In the library, downstairs, are portraits of Charles James Fox—­a very fine one; of the late Lord Holland; of Talleyrand, by Ary Scheffer, perhaps the best in existence, and the only one which he said that he ever sat for; of Sir Samuel Romilly; Sir James Mackintosh; Lord Erskine, by Sir Thomas Lawrence; Tierney; Francis Horner, by Raeburn, so like Sir Walter Scott, by the same artist, that I at first supposed it to be him; Lord Macartney, by Phillips; Frere, by Shea; Mone, Lord Thanet; Archibald Hamilton; late Lord Darnley; late Lord King, when young, by Hoppner; and a very sweet, foreign fancy portrait of the present Lady Holland.  We miss, however, from this haunt of genius, the portraits of Byron, Brougham, Crabbe, Blanco White, Hallam, Rogers, Lord Jeffrey, and others.  In the left wing is placed the colossal model of the statue of Charles Fox, which stands in Bloomsbury Square.

In the gardens are various memorials of distinguished men.  Among several very fine cedars, perhaps the finest is said to have been planted by Charles Fox.  In the quaint old garden is an alcove, in which are the following lines, placed there by the late earl: 

“Here Rogers sat—­and here for ever dwell
With me, those pleasures which he sang so well.”

Beneath these are framed and glazed a copy of verses in honor of the same poet, by Mr. Luttrell.  There is also in the same garden, and opposite this alcove, a bronze bust of Napoleon, on a granite pillar, with a Greek inscription from the Odyssey, admirably applying the situation of Ulysses to that of Napoleon at St. Helena:  “In a far-distant isle he remains under the harsh surveillance of base men.”

The fine avenue leading down from the house to the Kensington road is remarkable for having often been the walking and talking place of Cromwell and General Lambert.  Lambert then occupied Holland House; and Cromwell, who lived next door, when he came to converse with him on state affairs, had to speak very loud to him, because he was deaf.  To avoid being overheard, they used to walk in this avenue.

The traditions regarding Addison here are very slight.  They are, simply, that he used to walk, when composing his “Spectators,” in the long library, then a picture gallery, with a bottle of wine at each end, which he visited as he alternately arrived at them; and that the room in which he died, tho not positively known, is supposed to be the present dining-room, being then the state bed-room.  The young Earl of Warwick, to whom he there address the emphatic words, “See in what peace a Christian can die!” died also, himself, in 1721, but two years afterward.  The estate then devolved to Lord Kensington, descended from Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, who sold it, about 1762, to the Right Honorable Henry Fox, afterward Lord Holland.  Here the early days of the great statesman, Charles James, were passed.

Arundel [Footnote:  From “Cathedral Days.”  By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co.  Copyright, 1887.]