A Parallel between Orator HENLEY and Sir JOHN HILL--his love of the Science of Botany, with the fate of his "Vegetable System"--ridicules scientific Collectors; his "Dissertation on Royal Societies," and his "Review of the Works of the Royal Society"--compliments himself that he is NOT a Member--successful in his attacks on the Experimentalists, but loses his spirit in encountering the Wits--"The Inspector"--a paper war with FIELDING--a literary stratagem--battles with SMART and WOODWARD--HILL appeals to the Nation for the Office of Keeper of the Sloane Collection--closes his life by turning Empiric--Some Epigrams on HILL--his Miscellaneous Writings.
In the history of literature we discover some who have opened their career with noble designs, and with no deficient powers, yet unblest with stoic virtues, having missed, in their honourable labours, those rewards they had anticipated, they have exhibited a sudden transition of character, and have left only a name proverbial for its disgrace.
Our own literature exhibits two extraordinary characters, indelibly marked by the same traditional odium. The wit and acuteness of Orator HENLEY, and the science and vivacity of the versatile Sir JOHN HILL, must separate them from those who plead the same motives for abjuring all moral restraint, without having ever furnished the world with a single instance that they were capable of forming nobler views.
This
orator and this
knight would admit of a close parallel;[1] both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for their effrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devotedness to study, with the same inventive and enterprising genius. Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form a collection of rare plants: the patronage he received was too limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated the national taste for the science of botany by half a century. Our young philosopher's valuable "Treatise on Gems," from Theophrastus, procured for him the warm friendship of the eminent members of the Royal Society. To this critical period of the lives of Henley and of Hill, their resemblance is striking; nor is it less from the moment the surprising revolution in their characters occurred.
Pressed by the wants of life, they lost its decencies. Henley attempted to poise himself against the University; Hill against the Royal Society. Rejected by these learned bodies, both these Cains of literature, amid their luxuriant ridicule of eminent men, still evince some claims to rank among them. The one prostituted his genius in his "Lectures;" the other, in his "Inspectors." Never two authors were more constantly pelted with epigrams, or buffeted in literary quarrels. They have met with the same fate; covered with the same odium. Yet Sir John Hill, this despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary life, performed more for the improvement of the "Philosophical Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. His real ability extorts that regard which his misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more worthless motives, had lost for him in the world.[2]
At the time that Hill was engaged in several large compilations for the booksellers, his employers were desirous that the honours of an F.R.S. should ornament his title-page. This versatile genius, however, during these graver works, had suddenly emerged from his learned garret, and, in the shape of a fashionable lounger, rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to Ranelagh; was visible at routs; and sate at the theatre a tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him tumults and divisions;[3] and in his "Inspectors," a periodical paper which he published in the
London Daily Advertiser, retailed all the great matters relating to himself, and all the little matters he collected in his rounds relating to others. Among other personalities, he indulged his satirical fluency on the scientific collectors. The Antiquarian Society were twitted as medal-scrapers and antediluvian knife-grinders; conchologists were turned into cockleshell merchants; and the naturalists were made to record pompous histories of stickle-hacks and cockchafers. Cautioned by Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society,[4] not to attempt his election, our enraged comic philosopher, who had preferred his jests to his friends, now discovered that he had lost three hundred at once. Hill could not obtain three signatures to his recommendation. Such was the real, but, as usual, not the ostensible, motive of his formidable attack on the Royal Society. He produced his "Dissertation on Royal Societies, in a letter from a Sclavonian nobleman to his friend," 1751; a humorous prose satire, exhibiting a ludicrous description of a tumultuous meeting at the Royal Society, contrasted with the decorum observed in the French Academy; and moreover, he added a
conversazione in a coffee-house between some of the members.
Such was the declaration of war, in a first act of hostility; but the pitched-battle was fought in "A Review of the Works of the Royal Society, in eight parts," 1751. This literary satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them to bind the "Review" with the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious knowledge which he pretended the Royal Society wanted; and with this knowledge he attempted to combine the humour of Dr. King.[5]
Hill's rejection from the Royal Society, to another man would have been a puddle to step over; but he tells a story, and cleanly passes on, with impudent adroitness.[6]
Hill, however, though he used all the freedom of a satirist, by exposing many ridiculous papers, taught the Royal Society a more cautious selection. It could, however, obtain no forgiveness from the parties it offended; and while the respectable men whom Hill had the audacity to attack, Martin Folkes, the friend and successor of Newton, and Henry Baker, the naturalist, were above his censure,--his own reputation remained in the hands of his enemies. While Hill was gaining over the laughers on his side, that volatile populace soon discovered that the fittest object to be laughed at was our literary Proteus himself.
The most egregious egotism alone could have induced this versatile being, engaged in laborious works, to venture to give the town the daily paper of
The Inspector, which he supported for about two years. It was a light scandalous chronicle all the week, with a seventh-day sermon. His utter contempt for the genius of his contemporaries, and the bold conceit of his own, often rendered the motley pages amusing.
The Inspector became, indeed, the instrument of his own martyrdom; but his impudence looked like magnanimity; for he endured, with undiminished spirit, the most biting satires, the most wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations.[7] His vein of pleasantry ran more freely in his attacks on the Royal Society than in his other literary quarrels. When Hill had not to banter ridiculous experimentalists, but to encounter wits, his reluctant spirit soon bowed its head. Suddenly even his pertness loses its vivacity; he becomes drowsy with dulness, and, conscious of the dubiousness of his own cause, he skulks away terrified: he felt that the mask of quackery and impudence which he usually wore was to be pulled off by the hands now extended against him.
A humorous warfare of wit opened between Fielding, in his
Covent-Garden Journal, and Hill, in his
Inspector.
The Inspector had made the famous lion's head, at the Bedford, which the genius of Addison and Steele had once animated, the receptacle of his wit; and the wits asserted, of this now
inutile lignum, that it was reduced to a mere state of
blockheadism. Fielding occasionally gave a facetious narrative of a paper war between the forces of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, the literary hero of the
Covent-Garden Journal, and the army of Grub-street; it formed an occasional literary satire. Hill's lion, no longer Addison's or Steele's, is not described without humour. Drawcansir's "troops are kept in awe by a strange mixed monster, not much unlike the famous chimera of old. For while some of our Reconnoiterers tell us that this monster has the appearance of a lion, others assure us that his ears are much longer than those of that generous beast."
Hill ventured to notice this attack on his "blockhead;" and, as was usual with him, had some secret history to season his defence with.
"The author of 'Amelia,' whom I have only once seen, told me, at that accidental meeting, he held the present set of writers in the utmost contempt; and that, in his character of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, he should treat them in the most unmerciful manner. He assured me he had always excepted me; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he proceeded to mention a conduct which would be, he said, useful to both; this was, the amusing our readers with a mock fight; giving blows that would not hurt, and sharing the advantage in silence."[8]
Thus, by reversing the fact, Hill contrived to turn aside the frequent stories against him by a momentary artifice, arresting or dividing public opinion. The truth was, more probably, as Fielding relates it, and the story, as we shall see, then becomes quite a different affair. At all events, Hill incurred the censure of the traitor who violates a confidential intercourse.
And if he lies not, must at least betray.
POPE.
Fielding lost no time in reply. To have brought down the
Inspector from his fastnesses into the open field, was what our new General only wanted: a battle was sure to be a victory. Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his indifferent puns, but his natural facetiousness.
"It being reported to the General that a
hill must be levelled, before the Bedford coffee-house could be taken, orders were given; but this was afterwards found to be a mistake; for this
hill was only a little paltry
dunghill, and had long before been levelled with the dirt. The General was then informed of a report which had been spread by his
lowness, the Prince of Billingsgate, in the Grub-street army, that his Excellency had proposed, by a
secret treaty with that Prince, to carry on the war only in appearance, and so to betray the common cause; upon which his Excellency said with a smile:--'If the betrayer of a private treaty could ever deserve the least credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself either a liar or a fool. None can doubt but that he is the former, if he hath feigned this treaty; and I think few would scruple to call him the latter, if he had rejected it.' The General then declared the fact stood thus:--'His Lowness came to my tent on an affair of his own. I treated him, though a commander in the enemy's camp, with civility, and even kindness. I told him, with the utmost good-humour, I should attack his Lion; and that he might, if he pleased, in the same manner defend him; from which, said I, no great loss can happen on either side--'"
The Inspector slunk away, and never returned to the challenge.
During his inspectorship, he invented a whimsical literary stratagem, which ended in his receiving a castigation more lasting than the honours performed on him at Ranelagh by the cane of a warm Hibernian. Hill seems to have been desirous of abusing certain friends whom he had praised in the
Inspectors; so volatile, like the loves of coquettes, are the literary friendships of the "Scribleri." As this could not be done with any propriety there, he published the first number of a new paper, entitled
The Impertinent. Having thus relieved his private feelings, he announced the cessation of this new enterprise in his
Inspectors, and congratulated the public on the ill reception it had given to the
Impertinent, applauding them for their having shown by this that "their indignation was superior to their curiosity." With impudence all his own, he adds--"It will not be easy to say too much in favour of the candour of the town, which has despised a piece that cruelly and unjustly attacked Mr. Smart the poet." What innocent soul could have imagined that
The Impertinent and
The Inspector were the same individual? The style is a specimen of
persiflage; the thin sparkling thought; the pert vivacity, that looks like wit without wit; the glittering bubble, that rises in emptiness;--even its author tells us, in
The Inspector, it is "the most pert, the most pretending," &c.[9]
Smart, in return for our Janus-faced critic's treatment, balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent Dunciad
The Hilliad. Hill, who had heard of the rod in pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength; and, according to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, with a story of his having recommended the bard to his bookseller, "who took him into salary on my approbation. I betrayed him into the profession, and having starved upon it, he has a right to abuse me." This story was formally denied by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller.
"The Hilliad" is a polished and pointed satire. The hero is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven.
On earth, "a tawny sibyl," with "an old striped curtain--"
And tatter'd tapestry o'er her shoulders hung--
Her loins with patchwork cincture were begirt,
That more than spoke diversity of dirt.
Twain were her teeth, and single was her eye--
Cold palsy shook her head----
with "moon-struck madness," awards him all the wealth and fame she could afford him for sixpence; and closes her orgasm with the sage admonition--
The chequer'd world's before thee; go, farewell!
Beware of Irishmen; and learn to spell!
But in heaven, among the immortals, never was an unfortunate hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothingness! Jove, disturbed at the noise of this thing of wit, exclaims, that nature had never proved productive in vain before, but now,
On mere privation she bestow'd a frame,
And dignified a nothing with a name;
A wretch devoid of use, of sense, of grace,
The insolvent tenant of incumber'd space!
Pallas hits off the style of Hill, as
The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true--
Should Jove himself, in calculation mad,
Still negatives to blank negations add;
How could the barren ciphers ever breed;
But nothing still from nothing would proceed.
Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame,
Inanity will ever be the same.
But Phœbus shows there may still be something produced from inanity.
E'en blank privation has its use and end--
From emptiness, how sweetest music flows!
How absence, to possession adds a grace,
And modest vacancy, to all gives place.
So from Hillario, some effect may spring;
E'en him--that slight penumbra of a thing!
The careless style of the fluent Inspectors, beside their audacity, brought Hill into many scrapes. He called Woodward, the celebrated harlequin, "the meanest of all characters." This Woodward resented in a pamphlet-battle, in which Hill was beaten at all points.[10] But Hill, or the Monthly Reviewer, who might be the same person, for that journal writes with the tenderness of a brother of whatever relates to our hero, pretends that the Inspector only meant, that "the character of Harlequin (if a thing so unnatural and ridiculous ought to be called a character) was the
meanest on the stage!"[11]
I will here notice a characteristic incident in Hill's literary life, of which the boldness and the egotism is scarcely paralleled, even by Orator Henley. At the time the Sloane Collection of Natural History was purchased, to form a part of our grand national establishment, the British Museum, Hill offered himself, by public advertisement, in one of his
Inspectors, as the properest person to be placed at its head. The world will condemn him for his impudence. The most reasonable objection against his mode of proceeding would be, that the thing undid itself; and that the very appearance, by public advertisement, was one motive why so confident an offer should be rejected. Perhaps, after all, Hill only wanted to
advertise himself.
But suppose that Hill was the man he represents himself to be, and he fairly challenges the test, his conduct only appears eccentric, according to routine. Unpatronised and unfriended men are depressed, among other calamities, with their quiescent modesty; but there is a rare spirit in him who dares to claim favours, which he thinks his right, in the most public manner. I preserve, in the note, the most striking passages of this extraordinary appeal.[12]
At length, after all these literary quarrels, Hill survived his literary character. He had written himself down to so low a degree, that whenever he had a work for publication, his employers stipulated, in their contracts, that the author should conceal his name; a circumstance not new among a certain race of writers.[13] But the genius of Hill was not annihilated by being thrown down so violently on his mother earth; like Anthæus, it rose still fresh; and like Proteus, it assumed new forms.[14] Lady Hill and the young Hills were claimants on his industry far louder than the evanescent epigrams which darted around him: these latter, however, were more numerous than ever dogged an author in his road to literary celebrity.[15] His science, his ingenuity, and his impudence once more practised on the credulity of the public, with the innocent quackery of attributing all medicinal virtues to British herbs. He made many walk out, who were too sedentary; they were delighted to cure headaches by feverfew tea; hectic fevers by the daisy; colics by the leaves of camomile, and agues by its flowers. All these were accompanied by plates of the plants, with the Linnæan names.[16] This was preparatory to the
Essences of Sage,
Balsams of Honey, and
Tinctures of Valerian. Simple persons imagined they were scientific botanists in their walks, with Hill's plates in their hands. But one of the newly-discovered virtues of British herbs was, undoubtedly, that of placing the discoverer in a chariot.
In an Apology for the character of Sir John Hill, published after his death, where he is painted with much beauty of colouring, and elegance of form, the eruptions and excrescences of his motley physiognomy, while they are indicated--for they were too visible to be entirely omitted in anything pretending to a resemblance--are melted down, and even touched into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real purpose appears in the last page; where we are informed that Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable recipes and herbal remedies!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in "Calamities of Authors."
[2] The twenty-six folios of his "Vegetable System," with many others, testify his love and his labour. It contains 1600 plates, representing 26,000 different figures of plants
from nature only. This publication ruined the author, whose widow (the sister of Lord Ranelagh) published "An Address to the Public, by the Hon. Lady Hill, setting forth the consequences of the late Sir John Hill's acquaintance with the Earl of Bute," 1787. I should have noticed it in the "Calamities of Authors." It offers a sad and mortifying lesson to the votary of science who aspires to a noble enterprise. Lady Hill complains of the
patron; but a patron, however great, cannot always raise the public taste to the degree required to afford the only true patronage which can animate and reward an author. Her detail is impressive:--
"Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance--I think it was called 'Exotic Botany'--which he wished to have presented to the king, and therefore named it to Lord Bute. His lordship waived that, saying that 'he had a greater object to propose;' and shortly after laid before him a plan of the most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever man attempted. I tremble when I name its title--because I think the severe application which it required killed him; and I am sure the expense ruined his fortune--'The Vegetable System.' This work was to consist of twenty-six volumes folio, containing sixteen hundred copper-plates, the engraving of each cost four guineas; the paper was of the most expensive kind; the drawings by the first hands. The printing was also a very weighty concern; and many other articles, with which I am unacquainted. Lord Bute said that 'the expense had been considered, and that Sir John Hill might rest assured his circumstances should not be injured.' Thus he entered upon and finished his destruction. The sale bore no proportion to the expense. After 'The Vegetable System' was completed, Lord Bute proposed another volume to be added, which Sir John strenuously opposed; but his lordship repeating his desire, Sir John complied, lest his lordship should find a pretext to cast aside repeated promises of ample provision for himself and family. But this was the crisis of his fate--he died." Lady Hill adds:--"He was a character on which every virtue was impressed." The domestic partiality of the widow cannot alter the truth of the narrative of "The Vegetable System," and its twenty-six tomes.
[3] His apologist forms this excuse for one then affecting to be a student and a rake:--"Though engaged in works which required the attention of a whole life, he was so exact an economist of his time that he scarcely ever missed a public amusement for many years; and this, as he somewhere observes, was of no small service to him; as, without indulging in these respects, he could not have undergone the fatigue and study inseparable from the execution of his vast designs."--Short Account of the "Life, Writings, and Character of the late Sir John Hill, M.D." Edinburgh: 1779.
[4] Hogarth has painted a portrait of Folkes, which is still hanging in the rooms of the Royal Society. He was nominated vice-president by the great Sir Isaac Newton, and succeeded him as president. He wrote a work on the "English Silver Coinage," and died at the age of sixty-four, 1754.--ED.
[5] Hill planned his Review with good sense. He says:--"If I am merry in some places, it ought to be considered that the subjects are too ridiculous for serious criticism. That the work, however, might not be without its
real use, an
Error is nowhere exposed without establishing a
Truth in its place." He has incidentally thrown out much curious knowledge--such as his plan for forming a
Hortus Siccus, &c. The Review itself may still be considered both as curious and entertaining.
[6] In exposing their deficiencies, as well as their redundancies, Hill only wishes, as he tells us, that the Society may by this means become ashamed of what it has been, and that the world may know that
he is NOT a member of it till it is an honour to a man to be so! This was telling the world, with some ingenuity, and with no little impudence, that the Royal Society would not admit him as a member. He pretends to give a secret anecdote to explain the cause of this rejection. Hill, in every critical conjuncture of his affairs, and they were frequent ones, had always a story to tell, or an evasion, which served its momentary purpose. When caned by an Irish gentleman at Ranelagh, and his personal courage, rather than his stoicism, was suspected, he published a story of
his having once caned a person whom he called Mario; on which a wag, considering Hill as a Prometheus, wrote--
"To beat one man great Hill was fated.
What man?--a man whom he created!"
We shall see the story he turned to his purpose, when pressed hard by Fielding. In the present instance, in a letter to a foreign correspondent, who had observed his name on the list of the
Correspondents of the Royal Society, Hill said--"You are to know that
I have the honour NOT to be a member of the Royal Society of London."--This letter lay open on his table when a member, upon his accustomed visit, came in, and in his absence read it. "And we are not to wonder," says Hill, "that he who could obtain intelligence in this manner could also divulge it.
Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Hence all the animosities that have since disturbed this philosophic world." While Hill insolently congratulates himself that he is
not a member of the Royal Society, he has most evidently shown that he had no objection to be the member of any society which would enrol his name among them. He obtained his medical degree from no honourable source; and another title, which he affected, he mysteriously contracted into barbaric dissonance. Hill entitled himself--
Acad. Reg. Scient. Burd. &c. Soc. To which Smart, in the "Hilliad," alludes--
"While
Jargon gave his titles on a
block,
And styled him M.D. Acad. Budig. Soc."
His personal attacks on Martin Folkes, the president, are caustic, but they may not be true; and on Baker, celebrated for his microscopical discoveries, are keen. He reproaches Folkes, in his severe dedication of the work, in all the dignity of solemn invective.--"The manner in which you represented me to a noble friend, while to myself you made me much more than I deserved; the ease with which you had excused yourself, and the solemnity with which, in the face of Almighty God, you excused yourself again; when we remember that the whole was done within the compass of a day; these are surely virtues in a patron that I, of all men, ought not to pass over in silence." Baker, in his early days, had unluckily published a volume of lusory poems. Some imitations of Prior's loose tales Hill makes use of to illustrate
his "Philosophical Transactions." All is food for the malicious digestion of Wit!
His anecdote of Mr. Baker's
Louse is a piece of secret scientific history sufficiently ludicrous.
"The Duke of Montague was famous for his love to the whole animal creation, and for his being able to keep a very grave face when not in the most serious earnest. Mr. Baker, a distinguished member of the Royal Society, had one day entertained this nobleman and several other persons with the sight of the peristaltic motion of the bowels in a louse, by the microscope. When the observation was over, he was going to throw the creature away; but the Duke, with a face that made him believe he was perfectly in earnest, told him it would be not only cruel, but ungrateful, in return for the entertainment that creature had given them, to destroy it. He ordered the boy to be brought in from whom it was procured, and after praising the smallness and delicacy of Mr. Baker's fingers, persuaded him carefully to replace the animal in its former territories, and to give the boy a shilling not to disturb it for a fortnight."--"A Review of the Works of the Royal Society," by John Hill, M.D., p. 5.
[7] These papers had appeared in the London
Daily Advertiser, 1754. At their close he gleaned the best, and has preserved them in two volumes. But as Hill will never rank as a classic, the original nonsense will be considered as most proper for the purposes of a true collector. Woodward, the comedian, in his lively attack on Hill, has given "a mock Inspector," an exquisite piece of literary ridicule, in which he has hit off the egotisms and slovenly ease of the real ones. Never, like "The Inspector," flamed such a provoking prodigy in the cloudy skies of Grub-street; and Hill seems studiously to have mortified his luckless rivals by a perpetual embroidery of his adventures in the "Walks at Marybone," the "Rotunda at Ranelagh," spangled over with "my domestics," and "my equipage." [One of his adventures at Ranelagh was sufficiently unfortunate to obtain for him the unenviable notoriety of a caricature print representing him enduring a castigation at the Rotunda gate from an Irish gentleman named Brown, with whose character he had made far too free in one of his "Inspectors." Hill showed much pusillanimity in the affair, took to his bed, and gave out that the whole thing was a conspiracy to murder him. This occasioned the publication of another print, in which he is represented in bed, surrounded by medical men, who treat him with very little respect. One insists on his fee, because Hill has never been acknowledged as one of themselves; and another, to his plea of want of money, responds, "Sell your sword, it is only an encumbrance."]
[8] It is useful to remind the public that they are often played upon in this manner by the artifices of
political writers. We have observed symptoms of this deception practised at present. It is an old trick of the craft, and was greatly used at a time when the nation seemed maddened with political factions. In a pamphlet of "A View of London and Westminster, or the Town-spy," 1725, I find this account:--"The
seeming quarrel, formerly, between
Mist's Journal and the
Flying Post was
secretly concerted between themselves, in order to decoy the eyes of all the parties on both their papers; and the project succeeded beyond all expectation; for I have been told that the former narrowly missed getting an estate by it."--p. 32.
[9] Isaac Reed, in his "Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Humour," vol. iv., in republishing "The Hilliad," has judiciously preserved the offending "Impertinent" and the abjuring "Inspector." The style of "The Impertinent" is volatile and poignant. His four classes of authors are not without humour. "There are men who write because they have wit; there are those who write because they are hungry; there are some of the modern authors who have a constant fund of both these causes; and there are who will write, although they are not instigated either by the one or by the other. The first are all spirit; the second are all earth; the third disclose more life, or more vapidity, as the one or the other cause prevails; and for the last, having neither the one nor the other principle for the cause, they show neither the one nor the other character in the effect; but begin, continue, and end, as if they had neither begun, continued, nor ended at all." The first class he instances by Fielding; the second by Smart. Of the third he says:--"The mingled wreath belongs to Hill," that is himself; and the fourth he illustrates by the absurd Sir William Browne.
"Those of the first rank are the most capricious and lazy of all animals. The monkey genius would rarely exert itself, if even idleness innate did not give way to the superior love of mischief. The ass (that is Smart), which characters the second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a ridiculous comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugh at the insensibility and obstinacy that make him prick his lips with thistles."
[10] Woodward humorously attributes Hill's attack on him to his
jealousy of his successful performance of
Harlequin, and opens some of the secret history of Hill, by which it appears that early in life he trod the theatrical boards. He tells us of the extraordinary pains the prompter had taken with Hill, in the part of Oroonoko; though, "if he had not quite forgotten it, to very little purpose." He reminds Hill of a dramatic anecdote, which he no doubt had forgotten. It seems he once belonged to a strolling company at May-fair, where, in the scene between Altamont and Lothario, the polite audience of that place all chorused, and agreed with him, when dying he exclaimed, "Oh, Altamont, thy genius is the stronger." He then shows him off as the starved apothecary in
Romeo and Juliet, in one of his botanic peregrinations to Chelsea Garden; from whence, it is said, he was expelled for "culling too many rare plants"--
"I do remember an apothecary,
Culling of simples----."
Hill, who was often so brisk in his attack on the wits, had no power of retort; so that he was always buffeting and always buffeted.
[11] He was also satirised in a poem termed "The Pasquinade," published in 1752, in which the goddesses of Pertness and Dulness join to praise him as their favourite reflex.
"Pertness saw her form distinctly shine
In none, immortal Hill! so full as thine."
Dulness speaks of him thus rapturously:--
"See where my son, who gratefully repays
Whate'er I lavish'd on his younger days;
Whom still my arm protects to brave the town
Secure from Fielding, Machiavel, or Brown;
Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt,
Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert!
Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,
I gave his mother's milk to Confidence;
She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face,
And changed his skin to monumental brass.
Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt,
Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert!
Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,
I gave his mother's milk to Confidence;
She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face,
And changed his skin to monumental brass."
[12] Hill addresses the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Speaker, on Sir Hans Sloane's Collection of Natural History, proposing himself as a candidate for nomination in the principal office, by whatever name that shall be called:--"I deliver myself with humility; but conscious also that I possess the liberties of a British subject, I shall speak with freedom." He says that the only means left for a Briton is to address his sovereign and the public. "That foreigners will resort to this collection is certain, for it is the most considerable in the world; and that our own people will often visit it is as sure, because it may be made the means of much useful as well as curious knowledge. One and the other will expect a person in that office who has sufficient knowledge: he must be able to give account of every article, freely and fluently, not only in his own, but in the Latin and French languages.
"This the world, and none in it better than your lordship, sees is not a place that any one can execute: it requires knowledge in a peculiar and uncommon kind of study--knowledge which very few possess; and in which, my lord, the bitterest of my enemies (and I have thousands, although neither myself nor they know why) will not say I am deficient----.
"My lord, the eyes of all Europe are upon this transaction. What title I have to your lordship's favour, those books which I have published, and with which (pardon the necessary boast) all Europe is acquainted, declare. Many may dispute by interest with me; but if there be one who would prefer himself, by his abilities, I beg the matter may be brought to trial. The collection is at hand; and I request, my lord, such person and myself may be examined by that test, together. It is an amazing store of knowledge; and he has most, in this way, who shall show himself most acquainted with it.
"What are my own abilities it very ill becomes me thus to boast; but did they not qualify me for the trust, my lord, I would not ask it. As to those of any other, unless a man be conjured from the dead, I shall not fear to say there is not any one whoever that is able so much as to call the parts of the collection by their names.
"I know I shall be accused of ostentation in giving to myself this preference; and I am sorry for it: but those who have candour will know it could not be avoided.
"Many excel, my lord, in other studies: it is my chance to have bestowed the labour of my life on this: those labours may be of some use to others. This appears the only instance in which it is possible that they should be rewarded----."
In a subsequent
Inspector, he treated on the improvement of botany by raising plants, and reading lectures on them at the British Museum, with the living plants before the lecturer and his auditors. Poor Sir John! he was born half a century too early!--He would, in this day, have made his lectures fashionable; and might have secured at the opera every night an elegant audience for the next morning in the gardens of the Museum.
[13] It would be difficult to form a list of his anonymous works or compilations, among which many are curious. Tradition has preserved his name as the writer of Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, and of several novels. There is a very curious work, entitled "Travels in the East," 2 vols. 8vo, of which the author has been frequently and in vain inquired after. These travels are attributed to a noble lord; but it now appears that they are a very entertaining narrative manufactured by Hill. Whiston, the bookseller, had placed this work in his MS. catalogue of Hill's books.
There is still another production of considerable merit, entitled "Observations on the Greek and Roman Classics," 1753. A learned friend recollects, when young, that this critical work was said to be written by Hill. It excels Blackwell and Fenton; and aspires to the numerous composition of prose. The sentimental critic enters into the feelings of the great authors whom he describes with spirit, delicacy of taste, and sometimes with beautiful illustration. It only wants a chastening hand to become a manual for the young classical student, by which he might acquire those vivid emotions, which many college tutors may not be capable of communicating.
I suspect, too, he is the author of this work, from a passage which Smart quotes, as a specimen of Hill's puffing himself, and of those smart short periods which look like wit, without being witty. In a letter to himself, as we are told, Hill writes:--"You have discovered many of the beauties of the ancients--they are obliged to you; we are obliged to you: were they alive, they would thank you; we who are alive do thank you." If Hill could discriminate the most hidden beauties of the ancients, the
tact must have been formed at his leisure--in his busy hours he never copied them; but when had he leisure?
Two other works, of the most contrasted character, display the versatility and dispositions of this singular genius, at different eras. When "The Inspector" was rolling in his chariot about the town, appeared "Letters from the Inspector to a Lady," 1752. It is a pamphlet, containing the amorous correspondence of Hill with a reigning beauty, whom he first saw at Ranelagh. On his first ardent professions he is contemptuously rejected; he perseveres in high passion, and is coldly encouraged; at length he triumphs; and this proud and sullen beauty, in her turn, presents a horrid picture of the passions. Hill then becomes the reverse of what he was; weary of her jealousy, sated with the intercourse, he studiously avoids, and at length rejects her; assigning for his final argument his approaching marriage. The work may produce a moral effect, while it exhibits a striking picture of all the misery of illicit connexions: but the scenes are coloured with Ovidian warmth. The original letters were shown at the bookseller's: Hill's were in his own handwriting, and the lady's in a female hand. But whether Hill was the publisher, as an attempt at notoriety--or the lady admired her own correspondence, which is often exquisitely wrought, is not known.
Hill, in his serious hours, published a large quarto volume, entitled "Thoughts Concerning God and Nature," 1755. This work, the result of his scientific knowledge and his moral reasoning, was never undertaken for the purpose of profit. He printed it with the certainty of a considerable loss, from its abstract topics, not obvious to general readers; at a time, too, when a guinea quarto was a very hazardous enterprise. He published it purely from conscientious and religious motives; a circumstance mentioned in that Apology of his Life which we have noticed. The more closely the character of Hill is scrutinised, the more extraordinary appears this man, so often justly contemned, and so often unjustly depreciated.
[14] Through the influence of Lord Bute he became connected with the Royal Gardens at Kew; and his lordship also assisted him in publishing his botanical works. See note, p. 363.
[15] It would occupy pages to transcribe epigrams on Hill. One of them alludes to his philosophical as well as his literary character:--
"Hill puffs himself; forbear to chide!
An insect vile and mean
Must first, he knows, be magnified
Before it can be seen."
Garrick's happy lines are well known on his farces:--
"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is--
His farces are physic, his physic a farce is."
Another said--
"The worse that we wish thee, for all thy vile crimes,
Is to take thy own physic, and read thy own rhymes."
The rejoinder would reverse the wish--
"For, if he takes his physic first,
He'll never read his rhymes."
[16] Hill says, in his pamphlet on the "Virtues of British Herbs":--"It will be happy if, by the same means, the knowledge of plants also becomes more general. The study of them is pleasant, and the exercise of it healthful. He who seeks the herb for its cure, will find it half effected by the walk; and when he is acquainted with the useful kinds, he may be more people's, besides his own, physician."
[The end]
Isaac Disraeli's essay: Sir John Hill, With The Royal Society, Fielding, Smart, &c.