HOLLAND HOUSE AND GARDENS 



But the " Spectator's " association with the spot began many 

 years before this. He had had a small house and a pretty garden 

 at Chelsea, and to quote Lord Macaulay's well-known essay, 

 ' in the days of Anne and George I., milkmaids and sportsmen 

 wandered between green hedges and over fields bright with 

 daisies from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. 

 Addison and Lady Warwick were country neighbours, and 

 became intimate friends." The great wit and gentle satirist of 

 men and manners, whose own life was so consistently virtuous- 

 strove to wean the young Lord Warwick from the vices and the 

 follies of the town, and to encourage him to live up to his 

 great place and opportunities but he failed ! " Lord Warwick 

 grew up a rake and Addison fell in love !' : and the gardens 

 and groves of Holland House have been classic ground ever 

 since ! 



Even in those days when mere rank unsupported by distin- 

 guished merit or shining talents counted for more than it does 

 now, the haughtiest and most aristocratic beauty in her first youth, 

 which Lady Warwick was not, must have been flattered by the 

 sincere and delicate devotion of such a man as Addison. He had 

 genius, and genius that had already received the widest recogni- 

 tion from an admiring and even affectionate public ; for " Mr. 

 Spectator " was a vivid and living personality in thousands of city 

 homes, and in quiet parsonages and country houses, whose in- 

 mates had never set eyes on him. There, like The Taller before 

 it, the little paper was eagerly watched for and when read, and 

 digested, was passed on to others. Its matter, grave or gay, 

 appealed to everyone, and Addison was the Spectator, and the 

 Spectator was the " Mode." 



Yet in society he himself was rarely seen : the Countess, who 

 liked him best when his political star was in the ascendant, would 

 have preferred a husband who would shine therein. But he shunned 

 it. He, the most witty, the most charming of companions, when 

 alone with her or in the company of his intimates, could not be 

 got to utter a word among strangers, or in the House of Commons. 

 He was indeed curiously shy " shamefaced," " bashful," he would 

 himself have designated it ; singularly timid, when we consider 

 his intellectual supremacy, and that he was certainly the most 

 popular person of the day 



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