"Lord

"The breakfast very agreeable," Moore goes on to say. Holland full of sunshine, as usual. 'He always comes down to breakfast,' says Rogers, very truly, 'like a man upon whom some sudden good fortune has fallen.'

Talleyrand remarked of Lord Holland, "C'est la bienveillance même, mais la bienveillance la plus perturbatrice, qu'on ait jamais vue." Sydney Smith, who was an intimate friend, and one of the circle that regularly visited and dined at Holland House, has written: "There never was a better heart, or one more purified from all the bad passions-more abounding in charity and compassion, or which seemed to be so created as a refuge to the helpless and oppressed." He was born at Winterslow House, in Wilts, Nov. 21, 1773, and two months afterwards was rescued by his mother from the flames which barnt the house to the ground. He lost his grandfather, his grandmother, and his father, during the year 1774. In four years afterwards his mother also died. His guardian, the Earl of Upper Ossory, sent him to Eton, where he was the contemporary of George Canning. From Eton he proceeded to Christ Church, and took his degree, M.A., in right of his rank, in 1792. Before leaving Oxford, he had visited the Continent, and was in France after the acceptance of the Constitution by Louis XVI. Between 1793 and 1796 he travelled in Spain and Italy, and made that collection of the literature of both countries before alluded to. On his marriage with Lady Webster (after her divorce from Sir Godfrey Webster), Lord Holland took her maiden name of Vassal, by royal sign-manual. His marriage led him to restore and re-furnish Holland House, which became from that time his settled residence. In 1798 he took his seat in the House of Lords, following the policy and seconding there the efforts which his uncle, Charles James Fox, was making "in another place." His political life may be said to have been passed in opposition, in minorities, and in inscribing protests on the records of the House against a variety of bills which he considered unrighteous and intolerant. Lord Holland opposed the union with Ireland; he also opposed the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. In 1802, being in Paris, after the peace of Amiens, he was presented to Napoleon, for whom he ever after cherished a particular sympathy and regard. On the death of his uncle in 1806, he was appointed Privy Seal. In 1806 he published his "Life of Lope de Vega," and 1808 edited his uncle's "History of James II." For a long series of years he continued remarkable for his steady and unswerving opposition to the policy of the Government.

Of the school of Fox, he continued to the last the steadiest and most persevering pupil, supporting every measure that he considered was liberal in its tendency. Thus he was the advocate of Sir Samuel Romilly's law amendments; of Catholic Emancipation; he was a supporter of Canning's Administration; and in 1828 he introduced the bill for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. In 1830, when the Whig Government was formed, he became a Cabinet Minister as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and this office he continued to hold (excepting during the short changes of Government in 1832 and 1834) until his death, in October 22, 1840. Had Lord Holland lived until the present time, he would have been equally astonished and delighted to see many of the principles, which he vainly advocated, adopted by the State. But it is not as a politician that he will be remembered or regarded! As "Lord Holland" he is even now as universally styled, as if there had never been any other peer of that title. It was his "gilded room, which furnished the best and most agreeable society in the world" (as Sydney Smith declared), in which, while Lady Holland dispensed the hospitalities, his immense popularity was gained. He was a man of elegant education, genuine benevolence, unbounded hospitality, but a hospitality that was both bounded and select in the choice of the persons upon whom it was so unboundedly lavished. It has been said of him, "Lord Holland selected his lords and ladies, not for their rank, but for their peculiar merits or acquirements." His own cultivated tastes, experience from travel, and hearty love of literature, made him desire to draw about him those whose genius and excellence had rendered them distinguished; and his friend Allen (to whom he had been introduced by Sydney Smith), who, acting as his librarian and conversation-maker or sustainer, at his entertainments, must have had a brilliant, but possibly on some occasions a rather onerous role to fill. The anecdotes of Lady Holland, as mistress of Holland House, are so numerous, and her memory is still so green with the elders of the present generation, that it would be an idle repetition to produce them here. "Elle est tout assertion," exclaimed Talleyrand; "mais quand on demande la preuve c'est la son secret." Lord Erskine said much the same of her ladyship, when she compelled him to present Sydney Smith to his Yorkshire living of Foston-le-Clay. "Oh, don't thank me, Mr. Smith," said the Chancellor to Sydney offering his thanks; "I gave you the living because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so; and if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he must have had it."

Towards the close of his life, Lord Holland used to be wheeled about in a chair, as his affliction rendered him gradually more and more inactive, terminating eventually with water on the chest. Some short time before he died, he gave the late Marquis of Lansdowne the following epitaph of his own composition:-" Here lies Henry Vassal Fox, Lord Holland, who was drowned while sitting in his elbow-chair." It was in that elbow-chair that he did die; and after his death, the following more serious lines were found on his table :

"Nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey,

Sufficient for my fame

If those who knew me best shall say

I tarnished neither name."

On his death, in 1840, Lord Holland was succeeded by his son, Henry Edward, fourth and last Baron Holland. He was born in 1802, and in 1826 was returned M.P. for Horsham. From 1839 to 1842 he represented England as Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, having married, in 1833, the Lady Mary Augusta, daughter of the Earl of Coventry. By him several important improvements and alterations were made at Holland House. The new terrace and parapet in front was constructed. The new entrance and staircase from the hall was erected, and the roof of the library was groined and lighted. Unfortunately, the master who exhibited so much regard for the noble house that he had inherited, was not destined to enjoy it long. He died at Naples on the 18th December, 1859, and was buried there. By his will, the house and estate were left absolutely to his widow, who jealously preserves the fabric and guards its valuable contents, and who, let us hope, will take good care that future generations shall find the home of Addison and Fox intact. Whoever may become possessor of Holland House (sceing what we have seen in the present age of spendthrift spoliation, and of disregard both for property and possessions, which, though they may be private as to tenure, are public and national in their antiquarian interest), all who love the few precious relics still spared to us, will fervently desire that the hand of the spoiler or speculator may not "lay waste this dwelling-place."

Bull in the hale's Belly.

BY SMELFUNGUS.

Vide "Times" newspaper of day now passing or past :-" On Wednesday last, Her Majesty's Ministers, as usual at this time. dined together at the 'Ship,' Greenwich." Truly, a Symposium of the frightfullest kind, this; plain Belshazzar's Feast, as seems to me; the old Mene, Mene, Tekel, etc., visibly scribbling itself, for such as might have eyes to see, on every square foot of the apartment. Really ghastly to think of the poor devils jubilant in their "Ship" there, bound for mere Orcus and the belly of Hell, serenely unconscious the while, and dreaming of the Happy Isles. "Lord Derby, from indisposition, unhappily unable to be present." Poor old Rupert of Debate, of whom one cannot but still think, after all that has come and gone, with something of a partially human feeling! Heir of all these antique chivalries and heroisms, and even in some sort authentic heir, as no thrice blessed "Law of Entail" could ever the least have made him; with some clear flash in him yet, as of battle-steel which flashed on Flodden; fit, had the Gods so ordered it, to have been a Rupert of so much other than mere Debate, and perhaps to have slain some considerable Pythons for us. Indisposition of poor old Rupert? The podagras and nodosities presumably, known to have pressed a little sore of late on the poor old fellow; heir, too, it seems, of these, among the other aristocratic felicities. Indisposition of him presumably some acuter or acutest twinge of sad inherited podagras! Possibly-one hopes it, one will try to believe it-indisposition, mainly, to be present at so foul and obscene an orgie, comparable only to that of hideous Irish savages waking the dead body of their mother. One almost thinks it may be so mainly; and that the podagras were only incidentally concerned in it. One cannot but surmise, old Rupert, thinking of the turn things have now taken, and of his own share in that bad matter, must have fierce twinges of soul at times, to which no twinge in the mere great too of him, or the like, could ever in the least be comparable. Old Rupert indisposed to be present by the sad podagra twinges belike, or, haply, by sorer beneficent twinges of just horror and remorse, the Dizzy creature clearly cock of the walk on the occasion, and, as such, was "received with the greatest enthusiasm "—the whole company buzzing

and swarming about him to such an extent as we may fancy. Creature, of whom much were to be said, did the English language afford to present writer-disposed, if he could, to be polite-the proper terms of courtesy to say it in. Great man, he? as the swarmeries and buzzeries keep buzzing to us. Surely, no, let the swarmeries buzz as they will of him. Not a great kind of man, this! Yet surely-for, were he Beelzebub himself, it is fit his dues should be given him-the adroitest, dexterousest, shiftiest of men! And undoubtedly at this sad juncture the one supremely successful man. The successful, and,

therefore-in his kind-the able man; the man able to succeed. Without doubt, in the present crisis, this Dizzy exhibits himself throughout as a Can-ning and victorious Doer-doer of his friends, the Tory party, to an extent that may be held miraculous. Beyond question a political Jew (and Do) of the very highest eminence! I will quit this of the Dizzy creature, as wishing to remain polite. ElseO heavens! were there not to be said yet a thing or two? Wretched "Old Clo" scandal of creation, of whom, and the sad, bad ways of him, a writer, who is nothing, if not courteous, must decline here to speak farther. Of these other gay banqueteers who could care to say anything? They are altogether dim and dark to me; very names of them the saner kind of human memory declines to keep hold of beyond the minute. We will leave them--poor devils!-as we found them, so exceedingly happy in the "Ship," toasting "our noble selves," and little dreaming whither bound.

One little feature in this dreadful Symposium-my friends, it is really dreadful, dreadful and tragical, if you will think of it; what can accurately be called thinking-I note-before washing my hands of the fetid subject-as not, perhaps, without its significance. "Throughout the evening, no allusion whatever was made to political subjects." Infandum! infandum! The thing is done, then! Alas! yes-it is done -but, for God's sake, don't unnecessarily speak of, or even "allude" to such a horror; here, as we are, to enjoy ourselves, though, indeed, a little under difficulties. So might sit some pale conclave of murderers— the corpses in the next room-with blue ruin circulating freely, wild levities on the lips of them, in the souls of them a ghastly terror, and, "Oh, damn you! don't allude," for any one venturing to hint at the all-absorbing, but proscribed, grim topic. This latest version of "Oh no, we never mention her," has perhaps, as I said, its significance. Probably, in the whole room-the Dizzy creature except, perhaps, as incapable of any such emotion-there did not feast a man who was not, in the