GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



fierce political and social limelight which played upon Holland 

 House for nearly five-and-forty years. 



She is conspicuous, too, as being for a long time the only woman 

 in the crowded and busy scene for although young, beautiful, 

 charming, and intellectually gifted she is ostracized by her own 

 sex. This because she had sacrificed everything husband, home, 

 children, and reputation besides the greater part of a large 

 fortune, for love the love of Richard Henry, third Baron Holland, 

 who married her at Rickmansworth Church, the very day after 

 Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., of Battle Abbey, Hastings, her first 

 husband, had obtained his divorce. 



Thirty-four years later in May, 1831, Lord Macaulay, then 

 just entering political life, was presented to her at a reception 

 at Lansdowne House. 



" I was shaking hands with Sir James Macdonald," he writes 

 to his sister, " when I heard a command behind me : ' Sir James, 

 introduce me to Mr. Macaulay ' and we turned, and there sat 

 a large bold-looking woman, with the remains of a fine person 

 and the air of Queen Elizabeth. ' Macaulay,' said Sir James, c let 

 me introduce you to Lady Holland.' Then was her ladyship 

 gracious beyond description and asked me to dine and take a bed 

 at Holland House next Tuesday." 



Time partially effaced the writer's first unfavourable impression, 

 and he came to recognize Lady Holland's good points, her real 

 kindness of heart, her steadfastness in friendship ; to admire her 

 ability and her humour ; and to smile good-naturedly at her weak- 

 nesses. But he never cordially liked her, and always slightly 

 resented her freedom of speech and her airs of command ; and 

 I think it very significant that in the eloquent tribute he paid to 

 Lord Holland after his death, in one of his " Critical Essays " he 

 is altogether silent concerning his wife. He had not the key 

 to the softer and more feminine traits in her character which we 

 possess in her " Journal," which begins in 1791, and ends in 1811. 



In recent years this has been edited and published by the Earl 

 of Ilchester. Lord and Lady Holland's son, the fourth Baron, 

 died childless, so that the title became extinct ; and the estates 

 passed into the hands of Lord Ilchester, the representative of the 

 " elder branch of the Fox family, who alone had the right to publish 

 the diary. He has done well to do so, for without condoning 



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