loses half its strength, but almost all its dignity. Pliny, endeavouring to give a grand idea of the Hercynian forest, describes the magnitude of the trees in that ancient domain of the Sylvani to be sufficient to admit mounted cavalry to pass beneath the huge radical curves. Whatever ornament Pliny's extravagance might attribute in this respect on the broad expanse of solitary Nature, this gigantic wildness would not be at all adapted to these pigmy haunts of man; but some resemblance, some approach, should be attempted to the magnificence of her operations.

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"Such an object, with some of our readers, would be considered a venerable inmate of these gardens, and to us it would be infinitely preferable to the trim expedients of art. The insulated majesty of this ancient possessor of the soil would prevent the intrusion of the timid hand of man, and the character which this parent of the forest would impart to the general scenery would secure it from sacrilegious profanation."

HOLLAND HOUSE,

CHAPTER XIV.

AND ITS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. "Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell

With me those pleasures that he sang so well."-Lord Holland.

Earl's Court-John Hunter's House-Mrs. Inchbald-Edwardes Square-Warwick Road and Warwick Gardens-Addison Road-Holland House-An Antique Relic-The Pictures and Curiosities-The Library-The Rooms occupied by Addison, Charles Fox, Rogers, and Sheridan-Holland House under the Family of Rich-Theatrical Performances carried on by Stealth during the Commonwealth-Subsequent Owners of the Mansion-Oliver Goldsmith-Addison-The House purchased by Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland- The Story of Henry Fox's Elopement with the Daughter of the Duke of Richmond-Lady Sarah Lennox and the Private Theatricals-Charles James Fox-Henry Richard, third Lord Holland, and his Imperious Wife-Lord Macaulay, and other Distinguished Guests-"Who is Junius?"-Lord Holland and the Emperor Napoleon-Death of Lord Holland, and his Character, as written by a Friend-A Curious Custom-The Duel between Lord Camelford and Captain Best-Rogers' Grotto-The Gardens and Grounds-Canova's Bust of NapoleonThe Highland and Scottish Societies' Sports and Pastimes-A Tradition concerning Cromwell and Ireton-Little Holland House-The Residence of General Fox-The Nursery-grounds.

RETRACING our steps along the Kensington Road, ❘ estate. The house, which was subsequently a we come to Earl's Court Road, a thoroughfare maison de santé, was pulled down in 1885. communicating with the western end of Cromwell Road, which comprises several very handsome detached mansions. It probably owes its name to the Earls of Warwick and Holland, whose mansion | faces it. Sir Richard Blackmore, the poet, appears to have had a residence here, for Pope writes, in his 'Imitations of Horace "

"Blackmore himself, for any grave effort,

Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's Court." In later times Earl's Court afforded a retirement to the eminent surgeon, John Hunter, who here made several experiments in natural history, and formed in the grounds surrounding his villa a menagerie of rare and valuable foreign animals. In the kitchen of Hunter's house the great surgeon literally boiled down the Irish giant, O'Brien, whose skeleton we have mentioned in our account of the Museum* in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Even

the copper in which the operation was performed was long religiously kept, and shown to visitors. After the death of Mr. Hunter, the house in which he resided was for some time occupied occasionally by the Duke of Richmond, who purchased the

* See Vol. III., p. 46.

In Leonard's Place, and also in Earl's Court Terrace, Mrs. Inchbald, the authoress, resided for many years. At the back of Earl's Terrace is Edwardes Square, so called after the family name of Lord Kensington. This square is chiefly remarkable for the largeness as well as the cultivated look of the enclosure, which affords to the residents, and also to the inhabitants of the Terrace, who have the right of entry, the advantages of a larger kind of garden. Leigh Hunt mentions a tradition as current in Kensington that Coleridge once had lodgings in Edwardes Square; but, he adds, "we do not find the circumstance in his biographies, though he once lived in the neighbouring village of Hammersmith."

Warwick Road and Warwick Gardens, which lie on the west side of Edwardes Square, are so named after the Earls of Warwick, the former owners of Holland House. In Warwick Gardens is a wellbuilt Wesleyan chapel. Running parallel with Warwick Road, crossing by a bridge the Kensington Road, and continuing its course by Holland Road, is the Middle Circle Railway, and this we fix upon as the limits of our perambulations in the "far west." Addison Road, of course, is so named

after another and a distinguished occupant of Cope, it was built, in the year 1607, from the Holland House, of which we shall presently speak; designs of John Thorpe, the famous architect of and it forms a communication between the Ken- several of the baronial mansions of England which sington and Uxbridge Roads, skirting the west were erected about that time. Although scarcely side of Holland Park. St. Barnabas Church, which two miles distant from London, with its smoke, its stands in this road, and dates from about the year din, and its crowded thoroughfares, Holland House 1827, is built in the "late Perpendicular" style of still has its green meadows, its sloping lawns, and Gothic architecture. its refreshing trees; and the view of the quaint Having been built only in the early part of the old pile which meets the wayfarer in passing along

seventeenth century, shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth, Holland House has no history that carries us back beyond the first of the Stuarts; nor, indeed, did the mansion become really celebrated till the reign of George I., when the widow of its owner, Rich, Earl of Holland and Warwick, married Addison, who died here. It afterwards came into the possession of the family of Fox, Lord Holland, firstly as tenants, and subsequently as owners of the freehold. The first Lord Holland The first Lord Holland and his lady were both persons of ability; and before the end of the reign of George II., Holland House had risen into a celebrity which it has never since lost.

The mansion takes its name from Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by whose father-in-law, Sir Walter

the Kensington Road, on his road towards or from Hammersmith, is highly suggestive of rural solitude, and the effect is enhanced by the note of the nightingale, which is still often heard in the grounds which surround the mansion. From Sir Walter Cope the property passed to his son-in-law above mentioned, who much improved the house, and completed its internal decorations. The building follows the form so usually adopted at the era of its construction, and may be best described by saying that it resembles one-half of the letter H. The material is brick, with dressings and embellishments of stone and stucco. The projection in the central compartment of the principal division of the house forms at once a tower and porch. There is a building at each end of

the same division, with shingled and steep-roofed "Vision of St. Antony of Padua." The gilt-room turrets, surmounted by a vane. A projecting arcade, terminated by a parapet of carved stonework, ranges along the principal faces of the building; and the original court is bounded by a palisade. The present terrace in front of the house was raised about 1848, when the old footpath, which ran immediately in front of its windows, was diverted from its course. The following are the particulars of the interior of this interesting mansion, as given in "Homes and Haunts of the Poets: ""There is a fine entrance-hall, a library behind it, and another library extending the whole length of one of the wings and the house up-stairs, one hundred and fifty feet in length. The drawing-room over the entrance-hall, called the gilt-room, extends from front to back of the house, and commands views of the gardens both ways; those to the back are very beautiful." There was evidently a chapel attached to the house in former times, for there are some remnants of arches still existing, built into the walls of rooms which now serve a very different purpose. The old bronze font, or "stoup," for holy water, too, stands by the staircase in the inner hall, supported by a comparatively modern tripod of the same material. It appears to have been made in the year 1484, by a Fleming, named Cassel, or Caselli; "around it, far interspersed with odd old Scriptural and armorial devices, is written, in Gothic letters, an abbreviated rendering of the passage in the Psalm, so familiar to Catholic ears: 'Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.'" Many of the pictures which adorn the walls are by some of the best masters. One apartment, called "The Sir Joshua Room," contains several of Reynolds's works, the best of which are considered "Muscipula," a child holding up a mouse in a cage, with puss looking wistfully on from below; a portrait of Baretti, author of the Italian Dictionary, who was tried for murder,* but received favourable testimony from Dr. Johnson, Burke, and Garrick, and was acquitted; and the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox, whom George III. noticed with admiration when a little girl in Kensington Gardens. His Majesty, it is related, requested to see her again in later years, and, in fact, wished much to marry her when she had grown into a young lady. She was one of the bridesmaids at his wedding, when, if report be true, he kept his eyes steadily fixed on her during the ceremony of his own marriage with Charlotte of Mecklenburg. This room contains also Murillo's

which has lost some of its former glories, in the shape of frescoes on the chimney-piece, supposed to represent the Aldobrandini Marriage, and which are presumed to be buried underneath a coating of plaster was prepared by the first Earl of Holland of the line of Rich for the purpose of giving a ball to Prince Charles on the occasion of his marriage with Henrietta Maria of France; the ball, however, for some unexplained reason, never came off. This apartment is now said to be tenanted by the solitary ghost of its first lord, who, according to tradition, "issues forth at midnight from behind a secret door, and walks slowly through the scenes of former triumphs, with his head in his hand." This, however, is not the only "ghost story" connected with Holland House, for credulous old Aubrey tells us: "The beautiful Lady Diana Rich, as she was walking in her father's garden at Kensington, to take the fresh air before dinner, about eleven o'clock, being then very well, met with her own apparition, habit, and every thing, as in a looking-glass. About a month after, she died of the small-pox. And it is said that her sister, the Lady Elizabeth Thynne, saw the like of herself before she died. This account," he adds, "I had from a person of honour."

* See Vol. IV., p. 220.

Among the most noticeable pictures which abound in the map-room and the picture-room, are some by Watts, who is considered by many one of the greatest of contemporary English artists. In the latter room mass was said daily during the brief stay of Marie Amélie, the late Queen of the French, in the house in 1862. In the print-room are some specimens of the Italian, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, Spanish, and English schools; the Rembrandts being the most worthy of note. Hogarth is represented in the next room. Here, among the portraits, are those of Tom Moore, by Shee, and of Rogers, by Hoppner; there are also some fine Dutch sea-pieces. The library, a very handsome long room, contains, besides its literary treasures, among other relics, a table used by Addison at the Temple. There is a glowing notice of this room by Macaulay, too long for quotation. In the yellow drawing-room there is "a pair of candlesticks in Byzantine ware, which belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. They were in her possession at Fotheringay Castle, and thus were witnesses to the last hours of her life's tragedy." There is, too, "an ancient poison-ring," with a death's head in carbuncle, supposed to have been sent to the same unfortunate queen. Here are also numerous relics of the great Napoleon: among them is a locket, containing some of his hair, a ring, and a

Holland House.]

A TRADITION ABOUT ADDISON.

165

cross worn by him in his island prison at St. attendance all night, partly to furnish, we believe, a Helena. The miniature-room, it need scarcely be bottle of champagne to the thirsty orator, in case added, has its treasures; as have also "Lady he should happen to call for one betwixt his Holland's private rooms" and the "blue-room." slumbers (at least, we heard so a long while ago, The former had a narrow escape from destruction and it was quite in keeping with his noble host's by fire a few years ago. Among the remaining hospitality; but we forgot to verify the anecdote on curiosities and works of art preserved here, is this occasion), and partly-of which there is no an interesting collection of fans, some of which doubt-to secure the bed-curtains from being set are very beautifully painted. "One of these," as on fire by his candle." the Princess Marie Lichstenstein informs us in her account of Holland House, "is historically interesting, having been painted by a daughter of George III., before the union of Ireland with England. It bears the rose and the thistle, but no shamrock; and the motto, 'Health is restored to one, happiness to millions,' seems to indicate the occasion for which it was painted." Autographs, too, and manuscripts of famous characters, are not wanting among them are those of Catherine, Empress of Russia; Napoleon I., Voltaire, Addison, Petrarch; letters of Philip II., III., and IV. of Spain; and music by Pergolesi, copied by Rousseau.

"The library," says Leigh Hunt, in his "Old Court Suburb," "must originally have been a greenhouse or conservatory; for, in its first condition, it appears to have been scarcely anything but windows, and it is upwards of ninety feet long, by only seventeen feet four inches wide, and fourteen feet seven inches in height. The moment one enters it, one looks at the two ends, and thinks of the tradition about Addison's pacings in it to and fro. It represents him as meditating his 'Spectators' between two bottles of wine, and comforting his ethics by taking a glass of each as he arrived at each end of the room. The regularity of this procedure is, of course, a jest; but the main circumstance is not improbable, though Lord Holland seems to have thought otherwise. He says (for the words in Faulkner's Kensington' are evidently his): Fancy may trace the exquisite humour which enlivens his papers to the mirth inspired by wine; but there is too much sober good sense in all his lucubrations, even when he indulges more in pleasantry, to allow us to give implicit credit to a tradition invented, probably, as excuse for intemperance by such as can empty two bottles of wine, but never produce a 'Spectator' or a Freeholder."" Of other apartments which have any particular interest attached to them, is the chamber in which Addison died; the bed-room occupied by Charles Fox; that of Rogers, the poet, who was a frequent visitor here; and also that of Sheridan, "in the next room to which," as Leigh Hunt informs us. "a servant was regularly in

In a previous chapter we have narrated the descent of the manor of Kensington from the time of the Conquest, when it was held by the De Veres, down to the present day. Sir Walter Cope, the purchaser of the Vere property in Kensington, was a master of the Court of Wards in the time of James I., and one of the Chamberlains of the Exchequer. He built the centre of the house

and the turrets, and bequeathed it, as already stated, to Sir Henry Rich, the husband of his daughter and heiress, Isabel. Not long afterwards, Sir Henry was raised to the peerage, when he assumed his title of nobility from his wife's inheritance-that of Lord Kensington. The wings and arcades were added by this nobleman, who also completed the internal decorations. His lordship was a courtier, and had the honour of being employed to negotiate a marriage between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain; but the negotiation proved abortive. Lord Kensington's services were, nevertheless, appreciated and rewarded by an earl's coronet and the insignia of the Garter. The new title chosen by his lordship was Holland, and thence the manor house of Kensington received its present appellation. This Earl of Holland was a younger son of Robert Rich, first Earl of Warwick, by his marriage with. Penelope, daughter of Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Essex, and the "Stella" of Sir Philip Sidney. He was a favourite with King James's "Steenie," Duke of Buckingham, whom he almost rivalled in coxcombry. During the prosperous portion of Rich's career, Holland House, no doubt, was the centre of rank and fashion. The name of Bassompierre, the French ambassador, figures among the guests here at that time. The earl was a political waverer in the "troublous times" of Charles I. He was twice made a prisoner in the house: first by Charles, in 1633, upon the occasion of his challenging Lord Weston, and a second time by command of the Parliament, after the unsuccessful issue of his attempt to restore the king, in 1648. In the following year he lost his life on the scaffold in Palace Yard, Westminster; foppish to the last, he is reported to have died in a white satin waistcoat or doublet, and a cap made