Holland House

“ The real home is in Holland—a house of one's own, quite separate from others, modest, circumspect, and, by reason of its retirement, unknown to mysteries and intrigues. When the inhabitants of the house are merry, everything is bright; when they are sad, all is serious. In these houses, with their canals and drawbridges, every modest citizen feels something of the solitary dignity of a feudal lord, and might imagine himself the commander of a fortress or the captain of a ship ”

“ The world never has seen and never will again see anything like Holland House, and though it was by no means the same thing as it was during Lord Holland's life, Lady Holland contrived to assemble round her to the last a great society, comprising almost everybody that was conspicuous, remarkable, and agreeable. ”

“ Lord Holland had just restored Holland House, and there he gathered round him that brilliant circle of statesmen, wits, men of letters, and other people of distinction, which gave the house a European celebrity. Lady Holland possessed a remarkable power of making her guests display themselves to the best advantage. Traits in her character that were by no means attractive rendered her power of fascination the more extraordinary. ”

“ Holland House, 69, the seat of Lord Holland, erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is a venerable and stately gothic structure, standing at the summit of a spacious lawn, which gently rises from the road, commanding views over the Surrey hills. ”

“ We went afterwards to Holland House. I sat in the carriage at first under the shadow of the grand old red pile, but Lady Holland sent Mr. Hayward out to fetch me in, which he did with a bad grace. [113] Lady Holland is a very little woman, simply dressed, with a white cap. She has sparkling eyes, which give her face a wonderful animation; which is almost beauty in itself, and which, in the setting of that house and its historic memories, makes her quite a person to remember. Mrs. Locke was there, and Lord Tankerville, whom I was very glad to see again. ”

“ I cannot close this imperfect view of the liberal literature of [389] England, without a brief allusion to the peculiar but powerful aid rendered to it by the late Lord Holland. The nephew of Fox inherited much of the eloquence, all the democracy, and more than all the love for learning and the fine arts, of his illustrious uncle. For a third of a century, which carried England forward a hundred years in the path of improvement, "Holland House" was the center of attraction for liberal statesmen, orators, poets, painters, wits, and scholars. ”

“ Thus in Holland live thousands of families who have no other houses but their boats. A man marries, and the wedded couple buy a boat, make it their home, and carry merchandise from one market to another. Their children are born on the canals; they are bred and grow up on the water; the barge holds their house-hold goods, their small savings, their domestic memories, their affections, their past, and all their present happiness and hopes for the future. ”

“ The keels of its ships arc above the chimneys of its buildings, and the frogs that croak in the bulrushes of its ditches look down upon the swallows twittering on its house-tops. The entire country swarms with incongruities. Canals are employed in the place of roads; windmills are used instead of steam-engines; and people live as much on the water as on land. What is commonly known as scenery hardly exists in Holland; and yet the kingdom is picturesque from its peculiarity, having furnished to Paul Potter, Ruysdael, Vanderheyden, Backhuysen, and other of its painters subjects without end. ”

“ It is as a figure in the social life of Holland House that he is best known. With Allen the owner of that great whig house searched the records of history for the materials of his speeches, and to Allen's acute criticism he submitted the historic protests which appeared in the journals of the House of Lords. Allen sat at the bottom of the table and carved, went out with the family to dinner parties, and had a room of his own, still known by his name, in the house. ”

“ His dwelling took the name of Holland House: he added to it, a cupola, which served in lieu of a prospect tower, wherefrom could be had a most extensive view of the surrounding country. [267] The important appointment of Surveyor General of the Province, which was bestowed on Major Holland, together with his social qualities, abilities and education, soon gathered round him the élite of the English Society in Quebec at that time. Amongst the distinguished guests who frequented Holland House in 1791, we find Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent. ”

“ He took out Lady Holland and Lord Morpeth, Lady Palmerston, the only ladies present. Holland House is surrounded by 200 acres in the midst of the western part of London, or rather Kensington. Lord Holland has no children, and the family dies with him. ”

“ It is a delightful stroll on a sunny summer morning from the Hague to the Huis ten Bosch, the little “house in the wood,” built for Princess Amalia, widow of Stadtholter Frederick Henry, under whom Holland escaped finally from the bondage of her foes and entered into the promised land of Liberty. Leaving the quiet streets, the tree-bordered canals, with their creeping barges, you pass through a pleasant park, where the soft-eyed deer press round you, hurt and indignant if you have brought nothing in your pocket—not even a piece of sugar—to offer them. ”

“ In the cities of Holland, how at one are the old houses with the mirroring canals, in still afternoons when quiet light warms the red wall, and dwells on the brown and scarlet clematis in the cool violet and amber hollows of the motionless water wherein the red wall soundlessly slips and indefinitely recedes, hiding an undiscovered house of shadow with silent unseen folk dreaming out across invisible gardens. ”

“ A price for knowledge, taught us how to die!
On the death of this young nobleman, in 1721, unmarried, his estates devolved to the father of Lord Kensington, (maternally descended from Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick.) who sold Holland House, about 1762, to the Right Hon. Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, the early years of whose patriotic son, the late C.J. Fox, were passed chiefly at this mansion; and his nephew, the present Lord Holland, is now owner of the estate.
The apartments of Holland House, are, generally, capacious and well proportioned. ”

“ The Dutch shops are brilliantly illuminated, and, although in themselves they do not differ materially from stores of other large European cities, they present at night a very unusual appearance, because of the contrast between the ground floor and the upper part of the house. Below, all is glass, light, color, [Pg 90] and splendor; above, the gloomy façades with their steep sharp lines, steps, and curves. The upper part of the house is plain, dark, and silent—in a word, ancient Holland; the ground floor is the new life—fashion, luxury, and elegance. ”

“ Holland was the printing house of Europe, for I believe more books were issued by Dutch publishers in the seventeenth century than by all the rest of Europe put together. Holland supplied the world with the most accomplished jurists, the most painstaking historians, the most skilful physicians, and the most original thinkers in science. There was a prosperous and prolific school of painters in Holland, a most skilful school of engravers, before a single Englishman had attempted either art. ”

“ The exterior of the mansion is classic and formal, and exteriorly there is little older than the time of George I.; the interior, however, takes us back another century or more, and the panelled porters' hall and carved black oak staircase were old when powdered wigs were introduced. In Queen Anne's State rooms and in the cosy ante-chambers there are rich tapestries, wonderful old cabinets, and costly china, reminding one of the treasures of Holland House. But the finest room is the picture gallery, one hundred and eighty feet in length and twenty-four feet in breadth, and very lofty. ”

“ The formal gardens of Holland House are finely laid out, and the rooms of the house are both beautiful in themselves and enriched with collections of pictures, china and tapestries. Famous houses no longer standing were Campden House, in the district north-west of the parish church, formerly known as the Gravel Pits; and Gore House, on the site 734 of the present Albert Hall, the residence of William Wilberforce, and later of the countess of Blessington. ”

“ To describe London, as we said before, would fill a volume, but space forbids lingering longer, and we will pass out of the metropolis, after devoting brief attention to one of its historical mansions, the well-known Holland House. This fine old building of the time of James I. stands upon high ground in the western suburbs of London, and its history is interwoven with several generations of arts, politics, and literature. The house is of red brick, embellished with turrets, gable-ends, and mullioned windows. ”

“ When he went out of his house, at the close of his interviews with Talbot and Mrs. Belcher, it was without a definitely formed purpose to visit the charming widow. He simply knew that his heart was hungry. The sun-flower is gross, but it knows the sun as well as the morning-glory, and turns to it as naturally. It was with like unreasoning instinct that he took the little book from its drawer, put on his hat, went down his steps, and entered the street that led him toward Mrs. Dillingham's house. He could not keep away from her. ”

“ Holland had asked Caddy, because she was the only child of her nearest neighbor, and used to sit for hours in the bay-window across the way as if she did not have anything to amuse her.
The Hollands lived in a large, handsome house, and to-day it was pleasanter than usual, there were so many flowers about the rooms, and pretty moss baskets, and vines twisted around the chandeliers. ”

“ It is not remembered that there are various modifying influences to be brought to bear upon him, before he will be a man. We see the bold outline of a new house, and we say that it is not beautiful. Soon, however, a piazza is built here, and a dormer is pushed out there, and gracefully modelled chimneys pierce the roof, and cornice and verandah and tower are added, until the structure stands before us complete in beauty, convenience, and strength. ”

“ The Dutchman seldom owns an acre of land without having a fish-pond. He so delights in still and semi-stagnant water that, not content to be surrounded on every side by canals, ditches, and sluices, he must have an additional pool as impure as odorous under his very nose. In the neighborhood of all the large towns the tradesmen and merchants, having their shops and counting-houses in narrow streets, own a little garden in the outskirts, where, if they have no house, they can at least retire after business and spend a few hours with their families. ”

“ Okill Stuart, of this city. Mr. Stuart built on it a handsome mansion now known as Holland House, which he subsequently sold to Rob. Cassells, Esq., of Quebec, late manager of the Bank of British North America.
Holland Farm has been gradually dismembered: Coulonge Cottage, at the outlet of the Gomin Road, [272] is built on Holland farm. A successful gold digger by the name of Sinjohn purchased in the year 1862 a large tract of the farm fronting the St. Louis road with Thornhill as its north eastern and Mr. Stuart's new road as its south-western boundary. ”

“ Instead of indolently sprawling in all the attitudes of luxurious ease, he is always sitting bolt upright; his free and easy language interlarded with ‘damns’ is carefully guarded and regulated with the strictest propriety, and he has exchanged the good talk of Holland House for the trivial, laboured, and wearisome inanities of the Royal circle. ”

“ The Dutch people are industrious, and cleanly. The women are the most active and nicest house-wives in the world; they scour and brighten, and rub not only the furniture and inside of their houses, but the outside as well; the houses in Holland, by-the-bye, look like painted baby-houses, and are roofed with glossy delft tiles, and the rooms are lined with smooth square tiles of delft, and the floors paved with marble. ”

“ He is quite a young man, but seems to be full of energy. At his house we met a Mr. J. G. Schwartze, a native of Philadelphia, but who came to Holland very young, and has made this city his residence. He is highly distinguished as an artist; and we saw a fine production of his at the exhibition at the Hague. Mr. Schwartze is a charming companion—full of enthusiasm; and when he found that I was fond of pictures, he at once volunteered to be our guide to the galleries here; and in all our movements here our kind friend has been with us. The most imposing building here is the Stadhuis, or Palace. ”

“ The Society endeavors to have all the houses alike and each plot of ground as desirable as every other, After the Holland fashion, the stable, barn and house of the farmer are all under one roof, but they are all subjected to the proverbial Dutch cleanliness. The combined structure shelters the family, the cow and the products of the farm. ”

“ Though Holland was constantly in danger from the ocean, it was from the ocean that she derived her wealth and her means for fighting in the struggle for independence. She chose with reason the symbol which she adopted for her flag—a lion struggling with the waves, and her motto, Luctor et emergo, “I struggle, I rise.”
For a time Philip had been the guardian of his cousin Jacqueline of Holland, and in this capacity he had sworn to maintain the privileges and institutions of the Netherlands. ”