“Hushed.” “Newgate, Committed for Trial,” a very sad and telling piece, first attested the breaking down of the painter’s health in 1878. In this year he was elected A.R.A., and exhibited “The Gifts of the Fairies,” “The Daughter of the House,” “Absconded,” and a very fine portrait of Samuel Cousins, the mezzotint engraver. This last canvas is a masterpiece, and deserved the success which attended the print engraved from it. Holl was overwhelmed with commissions, which he would not decline. The consequences of this strain upon a constitution which was never strong were more or less, though unequally, manifest in “Ordered to the Front,” a soldier’s departure (1880); “Home Again,” its sequel, in 1883 (after which he was made R.A.). In 1886 he produced a portrait of Millais as his diploma work, but his health rapidly declined and he died at Hampstead, on the 31st of July 1888. Holl’s better portraits, being of men of rare importance, attest the commanding position he occupied in the branch of art he so unflinchingly followed. They include likenesses of Lord Roberts, painted for queen Victoria (1882); the prince of Wales, Lord Dufferin, the duke of Cleveland (1885); Lord Overstone, Mr Bright, Mr Gladstone, Mr Chamberlain, Sir J. Tenniel, Earl Spencer, Viscount Cranbrook, and a score of other important subjects. (F. G. S.)
HOLLAND, CHARLES (1733–1769), English actor, was born
in Chiswick, the son of a baker. He made his first appearance
on the stage in the title rôle of Oroonoko at Drury Lane in 1755,
John Palmer, Richard Yates and Mrs Cibber being in the cast.
He played under Garrick, and was the original Florizel in the
latter’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. Garrick
thought highly of him, and wrote a eulogistic epitaph for his
monument in Chiswick church.
His nephew, Charles Holland (1768–1849) was also an actor, who played with Mrs Siddons and Kean.
HOLLAND, SIR HENRY, Bart. (1788–1873), English
physician and author, was born at Knutsford, Cheshire, on the
27th of October 1788. His maternal grandmother was the
sister of Josiah Wedgwood, whose grandson was Charles Darwin;
and his paternal aunt was the mother of Mrs Gaskell. After
spending some years at a private school at Knutsford, he was
sent to a school at Newcastle-on-Tyne, whence after four years
he was transferred to Dr J. P. Estlin’s school near Bristol.
There he at once took the position of head boy, in succession to
John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton, an honour
which required to be maintained by physical prowess. On
leaving school he became articled clerk to a mercantile firm
in Liverpool, but, as the privilege was reserved to him of passing
two sessions at Glasgow university, he at the close of his second
session sought relief from his articles, and in 1806 began the
study of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, where he
graduated in 1811. After several years spent in foreign travel,
he began practice in 1816 as a physician in London—according
to his own statement, “with a fair augury of success speedily
and completely fulfilled.” This “success,” he adds, “was
materially aided by visits for four successive years to Spa, at
the close of that which is called the London season.” It must
also, however, be in a great degree attributed to his happy
temperament and his gifts as a conversationalist—qualities
the influence of which, in the majority of cases belonging to
his class of practice, is often of more importance than direct
medical treatment. In 1816 he was elected F.R.S., and in
1828 F.R.C.S. He became physician in ordinary to Prince
Albert in 1840, and was appointed in 1852 physician in ordinary
to the queen. In April 1853 he was created a baronet. He was
also a D.C.L. of Oxford and a member of the principal learned
societies of Europe. He was twice married, his second wife
being a daughter of Sydney Smith, a lady of considerable literary
talent, who published a biography of her father. Sir Henry
Holland at an early period of his practice resolved to devote
to his professional duties no more of his time than was necessary
to secure an income of £5000 a year, and also to spend two
months of every year solely in foreign travel. By the former
resolution he secured leisure for a wide acquaintance with
general literature, and for a more than superficial cultivation
of several branches of science; and the latter enabled him,
besides visiting, “and most of them repeatedly, every country
of Europe,” to make extensive tours in the other three continents,
journeying often to places little frequented by European
travellers. As, moreover, he procured an introduction to nearly
all the eminent personages in his line of travel, and knew many
of them in his capacity of physician, his acquaintance with
“men and cities” was of a species without a parallel. The
London Medical Record, in noticing his death, which took place
on his 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 of the city of London against the ministers referred to
him as “the public defaulter of unaccounted millions.” The
proceedings brought against him in the court of exchequer
were stayed by a royal warrant; and in a statement published
by him he proved that in the delays in making up the accounts
of his office he had transgressed neither the law nor the custom
of the time. From the interest on the outstanding balances
he had, none the less, amassed a princely fortune. He strove,
but in vain, to obtain promotion to the dignity of an earl, a
dignity upon which he had set his heart, and he died at Holland
House, Kensington, on the 1st of July 1774, a sorely disappointed
man, with a reputation for cunning and unscrupulousness
which cannot easily be matched, and with an unpopularity
which justifies the conclusion that he was the most thoroughly
hated statesman of his day. Lord Holland married in 1744
