eighty-fifth birthday, October 27, 1873, remarked that it "had occurred
under circumstances highly characteristic of his remarkable career." On
his return from a journey in Russia he was present, on Friday, October
24th, at the trial of Marshal Bazaine in Paris, dining with some of the
judges in the evening. He reached London on the Saturday, took ill the
following day, and died quietly on the Monday afternoon.
Sir Henry Holland was the author of _General View of the Agriculture
of Cheshire_ (1807); _Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly
and Greece_ (1812-1813, 2nd ed., 1819); _Medical Notes and
Reflections_ (1839); _Chapters on Mental Physiology_ (1852); _Essays
on Scientific and other Subjects contributed to the Edinburgh and
Quarterly Reviews_ (1862); and _Recollections of Past Life_ (1872).
HOLLAND, HENRY FOX, 1ST BARON (1705-1774), English statesman, second son
of Sir Stephen Fox, was born on the 28th of September 1705. Inheriting a
large share of the riches which his father had accumulated, he
squandered it soon after attaining his majority, and went to the
Continent to escape from his creditors. There he made the acquaintance
of a countrywoman of fortune, who became his patroness and was so lavish
with her purse that, after several years' absence, he was in a position
to return home and, in 1735, to enter parliament as member for Hindon in
Wiltshire. He became the favourite pupil and devoted supporter of Sir
Robert Walpole, achieving unequalled and unenviable proficiency in the
worst political arts of his master and model. As a speaker he was fluent
and self-possessed, imperturbable under attack, audacious in exposition
or retort, and able to hold his own against Pitt himself. Thus he made
himself a power in the House of Commons and an indispensable member of
several administrations. He was surveyor-general of works from 1737 to
1742, was member for Windsor from 1741 to 1761; lord of the treasury in
1743, secretary at war and member of the privy council in 1746, and in
1755 became leader of the House of Commons, secretary of state and a
member of the cabinet under the duke of Newcastle. In 1757, in the
rearrangements of the government, Fox was ultimately excluded from the
cabinet, and given the post of paymaster of the forces. During the war,
which Pitt conducted with extraordinary vigour, and in which the nation
was intoxicated with glory, Fox devoted himself mainly to accumulating a
vast fortune. In 1762 he again accepted the leadership of the House,
with a seat in the cabinet, under the earl of Bute, and exercised his
skill in cajolery and corruption to induce the House of Commons to
approve of the treaty of Paris of 1763; as a recompense, he was raised
to the House of Lords with the title of Baron Holland of Foxley,
Wiltshire, on the 16th of April 1763. In 1765 he was forced to resign
the paymaster generalship, and four years later a petition of the livery
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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