To continue our ramblings through the correspondence in our hands, we insert a letter showing pretty clearly in what esteem Panizzi was held, not only by Lord and Lady Holland, but by others of the society of their house:—
... I dined at Holland House on Saturday last, and Watts (the painter) came after dinner. There is at Holland House a famous portrait of Baretti by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lord and Lady Holland and some of the guests having prepared all this without my knowledge beforehand, surrounded me after dinner, made me look at Baretti’s portrait, and then said that there should be a _pendant_ to it, and that my portrait, taken by Watts,[P] should be the thing. It was no use saying more than I did—which was not a little to decline the honour. The thing was a foregone conclusion; and so, before Watts goes to Italy, which he is going to do almost immediately, he is going to paint me. What will Gambardella say when he hears it?
Gambardella was a Neapolitan artist, living at that time in England. He painted a portrait of Panizzi, which, according to Count d’Orsay, was very unsatisfactory. Before quitting the subject of Panizzi’s connection with Holland House, we should hardly be justified in omitting all mention of an affair with which he became accidentally connected, and which, though itself of no great importance, was nevertheless dashed with a slight admixture of unpleasantness. A short time previously to 1850 the late Lord Holland had compiled and edited two books on the life of his father, which were afterwards published with the following titles:—“Foreign Reminiscences, by Henry Richard Lord Holland: Edited by his Son, Henry Edward Lord Holland. (London, 1850).” And “Memoirs of the ‘Whig Party During My Time,’ by Henry Richard Lord Holland: Edited by his Son, Henry Edward Lord Holland. (2 vols., London, 1852.)” The first of these works the author had, we understand, entrusted for revision and correction to the late Nassau Senior. It was afterwards, for _further assurance_, submitted to Panizzi, who, not altogether content with Senior’s treatment of it, subjected it to a closer revision. He performed the same office for the second book, and finally prepared both for the press.