up her face as much as the ray of sunshine lights up the picture." In this same room hangs "Mary Fox, an old-fashioned picture of an old-fashioned-looking little girl, with a fine Spanish pointer as big as herself, whose name must be mentioned for auld lang syne, Eliza." A steel engraving of this picture forms the frontispiece of the first volume of the work. during the minority of the third Lord Holland. On May-day, 1753, an entertainment was given in this room, of which a singular reminiscence has been preserved in the shape of a list of the company and an account of their proceedings. There were twenty-one couples of dancers: Mr. George Selwyn dancing with Miss Kitty Compton, the Earl of Hillsborough with Lady Caroline Fox, the The portrait of the Princess de Lieven Duke of Richmond with Miss Bishop, is one of extraordinary merit, and it is Captain Sandys with the Countess of added that Watts ranks it amongst his Coventry, &c. Lady Albemarle, Lady best. It gives occasion for a slight, but Yarmouth, Mrs. Digby, and Mr. Fox striking, biographical notice, most of the played two pools at quadrille. Five genparticulars of which are taken from a tlemen and four ladies "cut in at whist," manuscript in the possession of Lady including the Duke and Duchess of Holland:Bedford, Lady Townshend, and Mr. Five played cribbage. Eight, Lord Bateman The Card Players play'd but a little while. The Card Tables (in Number three) were in Lady Caroline's Dressing Room. The Balcony, as well as the Gilt Room, was lighted up, and they danced a little while in both. In appearance dignified, in manners simple, Digby. with the intellect of a man and the pliability including Mr. H. Walpole and Mr. Calof a woman; well dressed, and always suitably craft, "only looked on.” to her years, she presented in herself a general and the Earl of Holderness "danced concentration of charms; and these, wherever minuets only: "— she went, she seemed unwittingly to dispense without self-privation. Her style in writing harmonized with her other qualities, and was always in harmony with her subject. She could be grave, gay, learned, sarcastic. One generally loves doing what one does well; she wrote well and loved to use her pen. She has been very aptly said to combine "la raison de la Rochefoucauld avec les manières de Madame de Sévigné." But with all this she had no taste for reading, except the newspapers; and her ignorance upon some common subjects would have been marvellous even in a schoolboy. Her end was touching and dignified. Naturally nervous about herself, she had dreaded the slightest indisposition; but when she heard¦ that her doom was sealed, she looked death calmly in the face, and conformed to the last rites of the Protestant Church. Feeling the supreme moment at hand, she requested that Guizot and his son would leave her bedside, in order that they might be spared the painful sight of her agony. She had, however, still strength enough to address Guizot, her old and devoted friend, tracing in pencil these words: "Merci de vingt ans d'amitié et de bonheur." Tea, Negus, &c., at which Mrs. Fannen PreAt One We all sided, in the Tapestry room. went down to a Cold Supper, at Three Tables in the Saloon, and three in the Dining Room. Supper was remov'd at each Table with a Desert (sic), and Ice. All sate down, Lady Townshend, Lady Fitzwilliams, Duke of Marlbro', and Mr. Legge, only Excepted who went before Supper. Danced after Supper. No Dancer went before three, or stay'd after Five. And so the brilliant medal has its reverse: Speaking of Cleyn, in his "Anecdotes for now, in spite of being still sometimes filled of Painting," Walpole says, "There is by a joyous, laughing crowd, the Gilt Room is still extant a beautiful chamber adorned said to be tenanted by the solitary ghost of its by him at Holland House with a ceiling first lord, who, according to tradition, issues in grotesque, and small compartments on forth at midnight from behind a secret door, the chimneys, in the style, and not un- and walks slowly through the scenes of former worthy, of Parmeggiano." This is "The triumphs with his head in his hand. To add Gilt Room." All the decorations and to this mystery, there is a tale of three spots of paintings in it have been restored by blood on the side of the recess whence he Watts, who found no traces of any paint-issues, three spots of blood which can never be ing on the chimney-piece; and the old effaced. ceiling, having fallen in, was replaced Macaulay has said all that could be said for the Library, and he might have expatiated in much the same strain on "The Library Passage," where many an illustrious guest has lingered over the prints, portraits, photographs, and autographs on the walls. Here is the socalled portrait of Addison, with his last autograph; a miniature of the Empress Catherine, with her autograph; the miniature of Robespierre, on the back of which may be read, in the handwriting of Charles Fox: "Un scélérat, un lâche et un fou." But before quite leaving the LIBRARY PASSAGE we must not forget to look at the windows. In the southern window is a pane of glass removed from the window of what we believe used to be Rogers's dressing-room in the East Turret. Upon this pane of glass are cut some lines by Hookham Frere. They date from October 1811, and run as follows:May neither fire destroy nor waste impair Nor time consume thee till the twentieth Heir, May Taste respect thee and may Fashion spare. To which we add a devout Amen! and to which Rogers is reported to have said, "I wonder where he got the diamond." tice or neglect which his lordship thinks can be accounted for "in no other way than by considering it as a fixed and settled rule that there is a line drawn in this country between the ruling caste and the rest of the community." May it not be accounted for by the habits and disposition of the man who was content to pass his whole life in a dependent position? Moreover, his intellectual efforts never attracted much attention beyond a limited circle. He died in 1843. The year before his death, Sydney Smith writes to Lady Holland : I am sorry to hear Allen is not well; but the reduction of his legs is a pure and unmixed good; they are enormous, they are clerical! He has the creed of a philosopher and the legs of a clergyman; I never saw such legs, —at least belonging to a layman. We must not forget to mention that some letters from Moore and Rogers form part of the hitherto unpublished MSS. of Holland House. "Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their illustrious The Yellow Drawing-room" alone masters. The wonderful city, which, anboasts relics and memorials enough to cient and gigantic as it is, still continues excite the envy of the richest and most to grow as fast as a young town of logfortunate collector; and the chapter de- wood by a water privilege in Michigan, voted to it contains matter of historical may soon displace those turrets and garvalue, which we pass over with regret. dens which are associated with so much "The Miniature Room" and the "Print that is interesting and noble, with the Room," also, are eminently suggestive courtly magnificence of Rich, with the and rich. But it is as much as we can loves of Ormond, with the counsels of do to afford space for "Allen's Room;" Cromwell, with the death of Addison.” and Lady Holland's "pet atheist " (as Al- If we are not misinformed, arrangements len was called) is an indispensable figure have been made that will prevent these in our group. He was recommended, in turrets and gardens from being speedily 1801, by Sydney Smith to Lord Holland, displaced. But we tremble when we think who wanted a "clever young Scotch med- of the fate impending over the Northumical man" to accompany him to Spain. berland House lion: of Fonthill dismanThey suited each other so well that he tled and coming down with a crash of was domesticated in Holland House. the ring of the auctioneer's hammer in "To Lady Holland he must have been a the princely halls of Stowe: of the disfriendly factotum. He almost always at- persion of the art treasures of Strawberry tended her on her drives, was usually in- Hill, just as it was about to derive fresh vited out with her and Lord Holland to lustre from taste and munificence. If, dinner, and in Holland House sat at the then, the stately fabric we have been combottom of the table and carved. In this memorating, with its priceless contents, performance Lady Holland was apt to must perish, so much the greater will be fidget him by giving him directions, and the debt of gratitude due from future genhe would assert his independence by lay-erations to those who afford the means ing down the knife and fork and telling of keeping it permanently present to the her she had better do it herself!" mind's eye. Non omnis moriar. Though His character has been carefully drawn lost to sight, to memory dear. Good copby Lord Brougham, who raises the ques-ies are nearly as effective as originals in tion why "with his great talents, long supplying food for reflection, in appealing experience, many rare accomplishments, and connection with statesmen," he was "Lord Macaulay's Essays." We have found no never brought into public life; an injus- trace of the loves of Ormond at Holland House. From Blackwood's Magazine. to the imagination and the heart. Hein- light might thus be thrown upon a very rich Heine said of a celebrated poem that, difficult and delicate branch of natural if suddenly destroyed, it might be com- science. The story I am about to tell, if pletely reproduced from a translation story it can be called, concerns one of which he named. Thanks to the work those purgatories of modern existence, before us, with its graphic delineations those limbos of the weary and restless and descriptions, if Holland House were spirit. Gentle reader, have you ever to be burnt down or swallowed up to- been in Fife? The question is somemorrow, its most inspiring elevating as- what insulting to your intelligence. No sociations would survive, and everything doubt there is finer scenery to be had in it or about it, capable of material repro- elsewhere; no doubt the calm landscape, duction, might be reproduced. with its low hills, its rich fields, its bold yet unexciting sea-margin, its line of tiny seaports, is not of the kind which lays a very forcible hold upon the imagination; yet Fife has still its individual flavour, perhaps less hackneyed, if less picturesque, than the Highland glens and hills. The simile is perhaps an unfortunate one, RAILWAYS, I suppose, have many ad- and may recall to some chance traveller vantages; at least we have been told so, the very distinct and not delightful so often, that a kind of belief in them has savour of the little coast towns in the taken a firm hold of the modern mind. heyday of the herring-curing, when every We say to ourselves that it is a great street is possessed by the cured and the thing to have so many facilities of loco-curers, and the air for miles around conmotion; and there are even some intelli-veys a most ancient and fishlike smell to gences which feel themselves enlarged all fastidious nostrils. The process is and enlightened by the mere vague not pleasant, but it is quaint, and not grandeur of dashing through the air at without its interest to those whose olfacthe rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, tory nerves are strong enough to bear it; though at risks which are somewhat and the scene has a certain homely picappalling to contemplate. Perhaps, in- turesqueness of its own. The boats deed, these risks add to the pleasure by rolling with a clumsy movement, half adding to the excitement. "The dan- rustic, half salt-water-something beger's self were lure alone," as it is in tween the lurch of a sailor and the heavy climbing the Alps and other risky expe- gait of a ploughman - with brown sails, ditions. But in mere speed, that much and a silvery underground of herring desired and discouraged mode of pro- overflowing everything below, to the rude gression the broomstick, open as it was pier; the band of spectators on the stony only to the Illuminati, a class even more quay above, hanging upon the very marexclusive than the Alpine Club, must gin, looking down as from a precipice have had superior advantages; and in upon the grey, indifferent fishermen, point of danger, the old coaches, I be- screaming at them as with one voice; lieve, were scarcely inferior, though their the rude tables set out in the streets, catastrophes were less impressive to the with sturdy female operators, knife in imagination, and the victims fewer, in hand, barricaded with herring-barrels ; each individual event. There is one the bustle, the hum, the fish, pervading point, however, in which nothing, so far the whole scene-rampant industry at as I am aware, has ever equalled the its roughest and wildest; with the calm railway, and that is the junction which sea plashing softly on the rocks on one here and there over the whole country, hand, and the calm green country on the or, it might be said, over the whole world, other, looking on, both with a silent binds several lines together, and contrib- scrutiny which looks almost reproachful, utes an important element to that gen-but is merely indifferent, as nature always eral power of upsetting the mental is. How strange that this odd saturnalia equilibrium which is possessed by this age. How much the neighbourhood of a good junction may have to do with the production of cases of "brain-fag," and other mysterious complications of the mental and physical systems, it would be curious to inquire; and perhaps some should belong to the most sober and steady-going of all agencies that Trade which makes Great Britain (as people say) what she is, yet in itself is often so little attractive, so noisy, so lawless! The smell of the cured herring pursues the traveller along the coast from one seaport to another, as the brown little | Scotch towns, and indeed, in its way, of towns, with their low church towers, and European towns, whatever a peevish poet red-roofed houses, and little semicircular caught by the east winds may say; or brown piers stretched out into the blue Perth with its noble Tay, so poorly comFirth-join hands, and straggle along plimented by the "Ecce Tiberis!" still the edge of the rocks; but this is not the proudly quoted by its inhabitants, and its flavour of Fife of which we spoke. There green Inches upon which the romantic are broad fields waving rich with corn, traveller can still hear the old Celtic hero, and hills, low among the giants, yet bold cry "Another for Hector!". or grey here where no giants are, blooming with St. Andrews on its rocky land-head, purple heather, and pathetic moorlands, where the dim Yesterday of the poetic and broad plantations of fir breathing ages keeps watch from its ruins over the aromatic odours, to make up "the russet lively To-day of the Links, sprinkled with garment," of which our little rich sea- red-coated golfers, and gay bands of ports, in their lucky days, were counted sea-maidens; or lone Lochleven, more the "golden fringe." And we doubt romantically historical, with its green whether Anstruther and Pittenweem have much that is golden in them nowadays, or are so valuable as the broad lands from which high farming has cleared every superfluous tree, and which no green lane, with bowery shadow, no broad turf-margined highway is permitted to infringe upon. How good is high farming!-how noble is trade! yet between them they rob us of many a tranquil old-world charm, the seaside sense of monotony and stillness, the rural leisure, breadth, and calm. island in the midst of the dark water, and the ruined towers in which Mary, dangerous and fair, once plotted and languished. All these are within reach of Ladybank; and so is old mouldering royal Falkland, with memories which go back into the twilight of history, where many a tragical deed was done; and Dunfermline with its ruined palace, and that shrine where St. Margaret of Scotland rests unhonoured, and where the bones of Bruce are laid. These surroundings, if you think of them, throw a more It is not, however, my business to genial glow upon the weary roadside maunder about the herring-curing, de- station where you wait, upon the hard testable branch of national profit which wooden bench on which you repose yourfills so many pockets, as it fills the air at self, and the grimy iron-way which rePittenweem and St. Monance—or about fuses to carry you on till you have paid the high farming which plants a tall and kain to Ennui, gloomiest of all the devils, smoky chimney at every farm-steading, and been almost tempted to put an end and makes the country so much more to yourself. I do not know how Ladyrich and so much less lovely. Fife has bank has got its pretty name,— whether something more than these. It has a it comes from Our Lady herself, the halfsystem of railways zigzagging curiously mother, half-goddess, of all Catholic from one town to another, cutting across races (it is pleasant to think that this its surface in all kinds of unthought-of name of names does linger here and there ways, and involving itself in such a net- even in Puritan Scotland, where all the work of lines and so many bewildering world has long been jealous of her) — or junctions, that the power of balance and from the other lady of Scotland, that self-control retained by the most sensi- very different Mary for whom men still ble of counties, is put to perpetual trial. defy each other, though it be but in print. One of these is Thornton, where, in the The place is not badly situated: it lies vicinity of coal-pits and iron-works, you at the foot of the soft Lomonds, two hills may wait for hours unbeguiled by any- which rise in purple shadows, and put on thing but the jarring of trains and the garments of cloth-of-gold in the sunshine, guard's whistle; and another is the scene as royal as if they were thousands of feet of this narrative-the junction of Lady-high instead of hundreds. It has all the bank - softly named but terribly gifted glories of Fife, such as they are, within locality, whence you may go-when reach; it is a door through which you you can- -to a great variety of attractive may pass high up into the mysterious places, but which lays such a tenacious Highlands, among mountains and mists, hold upon you that you cannot, however or through which, from the sea-margin, much you will, escape from its clutches you may be cast abroad into the world as till time and patience wear out the solemn represented by Edinburgh, nay, to Rome hours. From Ladybank you can travel itself, to which, according to the proverb, to Edinburgh, the most beautiful of all roads lead. You may think these thoughts if you will, as the trains, which "No me," answers the dark porter, go everywhere except to the one partic- marching off, dully surprised,- for why ular spot where you wish to go, rush should there be anything to see? _And plunging, clanging, whistling past, or then silence falls upon Ladybank. Every stop with heavy jar and groan, and set ten minutes or so a feverish gleam of out again with slow reluctance as trains excitement arises, as with a compound of naturally do in Fife. For though the all horrible sounds, jar, screech, creak, country is rich and thriving, and though clang, and roar, demoniac and excruciatthere are factories, coal-pits, distilleries, ing, a coal train, or a cattle train, or a and iron-works all within reach, it is in- goods train, or, in short, any train except conceivable how leisurely the people are, the one you wait for, groans up to you and how little it seems to matter to any with many a puff and snort, and groans one that they have an hour or two to wait off again, leaving more smells and smoke at a junction - so much effort as would behind. The silence which intervenes is suffice to make the trains correspond with deep as death; it is the silence of useless each other, does not seem to be consid- and angry leisure, not knowing what to ered possible. The men of Fife shrug do with itself. In the distance there are their shoulders, as if they were so many three platelayers repairing something Italians, and laugh, and put up with and conversing at intervals; and the the delay. And in the East of Fife Lady- hose by which the trains are supplied bank is as much an institution as is the with water keeps dripping; and the pasclub-house at St. Andrews, or the island sengers who keep up courage crush the of May. gravel under their feet as they walk up and down; and those who have given in to despair glare each from his corner. The platelayers are the only beings on earth whom we have soul enough to envy. The spell of the place is not upon their souls; they can laugh still, light-hearted wretches, as they go on deliberately with their work. There is a certain amount of permanent though continually changing company at Ladybank in all the different stages of impatience and weariness. Here and there in the dark corners you will find a man reduced to the lowest level of misanthropy, scowling at the world in general from the depths of a despair which is very far from being divine; while another walks up and down with a sickly smile trying to make the best of the circumstances, and get some amusement from the very forlornness of his situation. This philosopher looks shyly at you as you wait, with a wistful attempt to open communications; but he is too much subdued by circumstances to venture upon any bold initiative; all that he can do is to put dreary questions to the dark porter, who marches up and down master of the situation, taciturn and solemn, yet full of business. "Will it be long, do you think," the poor wayfarer asks inquisitively, "before the train for Perth comes up?" "She's due," says the dark porter. "It has been due for half an hour," the meek traveller replies. "I suppose the trains are often late at this time of the year?" "Ay-she's often late." "This is the right side for Perth?" "Yes." "You are quite sure? And my boxes are all labelled and cannot go astray?" "No." "And can't you tell me of anything to see or do?" asks the traveller in despair. Nor is there any literature to be found in the Fife Limbo. The welcome bookstand with volumes red and yellow exists not here, though even the "Headless Horseman or the "Wild Hunter of the Prairies," or the "Jumping Frog" itself would be welcome. At certain hours indeed you may find newspapers — the valuable "Scotsman," the trusty "Courant," the flying broadsheets of Dundee. I do not know whether the "St. Andrews Gazette " or "Citizen " are current at Ladybank; but these are indeed literary prints such as rejoice the heart, containing tales of thrilling interest, splendid in sentiment, virtuous in feeling, and embracing a varied world of interest, from the modest narrative of how Anne kept her place, and Ellen lost hers, up to the darkly romantic history of the "Heritage of Clanranald, or the Baronet's Secret," which now keeps the subscribers of one of these journals in an excitement more eager than ever was produced by Dickens or Thackeray; but only at rare intervals is such distraction procurable. Ladybank promotes a more solid strain of reflection. Sermons which we have all heard without listening come back to us as we wait. How often have we been told of the flight of time, the waste of |