HOLLAND, HENRY, born about 1746, holds a high rank among the architects of his own time, and was greatly patronised by George IV. when Prince of Wales. But we have no information as to his personal history ; and his finest work, the portico of Carlton House, has passed away. This portico erected about 1784 was a fine specimen not merely of the Corinthian order, but of the Roman Corinthian style, in its full and uniform luxuriance, every part of it being highly finished up; and not only was the frieze of entablature enriched with sculpture throughout—with one exception, and that by Holland himself, tho only instance of such classical decoration among the whole of our modern classical porticoea—but even the very bases of the columns were enriched with carving, a species of adornment by no means thrown away, since, being eo year the eye, it challenged direct and minute observation. The Ionic colonnade screen in frout of Carlton House was censured at the time, not for its real deficiencies, but as an architectural absurdity in itself. It was objected as a con clusive argument against it, that the columns supported nothing, whereas they were essential for the support of their entablature, and the entablature was requisite for connecting together the two gateways. While Carlton House and its fine portico have disappeared without being recorded by any engmvin.es intended as adequate architectural studies of them (those in Illustrations of the Publics Buildings of London' being both too few and upon much too small a scale to serve such purpose), another work of Holland's, for the same royal patron, and which has also disappeared, though in a different manner—namely, the Pavilion at Brighton, as it existed previously to its being trans. formed into its present shape by Nash—hae, unluckily for the credit both of the architect and his princely employer, been preserved in Richardson's ' New Vitruvine Britanniens.' As a residence for the Duke of York, Holland altered House, Whitehall (built by Paine), adding to it the elliptical entrance-hall, on what was originally the court-)ard, and the screen façade toward.; Whitehall.
Holland erected old Drury-Lane Theatre, that is, the structure which was begun in 1791 and burnt down in February 1809; and which was considerably larger than the present one, their respective dimensions being 320 x 155 and 240 x 135 feet; yet, except for Its extent and loftineee of mass, the edifice made scarcely auy preten sions to Architecture externally. He was also the architect of soothe] building in the metropolis of considerable architectural distinction tbo India House, Leadenball-street, the credit of which has, rattle] strangely, been generally given to Richard Jupp, who was only the Company's surveyor, and the conductor of the works ; the design, ace: consequently the architecture, belonging to Holland. And the desigr is in some respects unusually florid in character, the frieze of the portico (a recessed Ionic hexastylo loggia) being highly enriched, like that of Carlton House, the pediment tilled in with sculpture, and it acroteria surmounted by colossal emblematical statues. All the res )f the facade however is by much too plain and undignified to accord with such degree of embellishment confined to the centre of it, and ;he rustication of the ground-floor, showing merely horizontal joints, will bear no comparison with that classical mode of such decoration which was exhibited by him in the façades of Carlton House and Dover House. The entablature of the portico is suppressed elsewhere, the cornice alone being continued along the rest of the front, for which there is some reason, since otherwise the cornices of the windows would have joined the architrave. Holland also made some alterations in the mansion built by Brown at Claremont, and added the colonnade screen wings to the Assembly Rooms at Glasgow.
He died at his house in Hans Place, Sloane-street, Chelsea, on the 17th of June 1806, aged about sixty ; he therefore did not live to witness the destruction of his Drury Lane by fire, and that of Carlton House, his finest work, by demolition.