ABSTRACT
Fortunately his blossoming social life provided a counterbalance. Not even at Craven Hill had Horne's natural gregariousness found better outlets and he was accepted now by a gratifyingly large and diverse collection of literary people. There were still occasional visits to Craven Hill and, after November 1839, to Fox's new home in Westminster; a move much regretted by his household but made necessary by Fox's growing role as 'golden orator of untax'd bread' for
the Anti-Com-Law League. There were visits also to Leigh Hunt's new home in Edwardes Square, Kensington, where the family made fresh domestic chaos. In this odd household Home met literary celebrities, ranging from Byron's friend, the Irish poet Tom Moore, to William Wordsworth, the grand old man of the Romantic Movement long venerated by Horne and a friend of the Gillies sisters since Margaret had painted his portrait many years before. Home was impressed by Wordsworth, in spite of his antipathy to the old man's conservatism: he was less impressed by plausible Tom Moore.
