HOLLAND HOUSE AND GARDENS 



One marvels where all the wealth thus squandered came from, 

 and how even the richest could support such charges, but in 

 that corrupt period money was easy to get. " Private vices," 

 says Trevelyan, " were reflected in the conduct of public affairs, 

 and the enormous expenditure which the habits and ideas of 

 good society inexorably demanded, had to be met by one 

 expedient or another, and an expedient was not far to seek 

 when the same men who, as a class, were the most generally 

 addicted to personal extravagance possessed a practical 

 monopoly of political power. Everybody who had influence 

 in Parliament or at court, used it for the express purpose 

 of mending or repairing his fortunes. . . . One nobleman had 

 8,000 a year in sinecures, and the colonelcies of three regi- 

 ments . . . another, an auditor of the Exchequer into which 

 he never looked, had 8,000 a year in peace time, and 20,000 

 in years of war." 



Henry Fox himself held many of these lucrative appointments. 

 Ultimately he became Paymaster to the Forces as his father 

 had been before him ; and whilst holding that post he was de- 

 nounced in an address of the citizens of London, as a defaulter 

 to the tune of millions. He cleared himself, but he was always 

 unpopular. 



Before purchasing Holland House Fox had rented it on a lease 

 of twenty-one years. He did a great deal for the gardens, for he 

 was an enthusiastic gardener; and his wife, the daughter of the 

 second Duke of Richmond, whose elopement with Fox had been 

 a nine days' society wonder, shared his horticultural tastes. In 

 a letter to a friend he says : " And if you will permit us, Lady 

 Caroline has a thousand questions to ask you about flowers, and 

 not much fewer about plants." Again, he writes concerning 

 cypresses. " Can you procure me any cones ? . . . I want also 

 some acorns of scarlet oak, and a bushel or more of chestnuts for 

 sowing. Excuse me for troubling you ; I think they are less 

 likely to think of imposing on one so learned, than on your ignorant 

 and humble servant, H. Fox. P.S. Mr. Watson advised me to 

 sow something with a hard name, to creep on the ground and 

 cover with green all the vacant places in my young plantations. 

 I wish you would tell me what it was." 



A note on the letter, probably written by the recipient, says : 



207 



