226 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



Sometimes they played at great houses, and 

 Holland House is particularly mentioned as ever 

 having its doors open to befriend them ; and 

 Colley Gibber writes : " Holland House at Ken- 

 sington, where the Nobility and Gentry who met 

 (but in no great Numbers) used to make a 

 Sum for them, each giving a broad Peice, or the 

 like." 



For some time after the Restoration, it appears 

 that Holland House was let out in suites of rooms, 

 and strangely most of the occupants were celebrities, 

 thus adding to the marvellous list of great names 

 that have ever been associated with this House. 

 Among these tenants was Chardin,the famous French 

 traveller (knighted by Charles II.), who, as he was 

 especially interested in trees, may perhaps have 

 been the means of planting the grounds with some 

 of the choice foreign specimens to be found there. 

 A very different character was William Penn, the 

 Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania, who lived for 

 more than a year at Holland House ; as well as 

 many other well-known people. It was through his 

 marriage with Lady Warwick (the second Earl of 

 Holland had succeeded his cousin as Earl of 

 Warwick) that Joseph Addison became connected 

 with the Hollands. Doctor Johnson writes in his 

 life of Addison : "In this year Addison married 

 the Countess Dowager of Warwick, whom he had 

 solicited by a very long and anxious courtship. At 



