The following lines are in another strain, more artificial, with a false ring, and curiously unlike any style of the present day. They are by N. P. Willis, who, in his ‘Pencillings,’ describes an evening at Gore House:—
I gaze upon a face as fair
As ever made a lip of Heaven
Falter amid its music—prayer:
The first-lit star of summer even
Springs scarce so softly on the eye,
Nor grows with watching half so bright,
Nor ’mid its sisters of the sky
So seems of Heaven the dearest light.
Men murmur where that shape is seen;
My youth’s angelic dream was of that face and mien.
Gore House was a place for men; there was more than a touch of Bohemia in its atmosphere. The fair châtelaine distinctly did not belong to any noble house, though she was fond of talking of her ancestors; the constant presence of Count d’Orsay, and the absence of Lady Harriet, his wife; the coldness of ladies as regards the place; the whispers and the open talk; these things did not, perhaps, make the house less delightful, but they placed it outside society.
H. Brougham
-LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX-
Holland House, on the other hand, occupied a different position. The circle was wide and the hospitable doors were open to all who could procure an introduction; but it was presided over by a lady the opposite to Lady Blessington in every respect. She ruled as well as reigned; those who went to Holland House were made to feel her power. The Princess Marie Liechtenstein, in her book on Holland House, has given a long list of those who were to be found there between the years 1796 and 1840. Among them were Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Byron, ‘Monk’ Lewis, Lord Jeffrey, Lords Eldon, Thurlow, Brougham, and Lyndhurst, Sir Humphry Davy, Count Rumford, Lords Aberdeen, Moira, and Macartney, Grattan, Curran, Sir Samuel Romilly, Washington Irving, Tom Moore, Calonne, Lally Tollendal, Talleyrand, the Duke of Clarence, the Duc d’Orléans, Metternich, Canova, the two Erskines, Madame de Staël, Lord John Russell, and Lord Houghton. There was no such agreeable house in Europe as Holland House. ‘There was no professional claqueur; no mutual puffing; no exchanged support. There, a man was not unanimously applauded because he was known to be clever, nor was a woman accepted as clever because she was known to receive clever people.’
The conditions of life and society are so much changed that there can never again be another Holland House. For the first thing which strikes one who considers the history of this place, as well as Gore House, is that, though the poets, wits, dramatists, and novelists go to these houses, their wives do not. In these days a man who respects himself will not go to a house where his wife is not asked. Then, again, London is so much greater in extent, and people are so much scattered, that it would be difficult now to get together a circle consisting of literary people who lived near enough to frequent the house. And another thing: people no longer keep such late hours. They do not sit up talking all night. That is, perhaps, because there are no wits to talk with; but I do not know: I think that towards midnight the malice of Count d’Orsay in drawing out the absurd points in the guests, the rollicking fun of Tom Moore, or his sentimental songs, the repartee of James Smith, and the polished talk of Lytton Bulwer, all collar, cuff, diamond pin, and wavy hair, would have begun to pall upon me, and when nobody was taking any notice of so obscure an individual, I should have stolen down the stairs, and so out into the open air beneath the stars. For the wits were very witty, but they must have been very fatiguing. ‘Quite enough of that, Macaulay’ Lady Holland would say, tapping her fan upon the table. ‘Now tell us about something else.’
Very truly yours
Washington Irving