actors used to act at the houses of the nobility, and this house is mentioned as having frequently been the scene of much dramatic mirth and festivity. [Sidenote: ADDISON] Addison was tutor to the Earl of Warwick.[84] He married the Countess, his mother, a marriage which made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her son. Rowe’s ballad of despairing love is said to have been written either before or after marriage upon this memorable pair, and it is certain Addison has left behind him no encouragement for ambitious love. There is a pretty little poem by Rowe upon the occasion of his first visit to Holland House to see the Countess of Warwick. It is said by some author, “Holland House is a large mansion, but could not contain Mr. Addison, the Countess of Warwick, and one guest, Peace.” During his residence here the house was frequented by the wits and poets of the time, Pope, Tickell, Steele. Upon his deathbed he sent for Gay, with whom he had had little previous intercourse. He told him he had injured him, but would recompense him if he recovered: ‘What the injury was, he did not explain.’ Lord Warwick was a disorderly young man, and had received without heed the advice of Addison, who used his utmost to reclaim his morals and mend his life; when he found himself dying he sent for him, ‘That he might see how a Christian can die.’[85] He expired under this roof in 1719. Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace Rear’d by bold chiefs of Warwick’s noble race, Why, once so loved, whene’er thy bower appears, O’er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears! How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair, Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air! How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees, Thy noontide shadows, and thy evening breeze! His image thy forsaken bowers restore; Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more; No more the summer in thy glooms allay’d Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade. _Tickell, on the death of Addison._ And again in his _Kensington Garden_:-- Where now the skies high Holland House invades And short-lived Warwick sadden’d all the shades. Johnson repeats with great indignation Mandeville’s observation upon Addison. It was that he appeared to him like a parson in a tye wig: a laughable and, I daresay, a true remark.