It was partially broken up by Sydney Smith's coming, in 1803, to London. He there took a house in Doughty Street, being partial to legal society, which was chiefly to be found in that neighbourhood.
Here Sir Samuel Romilly, Mackintosh, Scarlett (Lord Abinger), the eccentric and unhappy Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, 'Conversation' Sharp, Rogers, and Luttrell, formed the circle in which Sidney delighted. He was still very poor, and obliged to sell the rest of his wife's jewels; but his brother Robert allowed him £100 a year, and lent him, when he subsequently removed into Yorkshire, £500.
He had now a life of struggling, but those struggles were the lot of his early friends also; Mackintosh talked of going to India as a lecturer; Smith recommended Jeffrey to do the same. Happily, both had the courage and the sense to await for better times at home; yet Smith's opinion of Mackintosh was, that 'he never saw so theoretical a head which contained so much practical understanding;' and to Jeffrey he wrote:
'You want nothing to be a great lawyer, and nothing to be a great speaker, but a deeper voice—slower and more simple utterance—more humility of face and neck—and a greater contempt for esprit than men who have so much in general attain to.'
The great event of Sydney Smith's first residence in London was his introduction at Holland House; in that 'gilded room which furnished,' as he said, 'the best and most agreeable society in the world,' his happiest hours were passed. John Allen, whom Smith had introduced to Lord Holland was the peer's librarian and friend. Mackintosh, who Sydney Smith thought only wanted a few bad qualities to get on in the world, Rogers, Luttrell, Sheridan, Byron, were among the 'suns' that shone, where Addison had suffered and studied.
Between Lord Holland and Sydney Smith the most cordial friendship existed; and the eccentric and fascinating Lady Holland was his constant correspondent. Of this able woman, it was said by Talleyrand: 'Elle est toute assertion; mais quand on demande la preuve c'est là son sécret' Of Lord Holland, the keen diplomatist observed: 'Cest la bienveillance même, mais la bienveillance la plus perturbatrice, qu'on ait jamais vue.'
Lord Holland did not commit the error ascribed by Rogers, in his Recollections, to Marlay, Bishop of Waterford, who when poor, with an income of only £400 a year, used to give the best dinners possible; but, when made a bishop, enlarged his table, and lost his fame-had no more good company—there was an end of his enjoyment: he had lords and ladies to his table—foolish people—foolish men—and foolish women—and there was an end of him and us. 'Lord Holland selected his lords and ladies, not for their rank, but for their peculiar merits or acquirements.' Then even Lady Holland's oddities were amusing. When she wanted to get rid of a fop, she used to say: 'I beg your pardon, but I wish you would sit a little farther off; there is something on your handkerchief which I don't quite like.' Or when a poor man happened to stand, after the fashion of the lords of creation, with his back close to the chimney-piece, she would cry out, 'Have the goodness, sir, to stir the fire.'
Lord Holland never asked any one to dinner, ('not even me,' says Rogers, 'whom he had known so long,') without asking Lady Holland. One day, shortly before his lordship's death, Rogers was coming out from Holland House when he met him. 'Well, do you return to dinner?' I answered. 'No, I have not been invited.' The precaution, in fact, was necessary, for Lord Holland was so good-natured and hospitable that he would have had a crowd daily at his table had he been left to himself.
The death of Lord Holland completely broke up the unrivalled dinners, and the subsequent evenings in the 'gilded chamber.' Lady Holland, to whom Holland House was left for her life-time, declined to live there. With Holland House, the mingling of aristocracy with talent; the blending ranks by force of intellect; the assembling not only of all the celebrity that Europe could boast, but of all that could enhance private enjoyment, had ceased. London, the most intelligent of capitals, possesses not one single great house in which pomp and wealth are made subsidiary to the true luxury of intellectual conversation.
On the morning of the day when Lord Holland's last illness began, these lines were written by him, and found after his death on his dressing-table:—