Home Life of Great Authors

by Hattie Tyng Griswold

Among the first places to which the new lion was invited was of course the famous resort of celebrities, Holland House; and in his letters to his two younger sisters,—to whom he was always the most devoted of brothers,—he frequently narrates his experiences there. Let us glance at a few of these pictures:—

"Well, my dear, I have been to Holland House. I took a glass coach, and arrived, through a fine avenue of elms, at the great entrance about seven o'clock. The house is delightful, the very perfection of the old Elizabethan style,—a considerable number of very large and very comfortable rooms, rich with antique carving and gilding, but carpeted and furnished with all the skill of the best modern upholsterers. Lady Holland is certainly a woman of considerable talent and great acquirements. To me she was excessively courteous; yet there was 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 Bonaparte.' Her ladyship used me as well, I believe, as it is her way to use anybody. . . .

"I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with Rogers. He was telling me of the curiosity and interest which attached to the persons of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. When Scott dined at a gentleman's house in London not long ago, all the servant-maids in the house asked leave to stand in the passage and see him pass. He was, as you may conceive, greatly flattered. About Lord Byron, whom he knew well, he told me some curious anecdotes. When Byron passed through Florence, Rogers was there. The inn had fifty windows in front. All were crowded with women, mostly Englishwomen, to catch a glimpse of their favorite poet. Among them were some at whose houses he had been in England oftentimes, and with whom he had lived on friendly terms. He would not notice them or return their salutations. Rogers was the only person he spoke to. The worst thing that I know about Lord Byron is the very unfavorable impression which he made on men who certainly were not inclined to judge him harshly, and who were not personally ill-used by him. Sharp and Rogers both speak of him as an unpleasant, affected, splenetic person. I have heard hundreds and thousands of persons who never knew him rant about him, but I never heard a single expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any one who knew him well. Yet even now there are those who cannot talk a quarter of an hour about Charles Fox without tears—after twenty-five years. . . .

"In the evening Lord John Russell came, and old Talleyrand. I had seen Talleyrand before. I now had the pleasure of listening to his conversation. He is certainly the greatest curiosity I ever fell in with. His head is sunk down between two high shoulders. One of his feet is hideously distorted. His face is pale as that of a corpse, and wrinkled to a frightful degree. His eyes have an odd, glassy stare. His hair, thickly powdered and pomatumed, hangs down his shoulders on each side as straight as a pound of tallow candles. His conversation, however, soon makes you forget his ugliness and infirmities."

One more glimpse of Lady Holland:—

"Her ladyship is all courtesy and kindness to me; but her demeanor to some others, particularly to poor Allen, is such as quite pains me to witness. He is really treated like a negro slave. 'Mr. Allen, go into my drawing-room and bring my reticule.' 'Mr. Allen, go and see what can be the matter that they do not bring up dinner.' 'Mr. Allen, there is not turtle-soup enough for you. You must take gravy-soup or none.' Yet I scarcely pity the man. He has an independent income, and if he can stoop to be ordered about like a footman I cannot so much blame her for the contempt with which she treats him."

Here are one or two touches of nature:—

"Get Blackwood's new number. There is a description of me in it: 'A little, splay-footed, ugly dumpling of a fellow, with a mouth from ear to ear.' Conceive how such a charge must affect a man so enamoured of his own beauty as I am."

"After the debate I walked about the streets with Bulwer till near three o'clock. I spoke to him about his novels with perfect sincerity, praising warmly and criticising freely. He took the praise as a greedy boy takes an apple-pie, and the criticism as a good, dutiful boy takes senna-tea. At all events I shall expect him to puff me well. I do not see why I should not have my puffers as well as my neighbors."

Here is a glimpse of the domestic economy of the great Holland House:—

"The dinner was not as good as usual, and her ladyship kept up a continued lamentation during the whole repast. I should never have found out that everything was not as it should be, but for her criticisms. The soup was too salt; the cutlets were not exactly comme il faut; and the pudding was hardly enough boiled. I was amused to hear from the splendid mistress of such a house the same sort of apologies which —— made when her cook forgot the joint and sent too small a dinner to table."

All these artless details were given to amuse his young sisters at home,—the beings he loved best on earth, not only at this time but throughout life. If he ever had any deeper love for another, there is no hint given of it in his life or letters. Probably for many reasons he never contemplated marriage. When he was young he was too poor to think of it; when he was older he had his own family upon his hands, and cared for them munificently to the end. He was very generous with his money and never learned the art of saving. It would seem scarcely possible that a man of his warm heart and ardent temperament could have gone through life with no romance; but if he had any such experience it has not been given to the world. He loved his sisters, and his nephews and nieces, with the most passionate devotion, and was in turn idolized by them. His nephew says:—