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And he quoted from the Latin poets to prove what he said.

But the anecdotes of Lady Holland and her guests would fill pages.

years,

She survived her husband five but kept up her brilliant dinner parties to the last. The French statesman Thiers and Lord Palmerston were present at the last she ever gave, in October, 1845. She died the following November. Although a skeptic in religion she met death with serenity and without concern.

HENRY LUTTRELL,

WIT AND POET.

(1765-1851.)

MACAULAY, Writing to his sister in 1831 describing a breakfast at Holland House, says:

Our breakfast party consisted of my lord and lady, myself, Lord Russell and Luttrell. You must have heard of Luttrell. I met him once at Rogers', and I have seen him, I think, in other places. He is a famous wit-the most popular, I think, of all the professed wits—a man who has lived in the highest circles, a scholar and no contemptible poet. He wrote a little volume of verse entitled "Advice to Julia"not first-rate, but neat, lively, piquant and showing the most consummate knowledge of fashionable life.

At the time this letter was written few men were better known in the world of fashion than Henry Luttrell. One cannot read the story of the early part of the century as we have it in the memoirs and letters of Byron, in the diaries of Moore and Crabb Robinson, and in the reminiscences of Rogers and other celebrities of the time,

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without constantly meeting with the name of Henry Luttrell. He was universally known as a most agreeable member of society, as an incorrigible wit and sayer of good things, as a master of epigrams and sententious sayings and as a gentleman of the highest good breeding. He was, besides this, a scholar who knew the niceties of Greek and Latin literature. In the "Noctes Ambrosianae he is called one of the most accomplished men in all England-a wit and a scholar." Byron, in conversation with the Countess of Blessington, said: "Of course you know Luttrell; he is the best sayer of good things and the most epigrammatic conversationist I ever met. There is a terseness and wit, mingled with fancy, in his observations that no one else possesses, and no one so peculiarly understands the apropos. Then, unlike most other wits, Luttrell is never obtrusive; even the choicest bons mots are only brought forth when perfectly applicable, and they are given in a tone of good breeding which enhances their value."

Henry Luttrell, wit, poet and man about town, for almost fifty years in London, the associate of Rogers, Moore, Campbell and Sydney Smith, a man who in his youth could have known Dr. Johnson, and in his advanced years did know

Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer and Disraeli, was the natural son of the Earl of Carhampton of Ireland, whose family name was Luttrell. He was born about 1765, and in 1802 came to London, where he was introduced into society by the famous Duchess of Devonshire. In this way he became acquainted with Charles Fox and Samuel Rogers and obtained the entrée to Holland House, most famous of English mansions for hospitality and sociability. It was a society center in London for nearly half a century, and Luttrell was one of its shining lights, whose wit and repartee never failed to flash upon and delight every company where he was present.

From youth to age he lived on terms of the closest intimacy with Samuel Rogers, though they were accustomed to give each other many a sarcastic side-blow and home-thrust. But for years they were almost inseparable, and one of Moore's entries in his diary is: "Luttrell is always at Rogers'." "None of the talkers whom I meet in London society," says Rogers, “can slide into a brilliant thing with such readiness as Luttrell does."

Most of his witticisms are now familiar, through long repetition, but it was he who first said that the climate of London was, "on a fine day, like

looking up a chimney; on a rainy day, like looking down one."

He disliked monkeys, because they reminded him of his poor relations, and on being asked whether a well-known bore had made himself very disagreeable, his reply was "that he was as disagreeable as the occasion would permit."

Luttrell wrote occasional vers de société, but his principal poem is "Advice to Julia," an imitation of Horace in Hudibrastic verse. It is an amplification of the ode to Lydia in the first book of Horace, in which that lady is enjoined by the poet not to ruin Sybaris by holding him too tightly bound to her apron strings.

Julia is the heroine, a young widow of something over twenty, whose lover is Charles, a man of fashion and pleasure, embarrassed by debt but still at the head of the bon-ton. Julia is rich and spoiled by flattery, and intends to marry her admirer at her own good will and pleasure, but meanwhile subjects him to all the tyranny of caprice and coquetry. The object of the poet is to remonstrate with the lady, and in doing so he discourses generally on English fashionable life, and carries his reader from Almacks to Newmarket, and from Brighton to Paris. It is a picture of frivolity true enough to the time, but

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