in, and we chatted till Lady Holland made her appearance.  Lord Holland dined by himself on account of his gout.  We sat down to dinner in a fine long room, the wainscot of which is rich with gilded coronets, roses, and portcullises.  There were Lord Albemarle, Lord Alvanley, Lord Russell, Lord Mahon,—­a violent Tory, but a very agreeable companion, and a very good scholar.  There was Cradock, a fine fellow who was the Duke of Wellington’s aide-de-camp in 1815, and some other people whose names I did not catch.  What however is more to the purpose, there was a most excellent dinner.  I have always heard that Holland House is famous for its good cheer, and certainly the reputation is not unmerited.  After dinner Lord Holland was wheeled in, and placed very near me.  He was extremely amusing and good-natured.

In the drawing-room I had a long talk with Lady Holland about the antiquities of the house, and about the purity of the English language, wherein she thinks herself a critic.  I happened, in speaking about the Reform Bill, to say that I wished that it had been possible to form a few commercial constituencies, if the word constituency were admissible.  “I am glad you put that in,” said her ladyship.  “I was just going to give it you.  It is an odious word.  Then there is talented and influential, and gentlemanly.  I never could break Sheridan of gentlemanly, though he allowed it to be wrong.”  We talked about the word talents and its history.  I said that it had first appeared in theological writing, that it was a metaphor taken from the parable in the New Testament, and that it had gradually passed from the vocabulary of divinity into common use.  I challenged her to find it in any classical writer on general subjects before the Restoration, or even before the year 1700.  I believe that I might safely have gone down later.  She seemed surprised by this theory, never having, so far as I could judge, heard of the parable of the talents.  I did not tell her, though I might have done so, that a person who professes to be a critic in the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at his fingers’ ends.

She is certainly a woman of considerable talents and great literary acquirements.  To me she was excessively gracious; yet there is a haughtiness in her courtesy which, even after all that I had heard of her, surprised me.  The centurion did not keep his soldiers in better order than she keeps her guests.  It is to one “Go,” and he goeth; and to another “Do this,” and it is done.  “Ring the bell, Mr. Macaulay.”  “Lay down that screen, Lord Russell; you will spoil it.”  “Mr. Allen, take a candle and show Mr. Cradock the picture of Buonaparte.”  Lord Holland is, on the other hand, all kindness, simplicity, and vivacity.  He talked very well both on politics and on literature.  He asked me in a very friendly manner about my father’s health, and begged to be remembered to him.