with the addition of a tail and some other little appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wildbeast man; Mr. Hogarth having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it for an exhibition of pictures, on his Lordship's refusal. The harshness and repulsiveness of Lord Holland's features are commemo and that the Divine Infant impresses no weight send for it in three days, it will be disposed of, upon the book — as indeed a spiritual presence would not-yet Murillo is guilty of allowing the spiritual form to throw a shadow! Nor is this the only instance in which Murillo has fallen into this error, an error which, so far as we are aware, has escaped criticism. Curious indeed that one who so often shines forth as a heaven-inspired artist, one whose choice of subjects proves that his thoughts dwelt constantly in another world, should have overlooked this essential and very beautiful distinction between the spirit and the flesh, and should have given to the one such a marked attribute of the other. But if the great painter has thus not always proved himself an accurate poet, a great poet has in similar circumstances proved himself a true painter. Dante, throughout his glorious journey, keeps in sight this spiritual indication: Now if in front of me no shadow fall, Marvel not at it more than at the heavens, Because one ray impedeth not another. There is another art-criticism susceptible of practical application. The subject is a portrait of Mary Augusta, Lady! Holland, by Watts: Watts pronounces this his finest piece of colouring. On a canvas which measures 85 inches by 61, Lady Holland is represented as standing in a corner of the GILT ROOM. The massive plaits of her auburn hair are displayed, without rudeness, by her back being turned to a looking-glass! Utilizing a looking-glass thus, was, at that time, very new in painting; nor are there many artists to this day who, having the idea, would care to profit by it. But photography, which can afford to give de'tails without making them extras, has hackneyed the looking-glass idea into a lookingglass trick, and reduced it to the condition of a fine melody popularized on barrel-organs. In the picture before us, the looking-glass not only contributes a second view, but gives us variety in reflection. Everything is well managed. The drawing is good, the arrangement effective; and as for the colouring: what is dark, is rich; what is light, is pure; what is shade, is harmonious. The "Fourth West Room" contains three pictures by Hogarth, one of which, a portrait of Henry, first Lord Holland, may be connected with an anecdote printed without the name. A nobleman having refused to take or pay for his portrait, painted to order, was thus addressed: Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord finding that he does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. Hogarth's necessity for the money; if, therefore, his Lordship does not, 66 rated by more than one parliamentary sarcasm, and we have already seen him haggling with Reynolds. A similar threat was actually put in execution by a painter named Du Bost some sixty years since. Failing to extract an extravagant price for a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Hope, of Deepdene, he exhibited it for money in Pall Mall, as Beauty and the Beast," till her brother entered the room and cut it to pieces. An action was brought, and tried before Lord Ellenborough, who held that the picture being a libel the plaintiff could only recover damages for the loss of the canvas and the paint. Semble (as the Year Books have it) that he was therefore entitled to no damages at all.* The modern artist of whom we are most frequently reminded in Holland House is Watts; a painter whose best portraits, instinct with mind and character, are historic pictures as well as likenesses. "About the year 1843 he arrived in Florence with a letter of introduction to the late Lord Holland, then English Minister at the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Lord Holland, ever ready with kind and generous hospitality, invited the young artist to stay at the Legation. At first Mr. Watts only intended to spend a short time in Florence, but he remained on from day to day for nearly four years, in an increasing intimacy agreeable to all parties. To this intimacy we owe some of the best portraits and restorations at Holland House." There are portraits by him of Guizot, Thiers, Jerome Buonaparte, the Duc d'Aumale, Sir Antony Panizzi, Mr. Cotterell, Mr. Cheney, the Princess Lieven, the Countess Castiglione, the third Lord Holland, Elizabeth Lady Holland, and Mary Augusta (the present) Lady Holland, taken in a Nice hat at Florence in 1843. "This picture is charmingly painted, and gives us the present hostess of Holland House presiding, as it were, over one of its most sociable rooms, with a smile which lights Du Boste v. Beresford. - Campbell's "Nisi Prius Keports," vol. ii. p. 511. up her face as much as the ray of sunshine lights up the picture." In this same room hangs "Mary Fox, an old-fashioned picture of an old-fashioned-looking little girl, with a fine Spanish pointer as big as herself, whose name must be mentioned for auld lang syne, Eliza." A steel engraving of this picture forms the frontispiece of the first volume of the work. during the minority of the third Lord Holland. On May-day, 1753, an entertainment was given in this room, of which a singular reminiscence has been preserved in the shape of a list of the company and an account of their proceedings. There were twenty-one couples of dancers: Mr. George Selwyn dancing with Miss Kitty Compton, the Earl of Hillsborough with Lady Caroline Fox, the Duke of Richmond with Miss Bishop, Captain Sandys with the Countess of Coventry, &c. Lady Albemarle, Lady Yarmouth, Mrs. Digby, and Mr. Fox played two pools at quadrille. Five gentlemen and four ladies "cut in at whist," including the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, Lady Townshend, and Mr. In appearance dignified, in manners simple, Digby. Five played cribbage. Eight, with the intellect of a man and the pliability including Mr. H. Walpole and Mr. Calof a woman; well dressed, and always suitably craft, "only looked on." The portrait of the Princess de Lieven is one of extraordinary merit, and it is added that Watts ranks it amongst his best. It gives occasion for a slight, but striking, biographical notice, most of the particulars of which are taken from a manuscript in the possession of Lady Holland: - Lord Bateman The Card Players play'd but a little while. The Card Tables (in Number three) were in Lady Caroline's Dressing Room. The Balcony, as well as the Gilt Room, was lighted up, and they danced a little while in both. to her years, she presented in herself a general and the Earl of Holderness "danced concentration of charms; and these, wherever minuets only: she went, she seemed unwittingly to dispense without self-privation. Her style in writing harmonized with her other qualities, and was always in harmony with her subject. She could be grave, gay, learned, sarcastic. One generally loves doing what one does well; she wrote well and loved to use her pen. She has been very aptly said to combine "la raison de la Rochefoucauld avec les manières de Madame de Sévigné." But with all this she had no taste for reading, except the newspapers; and her ignorance upon some common subjects would have been marvellous even in a school-! boy. Her end was touching and dignified. Naturally nervous about herself, she had dreaded the slightest indisposition; but when she heard that her doom was sealed, she looked death calmly in the face, and conformed to the last rites of the Protestant Church. Feeling the supreme moment at hand, she requested that | Guizot and his son would leave her bedside, in order that they might be spared the painful sight of her agony. She had, however, still strength enough to address Guizot, her old and devoted friend, tracing in pencil these words: "Merci de vingt ans d'amitié et de bonheur." Tea, Negus, &c., at which Mrs. Fannen PreAt One We all sided, in the Tapestry room. went down to a Cold Supper, at Three Tables in the Saloon, and three in the Dining Room. Supper was remov'd at each Table with a Desert (sic), and Ice. All sate down, Lady Townshend, Lady Fitzwilliams, Duke of Marlbro', and Mr. Legge, only Excepted who went before Supper. Danced after Supper. No Dancer went before three, or stay'd after Five. The Tables Prepar'd in the Supper Rooms held Fifty-six. A Corner Table was plac'd Extraordinary for Six Men, Besides. down to Supper in all Sixty-two. Sate Lord Digby, and Mr. Bateman, did not sup, but walk'd about admiring. After a bit of moralizing in her manner, the Princess winds up her entertaining chapter of "The Gilt Room" in these words: And so the brilliant medal has its reverse: Speaking of Cleyn, in his "Anecdotes for now, in spite of being still sometimes filled of Painting," Walpole says, "There is by a joyous, laughing crowd, the Gilt Room is still extant a beautiful chamber adorned said to be tenanted by the solitary ghost of its by him at Holland House with a ceiling first lord, who, according to tradition, issues in grotesque, and small compartments on forth at midnight from behind a secret door, the chimneys, in the style, and not un- and walks slowly through the scenes of former worthy, of Parmeggiano." This is "The triumphs with his head in his hand. To add Gilt Room." All the decorations and to this mystery, there is a tale of three spots of paintings in it have been restored by blood on the side of the recess whence he Watts, who found no traces of any paint-issues, three spots of blood which can never be ing on the chimney-piece; and the old ceiling, having fallen in, was replaced effaced. Macaulay has said all that could be said for the Library, and he might have expatiated in much the same strain on "The Library Passage," where many an illustrious guest has lingered over the prints, portraits, photographs, and autographs on the walls. Here is the socalled portrait of Addison, with his last autograph; a miniature of the Empress Catherine, with her autograph; the miniature of Robespierre, on the back of which may be read, in the handwriting of Charles Fox: “Un scélérat, un lâche et un fou." But before quite leaving the LIBRARY PASSAGE we must not forget to look at the windows. In the southern window is a pane of glass removed from the window of what we believe used to be Rogers's dressing-room in the East Turret. Upon this pane of glass are cut some lines by Hookham Frere. They date from October 1811, and run as follows: May neither fire destroy nor waste impair Nor time consume thee till the twentieth Heir, May Taste respect thee and may Fashion spare. To which we add a devout Amen! and to which Rogers is reported to have said, “I wonder where he got the diamond." tice or neglect which his lordship thinks can be accounted for "in no other way than by considering it as a fixed and settled rule that there is a line drawn in this country between the ruling caste and the rest of the community." May it not be accounted for by the habits and disposition of the man who was content to pass his whole life in a dependent position? Moreover, his intellectual efforts never attracted much attention beyond a limited circle. He died in 1843. The year before his death, Sydney Smith writes to Lady Holland: I am sorry to hear Allen is not well; but the reduction of his legs is a pure and unmixed good; they are enormous, they are clerical! He has the creed of a philosopher and the legs of a clergyman; I never saw such legs, - at least belonging to a layman. We must not forget to mention that some letters from Moore and Rogers form part of the hitherto unpublished MSS. of Holland House. "Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their illustrious The "Yellow Drawing-room" alone masters. The wonderful city, which, anboasts relics and memorials enough to cient and gigantic as it is, still continues excite the envy of the richest and most to grow as fast as a young town of logfortunate collector; and the chapter de- wood by a water privilege in Michigan, voted to it contains matter of historical may soon displace those turrets and garvalue, which we pass over with regret. dens which are associated with so much "The Miniature Room" and the "Print that is interesting and noble, with the Room," also, are eminently suggestive courtly magnificence of Rich, with the and rich. But it is as much as we can loves of Ormond, with the counsels of do to afford space for "Allen's Room;" Cromwell, with the death of Addison.” * and Lady Holland's "pet atheist " (as Al- If we are not misinformed, arrangements len was called) is an indispensable figure have been made that will prevent these in our group. He was recommended, in turrets and gardens from being speedily 1801, by Sydney Smith to Lord Holland, displaced. But we tremble when we think who wanted a "clever young Scotch med- of the fate impending over the Northumical man" to accompany him to Spain. berland House lion of Fonthill dismanThey suited each other so well that he tled and coming down with a crash: of was domesticated in Holland House. the ring of the auctioneer's hammer in "To Lady Holland he must have been a the princely halls of Stowe: of the disfriendly factotum. He almost always at- persion of the art treasures of Strawberry tended her on her drives, was usually in- Hill, just as it was about to derive fresh vited out with her and Lord Holland to lustre from taste and munificence. If, dinner, and in Holland House sat at the then, the stately fabric we have been combottom of the table and carved. In this memorating, with its priceless contents, performance Lady Holland was apt to must perish, so much the greater will be fidget him by giving him directions, and the debt of gratitude due from future genhe would assert his independence by lay-erations to those who afford the means ing down the knife and fork and telling of keeping it permanently present to the her she had better do it herself!" mind's eye. Non omnis moriar. Though lost to sight, to memory dear. Good cop His character has been carefully drawn by Lord Brougham, who raises the ques-ies are nearly as effective as originals in tion why "with his great talents, long supplying food for reflection, in appealing experience, many rare accomplishments, and connection with statesmen," he was * "Lord Macaulay's Essays." We have found no never brought into public life; an injus- trace of the loves of Ormond at Holland House. From Blackwood's Magazine. to the imagination and the heart. Hein- light might thus be thrown upon a very rich Heine said of a celebrated poem that, difficult and delicate branch of natural if suddenly destroyed, it might be com- science. The story I am about to tell, if pletely reproduced from a translation story it can be called, concerns one of which he named. Thanks to the work those purgatories of modern existence, before us, with its graphic delineations those limbos of the weary and restless and descriptions, if Holland House were spirit. Gentle reader, have you ever to be burnt down or swallowed up to- been in Fife? The question is somemorrow, its most inspiring elevating as- what insulting to your intelligence. No sociations would survive, and everything doubt there is finer scenery to be had in it or about it, capable of material repro- elsewhere; no doubt the calm landscape, duction, might be reproduced. with its low hills, its rich fields, its bold yet unexciting sea-margin, its line of tiny seaports, is not of the kind which lays a very forcible hold upon the imagination; yet Fife has still its individual flavour, perhaps less hackneyed, if less picturesque, than the Highland glens and hills. The simile is perhaps an unfortunate one, RAILWAYS, I suppose, have many ad- and may recall to some chance traveller vantages; at least we have been told so, the very distinct and not delightful so often, that a kind of belief in them has savour of the little coast towns in the taken a firm hold of the modern mind. heyday of the herring-curing, when every We say to ourselves that it is a great street is possessed by the cured and the thing to have so many facilities of loco-curers, and the air for miles around conmotion; and there are even some intelli-veys a most ancient and fishlike smell to gences which feel themselves enlarged all fastidious nostrils. The process is and enlightened by the mere vague not pleasant, but it is quaint, and not grandeur of dashing through the air at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, though at risks which are somewhat appalling to contemplate. Perhaps, indeed, these risks add to the pleasure by adding to the excitement. "The danger's self were lure alone," as it is in climbing the Alps and other risky expeditions. But in mere speed, that much desired and discouraged mode of progression the broomstick, open as it was only to the Illuminati, a class even more exclusive than the Alpine Club, must have had superior advantages; and in point of danger, the old coaches, I believe, were scarcely inferior, though their catastrophes were less impressive to the imagination, and the victims fewer, in each individual event. There is one point, however, in which nothing, so far as I am aware, has ever equalled the railway, and that is the junction which here and there over the whole country, or, it might be said, over the whole world, binds several lines together, and contributes an important element to that general power of upsetting the mental equilibrium which is possessed by this age. How much the neighbourhood of a good junction may have to do with the production of cases of "brain-fag," and other mysterious complications of the mental and physical systems, it would be curious to inquire; and perhaps some without its interest to those whose olfactory nerves are strong enough to bear it ; and the scene has a certain homely picturesqueness of its own. The boats rolling with a clumsy movement, half rustic, half salt-water-something between the lurch of a sailor and the heavy gait of a ploughman - with brown sails, and a silvery underground of herring overflowing everything below, to the rude pier; the band of spectators on the stony quay above, hanging upon the very margin, looking down as from a precipice upon the grey, indifferent fishermen, screaming at them as with one voice; the rude tables set out in the streets, with sturdy female operators, knife in hand, barricaded with herring-barrels ; the bustle, the hum, the fish, pervading the whole scene-rampant industry at its roughest and wildest; with the calm sea plashing softly on the rocks on one hand, and the calm green country on the other, looking on, both with a silent scrutiny which looks almost reproachful, but is merely indifferent, as nature always is. How strange that this odd saturnalia should belong to the most sober and steady-going of all agencies that Trade which makes Great Britain (as people say) what she is, yet in itself is often so little attractive, so noisy, so lawless! The smell of the cured herring pursues the traveller along the coast from one seaport to another, as the brown little | Scotch towns, and indeed, in its way, of towns, with their low church towers, and European towns, whatever a peevish poet red-roofed houses, and little semicircular caught by the east winds may say; or brown piers stretched out into the blue Perth with its noble Tay, so poorly comFirth - join hands, and straggle along plimented by the "Ecce Tiberis!" still the edge of the rocks; but this is not the proudly quoted by its inhabitants, and its flavour of Fife of which we spoke. There green Inches upon which the romantic are broad fields waving rich with corn, traveller can still hear the old Celtic hero, and hills, low among the giants, yet bold cry "Another for Hector!" or grey here where no giants are, blooming with St. Andrews on its rocky land-head, purple heather, and pathetic moorlands, where the dim Yesterday of the poetic and broad plantations of fir breathing ages keeps watch from its ruins over the aromatic odours, to make up "the russet lively To-day of the Links, sprinkled with garment," of which our little rich sea- red-coated golfers, and gay bands of ports, in their lucky days, were counted sea-maidens; or lone Lochleven, more the "golden fringe." And we doubt romantically historical, with its green whether Anstruther and Pittenweem island in the midst of the dark water, have much that is golden in them nowa- and the ruined towers in which Mary, days, or are so valuable as the broad lands from which high farming has cleared every superfluous tree, and which no green lane, with bowery shadow, no broad turf-margined highway is permitted to infringe upon. How good is high farming!-how noble is trade! yet between them they rob us of many a tranquil old-world charm, the seaside sense of monotony and stillness, the rural leisure, breadth, and calm. dangerous and fair, once plotted and languished. All these are within reach of Ladybank; and so is old mouldering royal Falkland, with memories which go back into the twilight of history, where many a tragical deed was done; and Dunfermline with its ruined palace, and that shrine where St. Margaret of Scotland rests unhonoured, and where the bones of Bruce are laid. These surroundings, if you think of them, throw a more It is not, however, my business to genial glow upon the weary roadside maunder about the herring-curing, de- station where you wait, upon the hard testable branch of national profit which wooden bench on which you repose yourfills so many pockets, as it fills the air at self, and the grimy iron-way which rePittenweem and St. Monance - or about fuses to carry you on till you have paid the high farming which plants a tall and kain to Ennui, gloomiest of all the devils," smoky chimney at every farm-steading, and been almost tempted to put an end and makes the country so much more to yourself. I do not know how Ladyrich and so much less lovely. Fife has bank has got its pretty name,- whether something more than these. It has a it comes from Our Lady herself, the halfsystem of railways zigzagging curiously mother, half-goddess, of all Catholic from one town to another, cutting across races (it is pleasant to think that this its surface in all kinds of unthought-of name of names does linger here and there ways, and involving itself in such a net- even in Puritan Scotland, where all the work of lines and so many bewildering world has long been jealous of her)—or junctions, that the power of balance and from the other lady of Scotland, that self-control retained by the most sensi- very different Mary for whom men still ble of counties, is put to perpetual trial. defy each other, though it be but in print. One of these is Thornton, where, in the The place is not badly situated: it lies vicinity of coal-pits and iron-works, you at the foot of the soft Lomonds, two hills may wait for hours unbeguiled by any- which rise in purple shadows, and put on thing but the jarring of trains and the garments of cloth-of-gold in the sunshine, guard's whistle; and another is the scene as royal as if they were thousands of feet of this narrative-the junction of Lady-high instead of hundreds. It has all the bank-softly named but terribly gifted glories of Fife, such as they are, within locality, - whence you may go when reach; it is a door through which you you canto a great variety of attractive may pass high up into the mysterious places, but which lays such a tenacious Highlands, among mountains and mists, hold upon you that you cannot, however or through which, from the sea-margin, much you will, escape from its clutches you may be cast abroad into the world as till time and patience wear out the solemn represented by Edinburgh, nay, to Rome hours. From Ladybank you can travel itself, to which, according to the proverb, to Edinburgh, the most beautiful of all roads lead. You may think these |