The apartments of Holland House, are, generally, capacious and well proportioned.  The library is about 105 feet in length, and the collection of books is worthy of the well known literary taste of the noble proprietor.  Here also are several fine busts by Nollekens, and a valuable collection of pictures by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c. two fine landscapes by Salvator Rosa, and a collection of exquisite miniatures.

The grounds include about 300 acres, of which about 63 acres are disposed into pleasure gardens, &c.  Mr. Rogers, the amiable poet, is a constant visiter at Holland House; and the noble host, with Maecenas-like taste, has placed over a rural seat, the following lines, from respect to the author of the “Pleasures of Memory:”—­

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

Holland House and its park-like grounds is, perhaps, the most picturesque domain in the vicinity of the metropolis, although it will soon be surrounded with brick and mortar proportions.

* * * * *

Field of forty steps.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

I should feel obliged if you could give some account of the story attached to the Brothers’ Steps, a spot thus called, which formerly existed in one of the fields behind Montague House.  The local tradition says, that two brothers fought there on account of a lady, who sat by and witnessed the combat, and that the conflict ended in the death of both; but the names of the parties have never been mentioned.  The steps existed behind the spot where Mortimer Market now stands, and not as Miss Porter says, in her novel of the Field of Forty Steps, at the end of Upper Montague Street.  In her story, Miss Porter departs entirely from the local tradition.

H.S.  Sidney.

* * * * *

Italian improvisatri.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

Allow me permission, if consistent with the regulations of your interesting miscellany, to submit to you a literary problem.  We are informed that there exists, at the present day, in Italy, a set of persons called “improvisatri,” who pretend to recite original poetry of a superior order, composed on the spur of the moment.  An extraordinary account appeared a short time back in a well known Scotch magazine, of a female improvisatrice, which may have met your notice.  Now I entertain considerable doubt of the truth of these pretensions; not that I question the veracity of those who have visited Italy and make the assertion:  they believe what they relate, but are, I conceive, grossly deceived.  There is something, no doubt, truly inspiring in the air of Italy: