bottle. The story may or may not be true. Horace Walpole, indeed, caps the touching account of his death as commonly received, with the sarcastic words, " Unfortunately, he died of brandy." The brandy, at all events, if it did not assist, at least did not spoil Addison's papers in the Spectator. Considering the habitual intemperance

of the age in which he lived, Addison does not seem to have drunk more, or so much as most of his contemporaries, which is but a faint qualification, if any at all. In this same apartment, the library, is preserved Addison's table, small, simple, and ink-blotted, and in the library passage is a portrait of him. But there have not been wanting cavillers to prove that the portrait is not the portrait of Addison, but of somebody else, so that we leave our readers to decide here as they choose, just as in the case of the brandy story, It was at Holland House that Milton's daughter paid Addison a visit.

After the death of Addison, Holland House still remained in the possession of the Warwick family. On the death of the young earl, which took place in the year following that of his stepfather, his cousin, William Edwardes, afterwards Baron Kensington, became possessed of the property, and under him the house appears to have been let or lent as frequently as before, Among these temporary tenants were Shippen, the plain, downright honest Jacobite, Lechmere, the Whig lawyer, of whom we have spoken in connection with Campden House, and the daughter

of Atterbury, the celebrated Bishop of Rochester, perhaps, indeed, Atterbury himself. At all events, his library was there, and a room for him, whether occupied or not. At length Holland House passed from the hands of the Warwick family. It was leased in 1749 to Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, who purchased it in 1762.

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CHAPTER XII.

HOLLAND HOUSE.

The Foxes-Stephen Fox-Henry Fox, First Lord Holland-Wide difference between his political and domestic character.

WITH the Foxes, commences a new era in the history of the mansion. This family settled here about the middle of the eighteenth century, and the house remains in their hands at present. The founder of the House of Fox, a House afterwards dignified with the title of Holland, was Stephen, a choir-boy in Salisbury Cathedral, perhaps, at first, a footman, but afterwards employed in a much higher position in the household of Lord Percy, Chamberlain to the King. Stephen became an adherent of the exiled House of Stuart, and was fortunate enough to be first to announce the death of Oliver Cromwell to Charles the Second. When Charles returned to our island a place was

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