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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
 
 AARON HILL 
 
 POET, DRAMATIST, PROJECTOR 
 
COLUMBIA 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 New York : 
 LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
 30-32 West 27th Street 
 
 London : 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 Amen Corner, E.C. 
 
 Toronto : 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 
AARON HILL 
 
 POET, DRAMATIST, PROJECTOR 
 
 BY 
 
 DOROTHY BREWSTER 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 
 
 for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the 
 
 Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1913 
 
YUsTe 
 
 Copyright, 1913 
 By Columbia University Press 
 
 Printed from type September, 1913 
 
 Gift 
 
 Then 
 
 Press of 
 The New Era Printing Company 
 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 
This Monograph has been approved by the Depart- 
 ment of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia 
 University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of 
 
 publication. 
 
 A. H. THORNDIKE, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The study of a minor author entails two main advan- 
 tages: his relations with great contemporaries may throw 
 light upon them from a new angle; and his activities, 
 whether significant or not in their results, may illustrate 
 the spirit of his age, and enrich the backgrounds of more 
 memorable lives. There is often, too, a psychological prob- 
 lem of much interest involved in a vanished reputation. 
 Why was a writer, whose works our age declines to notice, 
 highly regarded in his own day? It is a problem merely 
 pushed aside, not solved, by concluding that the judgment 
 of our ancestors was at fault. The attempt to solve it may 
 not always result in a contribution to scholarship, but it 
 may add a very little to our knowledge of human nature, 
 and it sometimes reveals a personality more interesting and 
 attractive than the pages in which that personality found 
 expression. 
 
 Aaron Hill is an author who offers all these inducements 
 to study: he had relations more or less intimate with a 
 great poet and a great novelist, and with many less famous 
 writers; he was versatile and enterprising to such an un- 
 usual degree that he left few of the typical pursuits of his 
 time untried; and the prominence of his name in his own 
 day, compared with the total eclipse of it in ours, provides 
 us with the psychological problem. "To the really in- 
 telligent men among his contemporaries, ■ ' Professor Louns- 
 bury has said, "he must have seemed the most persistent 
 and colossal bore of the century. ' n To disinter an extinct 
 
 i Thomas E. Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, 87. ' ' It was to 
 posterity," Professor Lounsbury says of Hill in another place (page 
 151), "that he looked for recognition, forgetting that posterity must 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 bore of the past would be a work not so much of pious as 
 of impious pedantry — a criminal attempt to increase the 
 present sum of boredom. But it is curious that men, 
 usually considered to have been really intelligent, expressed 
 opinions the reverse of that which Professor Lounsbury 
 supposes them to have entertained. By some of them Hill 
 was called a genius, by many a man of unusual ability; 
 and almost invariably he was spoken of with great respect. 
 Were all these men either deliberately insincere, or stupidly 
 mistaken ? 
 
 This study makes no effort to rescue Hill's poetry from 
 the neglect into which it has deservedly fallen. But in 
 following his career, we meet well-known figures, we catch 
 glimpses of interesting phases of eighteenth century thought 
 and enterprise, and we come to know a man who has no 
 title to be hailed as a genius, but who is, nevertheless, very 
 far from deserving to be dismissed as a "bore of the first 
 water," 2 or as a "joke concocted between the Muses and 
 Momus, to bring the judgments of mortals into contempt." 3 
 
 In the unpublished correspondence between Hill and 
 Samuel Richardson, preserved in the Forster MSS. in the 
 Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, I have 
 found the most interesting record of Hill 's later life ; and 
 I am therefore especially indebted to the Keeper of the 
 Dyce and Forster Collections for the privilege of examining 
 this material. In quoting from the correspondence, I have 
 retained the original spelling and punctuation; but in 
 extracts from printed works, I have modernized both, for 
 I see no advantage in directing attention to Hill's vagaries 
 
 necessarily be so taken up with its own bores that only at rare inter- 
 vals can a pious pedantry be trusted to exhume even temporarily the 
 extinct bores of the past." 
 
 2 As he is characterized in the Diet, of Nat. Biog. 
 
 3 D. C. Tovey, Memoir of Thomson in the Aldine ed. of his works, 
 1897, p. xxiii. 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 in the use of commas and italics. I wish to express my 
 thanks for courteous assistance to the librarians of Yale, 
 Harvard, and Columbia Universities; to the authorities of 
 the British Museum, the John Rylands Library of Man- 
 chester, and the Bodleian ; and to Professor C. H. Firth of 
 Oxford University, through whose kindness I secured read- 
 ing privileges at the Bodleian. My friend Miss E. R. Clapp 
 examined for me several books to which I did not have 
 access, and made helpful suggestions; and my mother has 
 been a most patient and valuable critic of my work in all 
 its stages. 
 
 In the English Department at Columbia University, my 
 thanks are due to Professor A. H. Thorndike and Dr. Carl 
 Van Doren for reading my manuscript. But my deepest 
 obligation is to Professor W. P. Trent, who first suggested 
 the subject of this study, and whose generous interest in its 
 progress has been no less helpful to me than his wide and 
 intimate knowledge of the period. It is a pleasure to 
 express here my appreciation of both. 
 New York City, May, 1913. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Hill's Early Life 1 
 
 II. Hill 's Projects 28 
 
 III. Hill and the Stage : 1709-1723 76 
 
 IV. Hill and the Stage : 1723-1749 110 
 
 V. Hill and His Circle about 1725 153 
 
 VI. Hill's Relations with Pope 201 
 
 VII. Hill and Richardson 239 
 
 VIII. Conclusion 275 
 
 Bibliography 279 
 
 Index 291 
 
AARON HILL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HILL'S EAELY LIFE 
 
 Aaron Hill was born on February 10, 1685, in Beaufort 
 Buildings in the Strand. 1 His father was George Hill, an 
 attorney, of Malmsbury Abbey, in Wiltshire, "a gentleman 
 possessed of an estate of about 2000 1. a year, which was 
 entailed upon him, and the eldest son, and to his heirs for 
 many descents. But the unhappy misconduct of Mr. George 
 Hill, and the weakness of the trustees, entangled it in such 
 a manner as hitherto has rendered it of no advantage to 
 his family; for, without any legal title so to do, he sold it 
 all at different times for sums greatly beneath the value 
 of it, and left his children to their mother's care, and her 
 mother's (Mrs. Ann Gregory), who took great pains with 
 her grandson's education."- Perhaps it was his father's 
 misuse of his legal knowledge that led Aaron Hill to acquire 
 what one of his biographers calls a "deep insight" into 
 law — so deep that his arguments sometimes obliged "the 
 greatest council (formally) under their hands to retract 
 their own first given opinions." 3 It was not deep enough 
 to enable him to win a law-suit, however. Another son of 
 George Hill, Gilbert, appears from time to time during 
 his brother Aaron's life and after his death, usually in a 
 state of distress. 
 
 1 For biographies of Hill, see the Bibliography. 
 2Cibber's Lives, V, 252 f. 
 s Ibid., V, 261. 
 
2 AAEON HILL 
 
 At the age of nine, Aaron Hill was sent to the free 
 grammar-school at Barnstaple in Devon, where he had for 
 a schoolfellow John Gay, also born in 1685. From Barn- 
 staple he went to Westminster, just a little too late to come 
 under the rod of the famous Dr. Busby, who died in 1695. 
 There were two classes of students at Westminster: Town 
 Boys, and King's (or Queen's) Scholars, elected after a 
 year from among the Town Boys. Hill evidently remained 
 a Town Boy, for his name does not appear in the list of 
 those elected to the Foundation. His friendship with 
 Barton Booth, the actor, who entered the school about 1690 
 and left in 1698 to go on the Dublin stage, probably began 
 at Westminster; and perhaps his interest in the stage was 
 first aroused, like Booth's, by the annual Westminster play. 
 Another Westminster boy, afterwards famous, — John Car- 
 teret, Earl of Granville, — was referred to by Hill as a 
 schoolfellow; 4 but he must have entered just about when 
 Hill left, for he was five years his junior. Hill eulogized 
 him in his poem, The Impartial (1745), but confided to his 
 friend Richardson that he really was not sure that what 
 he said of him was true. 5 
 
 At Westminster Hill received the usual classical educa- 
 tion of the time. 6 One little contemporary picture of con- 
 ditions in the school is perhaps worth quoting. The mother 
 of a Westminster boy, Colin Campbell, wrote in February, 
 1691: "Colin is a busie man at all his leasons; is every 
 day at scoul all this winter befor 7 o'clock, and his wax 
 candle with him, and doth not com out till past 11, and 
 they returne at 1, and stay until neir six. This was far 
 
 4 In the dedication of The Impartial to Carteret by ' ' his Lordship 's 
 quondam schoolfellow. ' ' 
 
 5 Hill to Richardson, April 6 and 9, 1744. Forster MSS. 
 
 s See G. F. Eussell Barker, Memoir of Bicliard Busby, etc., London, 
 1895, and John Sargeaunt, Annals of Westminster School, London, 
 1898. 
 
hill's early life 3 
 
 from his dyot at hom, and in the great cold scoul he sits the 
 whole day over without a hatt or cap, and all the windows 
 broak, and yet thanks be to God, he taks very well with it, 
 tho he never seeth a fire but in my hous." 7 She notes, 
 however, that the reputation of the masters for severity has 
 not been borne out so far in Colin 's case. Hill, too, unless 
 the boy was very different from the man, was probably a 
 ' ' busie man at his leasons, ' ' and tradition says that he was 
 a "busie man" at the lessons of his fellows as well : "Under 
 the care of Dr. Knipe, his genius showed itself in a distin- 
 guished light, and often made him some amends for his hard 
 fortune, which denied him such supplies of pocket money 
 as his spirit wished, by enabling him to perform the tasks 
 of many who had not his capacity." 8 It is more likely that 
 his helpfulness was prompted by good-nature, and by the 
 inadequacy of his own tasks to employ all his energy; if 
 he really increased his pocket money by his genius, it was, 
 I think, the only instance of the kind in his life. Aside 
 from this anecdote, there is little to show what sort of boy 
 he was, except one reminiscence of his own, which suggests 
 that he was imaginative and sensitive to impressions : in his 
 Plain Dealer, 9 after praising Spenser for bold descriptions 
 and quick, penetrating fancy, he goes on: "There is in 
 his works an image of Death so dreadfully drawn, and 
 painted in such glowing colors, that (having got it by heart 
 when I was a boy) it made so lively an impression on me 
 that I never failed for a long time after to see it at my 
 bed's foot as soon as the candle was carried out of the room, 
 and met it in every churchyard I passed over after sun- 
 set." 10 
 
 7 Quoted by Sargeaunt, Annals, etc., 287. 
 
 s Cibber 's Lives, V, 253. Dr. Thomas Knipe was Busby 's suc- 
 cessor. 
 9 No. 91. 
 io Hill 's appreciation of earlier poets occasionally took a form that 
 
4 AARON HILL 
 
 The conventional Westminster boy proceeded in due 
 course either to Christ Church, Oxford, or Trinity College, 
 Cambridge; but Hill was not the conventional boy. "At 
 fourteen years of age he left Westminster school; and 
 shortly after, hearing his grandmother make mention of a 
 relation much esteemed (Lord Paget, then ambassador at 
 Constantinople), he formed a resolution of paying him a 
 visit there, being likewise very desirous of seeing that 
 empire." 11 Mrs. Gregory, being a woman of "uncommon 
 understanding and great good-nature," sympathized with 
 this adventurous scheme, and furnished him with funds 
 for the voyage. He embarked on March 2, 1700, aud 
 travelled by way of Portugal and Italy. Unfortunately, 
 the diary he is said to have kept has not come to light, 
 but many particulars of the journey were incorporated in 
 his Ottoman Empire. Lord Paget was surprised at the 
 arrival of his young relation, and it is a proof of the at- 
 tractions of Hill's person and character that he was also 
 pleased at the boy's enterprise. He promptly provided for 
 him "a very learned ecclesiastic in his own house, and 
 under his tuition sent him to travel, being desirous to im- 
 prove, so far as possible, the education of a person he found 
 worthy of it. ' ' These travels took Hill to Greece, and the 
 islands of the J^gean, and by caravan into the Holy 
 
 arouses the ire of their modern admirers, though it was quite in 
 accord with the feeling of his own age. He "improved" poems of 
 Wotton and Donne. (See The Disparity, from a Hint of Sir Henry 
 Wotton, WorTcs, III, 310; and To a Lady who Loved Angling, from a 
 Bint out of Br. Bonne, WorTcs, IV, 58.) In the very brief notice of 
 Hill in The Cambridge History of Eng. Lit., IX, ch. VI, p. 210, the 
 alteration of Wotton 's ' ' You meaner beauties of the night ' ' is singled 
 out by Professor Saintsbury as a crime he finds it very difficult to 
 pardon Hill for. 
 
 ii Life by "I. K. " prefixed to Hill 's Bramatic WorTcs. 
 
HILL S EARLY LIFE O 
 
 Land ; 12 he visited Mecca as well as Jerusalem. He was in 
 Egypt in the spring of 1701, and back in Constantinople in 
 1702. Needless to say, he had adventures, and the most 
 interesting parts of his Ottoman Empire are those in which 
 he tells of them, though he introduces them merely by way 
 of illustration. 
 
 Once, when Hill and others were returning from a visit 
 to a British ship, they met a Turkish fanatic, "a certain 
 tattered wretch, in the habit of a pilgrim, leaping up and 
 down, with elevated eyes, contracted forehead, and a visage 
 full of passion and deformity. (He) held a dagger in his 
 hand, and skipped about with such . . . violence as made 
 me take his zealous transports for madness ; so that taking 
 him for some simple antic, I laughed aloud at his ex- 
 travagant diversion. He saw me laugh and made directly 
 towards me with his brandished weapon, which a Greek in- 
 terpreter, endeavoring to turn aside, received unhappily 
 to the hilt within his bosom." He then hurled his dagger 
 at Hill, who avoided it by dropping to his knee. Of course 
 Hill killed him. 13 
 
 At Sestos and Abydos, Hill paid his respects to the 
 lovers; and after quoting Musaeus, he adds with a trace of 
 humor that the sentimental traveller has opportunity 
 enough to weep, for Turkish official red-tape detains him 
 there three days. At Troy he was sure that he had found 
 a fragment of the original wall and the tomb of Hector. 
 His vessel was detained near the coast by adverse winds 
 long enough to permit him to land, with an Italian priest, 
 
 12 <■ ' >Tis really a diverting entertainment for a sprightly fancy to 
 observe what multitudes of superstitious Jews swarm up and down 
 in every caravan; the oldest, ugliest, and most decrepit of all man- 
 kind, who flock from every distant corner of the spacious universe 
 to die as near Jerusalem as possible, and load themselves and other 
 beasts of burden with the musty bones and tattered relics of their 
 dead relations" (Ottoman Empire, 274). 
 
 is Ottoman Empire, 82 f . 
 
6 AARON HILL 
 
 and they walked about three miles up into a desolate 
 country overgrown with brambles. At least one English- 
 man had been there before them, for scratched on the 
 marble of the supposed tomb of Hector were the lines : 
 
 " I do suppose that here stood Troy ; 
 My name it is William, a jolly Boy; 
 My other name it is Hudson, and so 
 God bless the sailors, wherever they do go. 
 
 I was here in the year of our Lord 1631, and was bound for old 
 England, God bless her." 14 
 
 At Samos, Hill watched the sponge divers, and tried 
 diving himself with their apparatus, though "more than 
 most men averse to diving." 15 At Patmos, he was de- 
 termined to see the chapel where St. John was said to have 
 written the Book of Revelations; and unable to persuade 
 anyone to go on shore with him, he landed alone, and started 
 out with pistols and scimetar to find the monastery. While 
 wandering about, quite lost, on a wooded hill, he discovered 
 "on the brow of an impending precipice a little hut or 
 cave," with a door which he pushed open. "I was all 
 amazed when I perceived the inside of the cell as still as 
 possible; . . . just against the entrance burned a lamp on 
 either side a little altar, and the weak and broken light . . . 
 discovered in the midst a large black coffin filled with 
 something ... as black and dismal ... as the coffin. ' ' This 
 dismal something was a living Italian hermit, who proved 
 to be a most agreeable companion, and escorted the young 
 traveller to the monastery. 16 
 
 14 Ottoman Empire, 206 f . 
 
 15 Ibid., 210-211. He and his fellow travellers were induced to 
 try their skill when they heard of a law among the divers "that no 
 man shall be allowed to marry, till he can demonstrate by a trial he 
 is qualified to dive for one continued quarter of an hour. ' ' Hill kept 
 his head under only two minutes. 
 
 16 Ibid., 213 f. 
 
HILL S EARLY LIFE 7 
 
 Hill's pictures of the streets of Cairo — especially of a 
 bowing ass, a climbing goat, and a dancing camel — are 
 entertaining. 17 But his most thrilling adventure happened 
 in the catacombs, some fifteen miles southeast of Memphis. 
 To visit them was a dangerous enterprise, for they were 
 remote from protection, and the wandering Arabs had an 
 unpleasant custom of closing the entrances after travellers 
 had entered, and then returning "some few days after to 
 divide the plunder of those miscarried gentlemen." Hill 
 and three others secured a guide, journeyed all night, and 
 found the desert apparently deserted. Near the opening of 
 the catacombs, however, they were surprised to see a ladder 
 of ropes. They "went backwards down, with each man a 
 pistol in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. A 
 strange uncommon smell saluted our first entrance with an 
 odor not to be imagined by such as have not known it by 
 experience, and the blazing torches, striking a faint glim- 
 mering light through the thickness of the gloom, discovered, 
 as we walked along, on either side the discolored faces of 
 the dead, with a strange and inexpressible horror. We had 
 scarce passed three yards within the vault when the fore- 
 
 1 7 Ibid., 242 f . Hill did not rest till he found out how they taught 
 the camels to dance : ' ' They make a large square hollow place on 
 some stone pavement, not unlike a bath, of such depth that nothing 
 let down thither can get out again but with the same assistance he 
 was first put in by. Under this paved floor, consisting . . . of . . . 
 fire-stone, is built a furnace into which they put a necessary quantity 
 of wood, and heating it to what degree they please, the stones grow 
 hot like some mild oven. Then they put the poor meek camel into this 
 square hollow, heated as it is, and standing around the edges of the 
 place begin to sound their drums or other instruments; continuing so 
 to do, while the unhoofed and tender-footed camel, all impatient of 
 the heat, first draws up one leg, then another, changing swifter as the 
 heat, increasing, burns his feet with greater anguish, till at last he 
 rears himself on end, and capers nimbly on his hinder feet, as if he 
 strove to imitate a dancer. ' ' After a course of this training, he is 
 ready to dance anywhere at the sound of that music. 
 
8 AARON HILL 
 
 most of our company, stumbling accidentally on something 
 that lay in his way, fell headlong over it ; whereupon, hold- 
 ing down our torches, we perceived two men in Christian 
 habits, extended cross each other, and appearing newly 
 dead, with all the pale and frightful marks of a convulsive 
 horror in their . . . faces. Between the feet of one there 
 lay a pocketbook and pencil, which taking up and opening, 
 we read with great difficulty . . . lines there written in 
 Italian." It seems the unfortunate Italians had been shut 
 in by Arabs on June 18, 1701 ; it was then June 22. 
 Alarmed, the explorers hurried back to the entrance, 
 arriving just in time to see the stone shoved over the aper- 
 ture by some persons above. The ladder was gone. Hill 
 urged the company to search for some other exit, and keep- 
 ing only one torch alight, they hurried from vault to vault. 
 Suddenly they caught a glimpse of six faces against a wall 
 ahead of them. "With one consent we fired our pistols. 
 Tis impossible to make the reader sensible of the pro- 
 digious loud report and rumbling noise this one discharge 
 created in the vault. . . . "Whether fear, or some unlucky 
 accident produced the cause, . . . the frighted guide let fall 
 his torch, which presently extinguished." When the 
 smoke cleared away, they perceived a ray of light, and 
 followed the gleam until they came to a hole in the wall, 
 through which they finally escaped into daylight. Several 
 Arabs were riding off with their mules ; they had evidently 
 come back to plunder the Italians and had been surprised 
 by Hill's party. Just then some Turkish soldiers arrived 
 opportunely, recovered the mules, and allowed the party 
 to finish in safety their explorations in the catacombs, and 
 to attend to the obsequies of the Italians. 18 
 
 is Ottoman Empire, 264 f. The cut illustrating this adventure 
 represents a cross section of the vaults, quite in the style of a bill- 
 board for a modern melodrama, and allows us to see the desert, two 
 stories of the catacombs, and all that is happening above and below 
 
HILL S EARLY LIFE y 
 
 After all these adventures — rather unusual for a boy — 
 Hill returned to Constantinople, apparently near the end 
 of the year 1701 or the beginning of 1702. In the acknowl- 
 edgment of Lord Paget 's kindness, prefixed to the Ottoman 
 Empire, Hill writes that after visiting Palestine, Egypt, 
 and other eastern parts, he came to Constantinople "time 
 enough to owe the best improvements of my education to 
 the generous care of this wise nobleman, whose instructions 
 and example gave me first a notion of the world, and under 
 whose protection I was afterwards so happy as to see it to 
 advantage, having had the honor to attend him from the 
 Turkish court to England, in a journey overland through 
 almost all the celebrated parts of Christendom." Lord 
 Paget, with his suite, started on his return some time in the 
 late spring or early summer of 1702; he went by way of 
 Bulgaria and Koumania into Germany; in September he 
 reached Holland, and was then ordered to proceed to 
 Vienna ; and in December he went from Vienna to the court 
 of Bavaria. Not until April 12, 1703, did he and his suite 
 arrive in England, after a passage from Holland that had 
 been enlivened by a sea-fight with the French. 19 
 
 The next certain date in Hill 's life is that of the publica- 
 tion of his Camillus in 1707. He probably remained at- 
 tached to Lord Paget 's household for a short time after the 
 return to England, and it may be to this period that the 
 mysterious operations of a malevolent female, mentioned by 
 his biographer, belong : 20 ' ' He was in great esteem with that 
 
 ground. Lady Mary W. Montagu remembered this adventure when 
 she contradicted a statement of the admirable Mr. Hill's about the 
 sweating pillar of St. Sophia; she says (incorrectly, according to 
 her editor) that "there is not the least tradition of any such matter; 
 and I suppose it was revealed to him in vision during his wonderful 
 stay in the Egyptian catacombs" (Letters and Works, ed. of 1887, 
 I, 236). 
 
 isLuttrell, Brief Historical Relation, TV, 287 (April 13, 1703). 
 
 ao Gibber 's Lives, V, 254. 
 
10 AARON HILL 
 
 nobleman ; insomuch that in all probability he had been still 
 more distinguished by him at his death than in his lifetime, 
 had not the envious fears and malice of a certain female, 
 who was in high authority with that lord, prevented and 
 supplanted his kind disposition towards him. My lord 
 took great pleasure in instructing him himself, wrote him 
 whole books in different languages, on which his student 
 placed the greatest value ; which was no sooner taken notice 
 of by jealous observation than they were stolen from his 
 apartment, and suffered to be some days missing, to the 
 great displeasure of my lord, but still much greater affliction 
 of his pupil, whose grief for losing a treasure he so highly 
 valued was more than doubled by perceiving that, from 
 some false insinuation that had been made, it was believed 
 he had himself wilfully lost them. But young Mr. Hill was 
 soon entirely cleared on that head." 
 
 It may have been some such misunderstanding that 
 started Hill off on his travels again, or it may simply have 
 been that a good opportunity for further travel presented 
 itself. Eighteen, he wrote later, was too early an age for a 
 young man to think of leaving England; "this I know by 
 personal experience, having been beholding to my latter 
 travels for a full digestion and improvement of the unripe 
 observations vainly gathered in my former." 21 When a 
 young man is sent abroad, he should be accompanied by a 
 tutor not much older than himself, but of riper experience. 
 It happened fortunately that a noble family in Yorkshire 
 shared this view, and gave into Hill's charge a young 
 gentleman, with whom he travelled for two or three years. 
 This was William Wentworth, of Bretton Hall in Yorkshire, 
 who was born in 1686, and succeeded his father, Sir 
 Matthew, in the baronetcy in March, 1706. 2 - It is very 
 
 21 Ottoman Empire, 333. 
 
 22 Joseph Hunter, South Yorkshire, London, 1828, II, 243. Sir 
 William was afterwards Deputy Lieutenant and Captain of Train 
 
hill's early life 11 
 
 probable that their travels were brought to an end by the 
 death of the young man's father. All that is recorded of 
 this episode in Hill's life is that he brought his pupil home 
 "improved," to the satisfaction of his relations. No doubt 
 this was a more conventional tour than the former. 
 
 And now, about 1706-1707, Aaron Hill was back in Eng- 
 land, much improved himself by his unusual education, and 
 with one "improved" youth to his credit. What was he 
 going to do? With the activities of his life in one's mind, 
 one might better ask, what was he not going to do? He 
 was evidently a very engaging young man. The pleasant 
 impression made by his portrait in the Ottoman Empire 
 (1709) is confirmed by the description of him in Cibber's 
 Lives: "His person was (in youth) extremely fair and 
 handsome; his eyes were a dark blue, both bright and 
 penetrating; brown hair and visage oval; which was en- 
 livened by a smile the most agreeable in conversation; 
 where his address was affably engaging; to which was 
 joined a dignity which rendered him at once respected and 
 admired by those (of either sex) who were acquainted with 
 him. He was tall, genteelly made, and not thin. His voice 
 was sweet, his conversation elegant, and capable of enter- 
 taining upon various subjects." 
 
 One of the most picturesque figures in public life at the 
 moment was the Earl of Peterborough. For about two 
 years he had been carrying on the campaign in Valencia, 
 in the interests of the Allies, who were supporting the 
 claims of Charles of Austria to the Spanish throne ; he had 
 been the hero of several brilliant victories — notably the 
 capture of Barcelona — and of many striking incidents. At 
 times, he had conducted himself more like a knight errant 
 than the general of an army. Not the least interesting 
 
 bands, and M. P. for Malton. His name is in the list of subscribers 
 both to the Ottoman Empire and to Hill's WorTcs, 1753. 
 
12 AARON HILL 
 
 feature of this Valencia campaign was (and is) the diffi- 
 culty of finding out the truth about it. Peterborough has 
 sometimes been exalted as a hero and sometimes cried down 
 as a mere figure-head. 23 He was, says one of his biog- 
 raphers, "a source of delightful possibilities; nobody knew 
 exactly what he had done, and nobody could predict what 
 he might not do." 24 His conduct in Valencia aroused some 
 suspicions in the government at home, and he was recalled 
 to England in February, 1707. On his way back, he visited 
 many of the courts of Europe, conducting negotiations with 
 powers to whom he was not accredited, and did not reach 
 England until August. The Queen refused to see him, 
 unless he explained satisfactorily several incidents in his 
 career. Although he was a Whig, the Tories, out of hostility 
 to his rival Marlborough, took up his cause, and Dr. Freind 
 published a favorable account of his conduct in Spain. In 
 January, 1708, a Parliamentary inquiry was held, with the 
 result that he was neither vindicated nor censured, but was 
 ordered to clear up his accounts. 
 
 23 The Military Memoirs of Captain George Carleton, etc., 1728, 
 long regarded as containing the direct evidence of an eye-witness of 
 Peterborough's exploits, pictured him as a hero. These Memoirs were 
 claimed for Defoe by his biographer Walter Wilson in 1830. Colonel 
 Arthur Parnell {History of the War of the Succession in Spain, 1888), 
 who believed that Peterborough himself promoted the writing of the 
 Memoirs and that Swift wrote them, removed Peterborough from his 
 prominent place in the Valencia campaign, and gave the credit of 
 many of his exploits to others — to Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, 
 Basset y Kamos, Sir John Leake, and so on. The Earl emerges from 
 Colonel Parnell 's account with his character as a general and as a 
 man considerably battered. William Stebbing, whose Peterborough 
 (1890) is named by the Diet, of Nat. Biog. as one of the best short 
 accounts, takes a much more favorable view of Peterborough than 
 Parnell. In volume IX of The Cambridge History of Eng. Lit., page 
 25, Professor Trent — as Mr. C. E. Doble had done before — concludes 
 that Defoe was almost certainly the shaper of Carleton 's Memoirs. 
 
 24 William Stebbing, Peterborough, 192. London and New York, 
 1890. 
 
hill's early life 13 
 
 Peterborough's exploits in Spain were precisely of the 
 sort to strike the imagination of Hill, — they were very 
 unusual, they showed ingenuity and enterprise. And ac- 
 cordingly, Hill sat down and wrote a poem to the general — 
 Camillus. The hero's name is attacked; the Muse should 
 assist justice in proclaiming the truth; but the task of 
 singing his praise is one of such difficulty that it causes 
 tumultuous terrors to roll about the poet's breast — "Here 
 justice summons; there my youth denies." After this 
 apology, the poet plunges into the War of the Spanish 
 Succession : 
 
 " A wild confusion o'er the globe is hurled, 
 And warlike earthquakes shake the Christian world." 25 
 
 In the confusion, Charles of Austria directs his prayers to 
 ' ' matchless Anne ' ' ; Anne sends to his rescue a chief formed 
 by art and nature to revenge the wrongs of Charles; the 
 expedition embarks for Barcelona with a good wind arid 
 swelling hopes. The greater part of the poem is taken up 
 with a description of the capture of Montjuich, a fortress 
 commanding Barcelona. It was a daring exploit, and in 
 Hill's account loses nothing in exciting detail. One speci- 
 men will suffice : 
 
 " The shattered limbs of men who nobly dare 
 Are borne on bullets through the flaming air; 
 The dismal prospect shocks the bravest hearts, 
 And adds new motion to disjointed parts." 26 
 
 The walls are finally won, not by the army, but by the 
 general who "needs no council, and who seeks no praise." 
 
 25 Ed. of 1707, 11. 66-67. 
 
 26 In Hill's Works (1753) there are a number of variations from 
 the edition of 1707; probably he was aiming at closer expression — 
 which too often means obscurity with him; for example: 
 
 (1707) "With helpless sighs the injured Austrian stands." 
 (1753) "Sighing, the young prevented Austrian stands." 
 
14 AARON HILL 
 
 The Muse would like to paint all his battles, but as that is 
 impossible, she greets his safe return, and throws the worth- 
 less numbers at his feet. 
 
 The Earl noticed the worthless numbers, was pleased with 
 them, inquired after the author, and made him his secre- 
 tary. 27 This enterprising and travelled young man had 
 expressed in his indifferent poem precisely what Peter- 
 borough felt to be true of himself — that he needed no 
 counsel but his own. It is easy to see what sympathy might 
 exist between such a man as Peterborough and young Hill. 
 The Earl was an adventurous spirit, " irrepressibly elastic," 
 with a brain "so fruitful in combinations that they jostled 
 and thrust one another out ' ' ; 28 and just those terms could 
 be used in describing Hill, though he had not as yet estab- 
 lished his claim to them. 
 
 The connection with Peterborough is said to have lasted 
 until Hill's marriage in 1710. 29 Possibly he assisted the 
 Earl in straightening out his accounts; and since he is be- 
 lieved to have kept no accounts worth mentioning, the task 
 could not have been absorbing. 30 The vindication of Peter- 
 borough in 1710, after a renewed inquiry, was not the re- 
 
 27 Cibber 's Lives, V, 255. 
 
 28 Stebbing, Peterborough, 227. 
 
 20 As late as September 17, 1709, Peterborough was taking an 
 interest in the Hill family, for Hill writes to Archdeacon Warley that 
 his brother is "sure of a considerable curacy and promise of a pres- 
 entation from the Earl of Peterboro, on the death of an old and sickly 
 incumbent. ' ' The brother had evidently been misconducting himself 
 at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and wished to make atonement by taking 
 orders, "tho . . . unqualified by the Formality of a Degree"; he 
 will be grateful to the archdeacon for a recommendation to the 
 Bishop of London for leave to be ordained (Add. MSS. 27997. f. 78. 
 Aaron Hill to the Archdeacon of Colchester). 
 
 so "As he could render no regular accounts, his property was 
 attached till he should have cleared up his pay-lists. . . . Throughout 
 the remainder of 1708 and the early months of 1709 he was occupied 
 with the compilation of ledgers." Stebbing, 169. 
 
hill's early life 15 
 
 suit of a satisfactory statement of his accounts — it simply 
 meant that there were then more Tories than Whigs in 
 Parliament. 31 The secretary also examined the Earl's 
 papers. Pope, commenting, many years after, on a flatter- 
 ing reference to Peterborough in Hill's Advice to the Poets 
 (1731), wrote to Hill that really no one but the general 
 himself could do his cause full justice : " I have long pressed 
 him to put together many papers lying by him to that end. 
 On this late occasion, he told me you had formerly en- 
 deavored the same, and it comes into my mind that on many 
 of those papers I had seen an endorsement, A. H., which 
 I fancy might be those you overlooked. My lord spoke of 
 you with great regard, and told me how narrowly you both 
 missed of going together on an adventurous expedition." 32 
 Joseph Warton notes that this was an expedition to the West 
 Indies; 33 there was a rumor current in July, 1708, that 
 Peterborough was to be appointed governor of Jamaica, 34 
 and it may be to this that Warton refers. Pope's letter 
 bears witness to the continuation, long after the close of the 
 secretaryship, of Hill's friendly relations with the Earl; 
 and Hill visited Peterborough at Parson's Green not long 
 before the latter 's death. 35 
 
 That Hill's duties were not arduous is evident from the 
 
 si The Earl is said to have introduced Hill to the Tories, Harley and 
 St. John ; and though Hill was not a party man — the one thing he did 
 not do to any extent was to engage actively in politics — he never 
 lost his admiration for Bolingbroke. Ulerope and Gideon were both 
 dedicated to him; see in the Merope dedication such lines as 
 "Find every grace that smiles twixt pole and pole, 
 And all the muses met — in St. John's soul." 
 
 32 Pope to Hill, April 4, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 
 33 Works of Pope, ed. by Warton, 1797, VIII, 330. Peterborough 
 had received the same appointment in 1702, but did not go. 
 
 34 Stebbing, Peterborough, 169. 
 
 ss The visit is recorded in the introduction to Hill 's Fancied. They 
 talked of Marlborough and his modesty. 
 
16 AARON HILL 
 
 record of his literary activity during this period. The year 
 1708 saw two of his poems published, his Ottoman Empire 
 advertised as ready for publication, and a connection with 
 the British Apollo established. He was probably frequent- 
 ing the coffee-houses and mingling in literary society. We 
 find him associated with Nahum Tate in a translation, and 
 helping his old school-fellow Gay to get on his feet. Gay's 
 first poem, Wine, was advertised in May, 1708, in the Daily 
 Courant, together with the Celebrated Speeches of Ajax 
 and Ulysses, by Tate and Hill. Rumor assigns to Gay as 
 his earliest employment, after he gave up his trade of 
 mercer, that of secretary to Hill : ' ' Gay became amanuensis 
 to Aaron Hill, Esq., when that gentleman set on foot the 
 project of answering questions in a weekly paper called the 
 British Apollo.'' 36 Whether or not Gay was really his 
 secretary, he probably was much in the company of Hill 
 at the time; for when, in 1736, Savage wished to collect 
 information about Gay, he applied to Hill as apparently 
 the one who could tell most of his early career. Hill 
 mentioned Budgell and Pope as better informed ; but added 
 that Gay was secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth about 
 1713, and continued so until he went over to Hanover in 
 1714; and after the fall of the Tories, he was helped by 
 Pope : "I remember a letter, ' ' writes Hill, ' ' wherein he 
 [Pope] invited him to partake of his fortune (at that time 
 but a small one), assuring him, with a very unpoetical 
 warmth, that as long as he himself had a shilling, Mr. Gay 
 should be welcome to sixpence of it ; nay, to eightpence, if 
 he could contrive but to live on a groat. ' ' 37 
 
 That Hill was connected with the British Apollo is estab- 
 lished by the facts that the numbers for the first year, 1708, 
 contain a dozen or more short poems, unsigned, but later 
 
 36 Key to Three Hours after Marriage, 1717. 
 
 37 Hill to Savage, June 23, 1736. Worls, I, 338 f. 
 
hill's early life 17 
 
 included in Hill's acknowledged works; and that a Mr. 
 Marshall Smith, who edited the second edition of this first 
 volume, figures in Savage's Miscellany as author with Hill 
 of a dialogue on riches and poverty. Hill's works, too, 
 both the Ottoman Empire and Elfrid, were extensively 
 advertised in the paper. The British Apollo was started in 
 February, 1708, by a "society of gentlemen"; the second 
 volume (1709) was "performed" by some of the gentle- 
 men concerned in the first. As to their identity, it is 
 perhaps enough to quote Apollo's own answer to a cor- 
 respondent's question about their age, number, and share 
 in the work: "It must suffice to say that the number of 
 the society is large enough, and all of them of sufficient age, 
 to answer far more pertinent questions than yours." 
 
 The British Apollo was by far the most important and 
 successful of the imitators of Dunton's Athenian Gazette 
 (later the Athenian Mercury), which had appeared twice 
 a week for six years, from March, 1690. 38 The purpose of 
 Dunton's publication — a seventeenth century Notes and 
 Queries — was to resolve "all the most nice and curious 
 questions proposed by the Ingenious of either Sex"; and 
 this was also the chief purpose of the British Apollo. But 
 to the "curious amusements for the ingenious," Apollo 
 added "the most material occurrences, foreign and do- 
 mestic," and much verse, — which had been very sparingly 
 printed in the Athenian Mercury. In both papers there 
 are questions concerning the Bible, medicine, physics, 
 mathematics, and ethics; discussions of love problems; 
 queries why negroes are black, why the Lord took six days 
 instead of one minute to create the world, why it hails in 
 warm weather, what causes freckles, how to know true 
 religion, whether English was spoken at the Tower of 
 
 38 See The English Literary Periodical of Morals and Manners, by 
 John Griffith Ames, 1904, pp. 7-22. s 
 3 
 
18 AARON HILL 
 
 Babel, and so on. Most of the answers in the British Apollo 
 are serious in tone, but a few attempt to be humorous. 39 
 The Female Tatter* was witty at the expense of the paper, 
 classing its querists as drapers, grocers, alehouse keepers, 
 and such trash, and declaring that the prentices in Cheap- 
 side consult Apollo before making love to their mistresses. 
 But the paper, like its predecessor, answered a real demand 
 of the public, and drew its patrons from many walks of 
 life; and it had a very successful career, until it was sup- 
 planted in popular esteem by the Tatter and the Spectator. 
 In all probability, Hill had long ceased to have any con- 
 nection with it when his friend Gay, in his Present State of 
 Wit (May 3, 1711), found room in a postscript for a slight- 
 ing reference : ' ' Upon a review of my letter, I find I have 
 quite forgotten the British Apollo, which might possibly 
 have happened from its having of late retreated out of this 
 end of the town into the country; where, I am informed, 
 however, that it still recommends itself by deciding wagers 
 at cards, and giving good advice to shopkeepers and their 
 apprentices." A week after Gay's comment, the paper 
 died. 
 
 Those poems that are certainly of Hill's authorship are 
 not at all remarkable, and are very short. 41 Of the lighter 
 
 39 An example of Apollo 'a wit may be quoted from vol. II, no. 7 : 
 A querist had formerly troubled Apollo with a question how to win 
 the love of a lady; he followed directions and won it; now he wished 
 to know why ladies are fond of lap-dogs and singing-birds ; "for the 
 same reason," replies Apollo, "that your mistress was conquered by 
 your wit — because they are little. ' ' 
 
 40 No. 30. It lived from July to March, 1709-1710. 
 
 4i The Lover's Degree of Comparison {Apollo, ed. of 1711, I, 34; 
 Works, 1753, III, 11) ; Jostling in Snoivy Weather (I, 49, and Works, 
 III, 359) ; The Lover's Complaint (I, 60, and Works, III, 231) ; The 
 Transport (I, 233, and Works, III, 232); The Happy Man (I, 49, 
 and Works, III, 163) ; Amorous Scrutiny (I, 60, and Works, III, 360) ; 
 Blowing Kisses at the Playhouse (I, 49, and Works, III, 344). 
 
hill's early life 19 
 
 verse, the Lover's Degree of Comparison is a fair example: 
 
 " Happy the man who does Celinda view. 
 More happy he who sees and loves her too. 
 Most happy, sure! of all mankind is he, 
 Who, loving her, beloved by her shall be." 
 
 The Transport shows Hill already addicted to Pindaric 
 verse : 
 
 " Mount, my freed soul ! forsake thy loosening clay, 
 Broadly at once expand thy wingy zeal; 
 Rapture, involved in raptures, feel, 
 And through yon dazzling regions cut thy way," etc. 
 
 A more ambitious attempt, on the lines of Camillas, was 
 inspired by an event that occurred in the spring of 1708. 
 In March, a French fleet assembled at Dunkirk, with the 
 Pretender on board, and on March 17 set sail for Scotland, 
 where some attempts had been made to organize a rebellion 
 in favor of the Pretender. The fleet missed the Firth of 
 Forth, was closely pursued by the English fleet under the 
 command of Admiral Byng, encountered heavy storms, and 
 after about three weeks, put back into Dunkirk, having lost 
 some four thousand men from sickness, tempest, and 
 capture. 4 - On this subject Hill wrote The Invasion, ad- 
 dressed to the Queen. 43 The poem tells how the fiend 
 Ambition disturbs the repose of the king on Gallia's throne ; 
 how the king and the Pretender plan an invasion ; how the 
 
 42 See The Political History of England, ed. William Hunt and 
 Reginald L. Poole, IX, ch. VII, 134 f. London, 1909. 
 
 43 The poem is by "Mr. Hill"; and is almost certainly Aaron Hill's 
 work, for it is very much like Camillas in style and subject. The fact 
 that it is not included in his collected Works proves nothing, for 
 another long poem, The Fanciad, is not included either; and we have 
 his word (Forster MSS.) that he had many published and unpublished 
 poems from which he was making a selection for his Works. Thomas 
 Bickerton was the printer of Camillus, The Invasion, and (with 
 William Keble) the Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses. 
 
20 AARON HILL 
 
 army and fleet assemble at Dunkirk, where "tonitruous 
 drums" beat, "neighing horses snort a great design," and 
 warlike ensigns "in pendant curlings fan the wanton air." 
 England hurriedly despatches her fleet against the in- 
 vaders : 
 
 " Britannia's sons with cheerful shouts come nigh, 
 And their loud triumphs pierce the vaulted sky; 
 On the high decks, the graceful chiefs appear; 
 Invite the battle and disdain to fear. 
 Their sprightly trumpets gay defiance sound, 
 And wondering fishes dance in shoals around." 
 
 No wonder the Pretender's knees knock together at the 
 sight. To see the battle that follows, Neptune takes up his 
 station on a rock, Jove reclines on a cloud, and all the gods 
 look on, stretched at wanton ease upon the strengthened air. 
 Jove chooses for some reason to help the French tyrant by 
 interposing a cloud of darkness between the navies, and 
 Neptune, furious, stirs up a storm that nearly destroys the 
 French fleet. 
 
 "Such fate may Anna's foes forever find; 
 May Heaven on her still smile, nor Hell disturb her mind." 
 
 In May, 1708, Nahum Tate and Hill appeared together 
 as the authors of a translation, The Celebrated Speeches 
 of Ajax and Ulysses, from the 13th book of Ovid's Meta- 
 morphoses. They dedicated it to the illustrious youth of 
 the nobility and gentry, to assist them in learning to speak 
 in affairs of state ; since Ajax lost his cause and Ulysses won 
 his, their methods are worthy of study. The authors are 
 not discouraged by previous renderings of the same 
 passages, even by the Master of the Muses, — "there's a 
 double Benefit will accrue from having various Transla- 
 tions of so Excellent a Piece, (viz.) That (amongst us) 
 all the Beauties of the Original may be catcht, with perhaps, 
 
hill's early life 21 
 
 a heightening Stroke, in some Places; and likewise a fuller 
 Display of our own Language, which (after all) will be of 
 the greatest Service to You, Auspicious Youths, when you 
 come into Public Business." The chief object is to inflame 
 the blooming glories (the young men?) of Great Britain 
 with a love of classical learning. Tate has an address to 
 the reader, acquainting him that ' ' 'twas the Usefulness of 
 this Essay that prevailed with the Ingenious Gentleman 
 concerned with me to perform his Part." The speech of 
 Ulysses was translated by Hill, in the usual heroic couplets, 
 smooth enough and not remarkable in any way. 44 
 
 "We now come to his most pretentious work thus far — his 
 Ottoman Empire. It was advertised in the British Apollo 
 for July 2, 1708: "Whereas the present state of ^Ethiopia, 
 etc., in folio, with cuts, by Mr. Aaron Hill, should have 
 been published last April, hut was delayed for filling the 
 subscriptions, this is to give notice that the copy is now 
 sent to the press, and that the author will speedily advertise 
 in the public news." But it was not until the following 
 March that the book came out, with a dedication to the 
 Queen. 45 
 
 There are fifty-two chapters, dealing with the extent of 
 
 44 A few lines may be quoted : 
 
 "Here, to and [sic] end, his Speech Great Ajax draws, 
 And rising Murmurs spoke the Camp's Applause, 
 Which soon th' Appearance of Ulysses drown 'd, 
 Who fix'd his Eyes a while, upon the Ground: 
 Then to the lofty Bench his Aspect rais'd, 
 And, while expecting Crowds in Silence gaz'd, 
 With Words like These, He acts a subtil Part, 
 And dress 'd his Speech in all the Charms of Art." 
 I have not seen this book, of which the John Bylands Library of Man- 
 chester, England, has a copy; but I have photographs of the title- 
 page, dedication, and some pages of the text. 
 
 45 Advertised in the Daily Courant, March 12, 1709, and in the 
 British Apollo, March 30, 1709. 
 
22 AARON HILL 
 
 the Turkish Empire, the Turkish policy, the military and 
 civil government of the Turks, their religion and morals, 
 their trade, their wives, their funerals, the public and 
 private buildings in Constantinople, and the Grand Sign- 
 ior's Seraglio; the Greeks, the Armenians, Egypt, Ethio- 
 pia, the source of the Nile, Palestine, Arabia, and the Red 
 Sea. The book concludes with two chapters, one on the 
 probable fate of the Ten Tribes of Israel, and the other 
 containing instructions for the traveller. In the general 
 arrangement of topics, there is some resemblance to Sir 
 Paul Rycaut's Present State of the Ottoman Empire 
 (1668), which treats of the manners and customs, the laws, 
 the religion, the military forces, and the political maxims 
 of the Turks. So far as Turkey itself is concerned, there 
 was probably little really new information in Hill's work; 
 in the discussion of the different religious sects of the 
 Turks and of their marriage and divorce laws, and in the 
 estimate of their military forces, Hill and Ryeaut agree 
 rather closely. But the chapters on Greece and the iEgean 
 islands, — with their almost Byronic lamentations over the 
 degeneracy of the Greeks, — and those on Egypt and Arabia, 
 must have been more novel; and the description of the 
 great pyramid, which Hill explored in the party of an 
 adventurous Bashaw, who defied native superstition to 
 enter it, is very interesting. The work is that of a curious 
 and observant, but very young man, eager to show his 
 learning by much classical quotation, and his early wisdom 
 by many moral reflections. 
 
 The book is illustrated by seven plates, each dedicated to 
 some member of the nobility: an Egyptian hieroglyphic 46 
 to the Countess of Peterborough, the adventure in the 
 catacombs to the Earl, a Grecian wedding to Sir William 
 Wentworth, the inner plan of the Seraglio to the Countess 
 
 46 The interpretation of hieroglyphics offered no difficulties to Hill. 
 
hill's early life 23 
 
 of Warwick, the outside view of it to Lord Paget, a Turkish 
 funeral to Sir Alexander Cairnes, and the picture of Turks 
 of quality at dinner to the Duchess of Ormond. These 
 noble names indicate one reason why Hill published the 
 book by subscription — his connection with Lord Paget, 
 Peterborough, and the Wentworth family evidently made 
 possible the securing of a long list of subscribers. 47 Another 
 reason was annoyance at the booksellers: having printed 
 some few little essays "the common way," he knew the 
 booksellers and was far from approving of them; in fact, 
 he intimates that Britain could produce wretches as bar- 
 barous and sordid as any he ever met with among the 
 infidels. They presumed to claim two books free for every 
 six subscriptions, and when he remonstrated with them, 
 they cried down his book in every way they could. Not 
 that he is not perfectly willing to listen to fair and just 
 objections ! But the objections he has heard are not reason- 
 able. He takes them up in his preface. 
 
 "Some snarlers do, and many more may, cavil at the 
 style I have made use of, and the weightiest arguments 
 they bring against it are that it appears affected and 
 elaborate; that 'tis dressed in a romantic air, and that, in 
 short, 'tis so like poetry, that it runs into blank verse 
 measure and becomes a kind of prose-poetic composition. 
 ... As for its being dressed in a romantic air, were that 
 malicious accusation full as just as 'tis absurd, I cannot 
 see the reasons why it should be looked upon as an ob- 
 jection. Everybody knows the language of romances differs 
 from more serious writings only in the fine descriptions, 
 florid speeches, artful turns, and winning eloquence which 
 
 47 There were 424 names on the list. Pope had 575 subscribers to 
 the Iliad. Among the names on Hill 's list were the Queen, the Dukes 
 of Devonshire and of St. Albans, the Earl of Bath, the Marquis of 
 Granby, Lord Halifax, the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, John Gay, 
 and William Fortescue. 
 
24 AARON HILL 
 
 are made use of to adorn and recommend a feigned rela- 
 tion." And if these ornaments shine in a feigned account, 
 why not much more in a true ? If his style is near poetry, 
 is not poetry better than prose, and is not the best prose, 
 therefore, that which is nearest poetry? "That I might 
 not alone inform, but please my reader, I have taken care 
 in the succeeding sheets to introduce as many stories as I 
 could, with different aims ; for some are moral, some divert- 
 ing, others melancholy, and of all kinds some. ' ' They may 
 be called digressions; but are they not, like the moral and 
 occasional reflections, good things to have? 
 
 The stories are sometimes diverting enough, but the style 
 is often still more diverting. It is occasionally easy and 
 familiar, especially when it addresses itself to the ladies : 
 "Now to give you British Ladies an enlivening taste of 
 Turkish arrogance to your deserving sex, and let you see 
 how little cause you have to grieve that we possess a just 
 and mild preheminence by Nature's laws and those of 
 matrimony," he translates a Turkish song, one stanza of 
 which reads, 
 
 " But though she proudly dares rebel 
 The time will come when I shall see 
 The poor inferior wretch in hell, 
 Not worthy once to look on me." 4S 
 
 At other times, it is what he probably called poetical. 
 Chapter XIII, on Turkish wives, begins: "The inimitable 
 Virgil was undoubtedly inspired with Love and Truth when 
 he asserted this so oft experienced maxim, 
 
 1 Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus amori.' 
 
 The roughest heroes of the ancient world, amidst the dusty 
 scenes of war and ruin, red with blood of undistinguished 
 slaughter, and encompassed round with care and danger, 
 
 48 p. 42. 
 
hill's early life 25 
 
 often slackened nature's springs, and sinking calmly from 
 the love of glory, let their laurels wither on their heads, 
 and lost the sense of honor, and renown, entirely stupefied 
 in all their faculties, and slumbering meanly in the downy 
 scenes of this lethargic passion." 
 
 Hill himself later looked upon all this with very dif- 
 ferent feelings. When an attempt was made in 1739 to 
 issue a pirated edition, he begged Richardson to do some- 
 thing to stop it : 49 "I was in hopes that in a town where the 
 best things I am able to write are so little regarded, the 
 worst might have been suffered to sleep in their merited 
 neglect and obscurity ... To confess the truth, I was so 
 very a boy when I suffered that light piece of work to be 
 published, that it is a sort of injustice to make me account- 
 able for it." 50 
 
 40 Hill to Kichardson, December 19, 1739. Eichardson 's Corre- 
 spondence, ed. Mrs. Barbauld, I, 35. 
 
 50 I am informed by Professor Trent that in Mercurius Politicus for 
 May, 1720, Hill's Ottoman Empire was mentioned in very question- 
 able company. The occasion was an attack on Defoe 's ' ' History ' ' of 
 the deaf and dumb fortune-teller Duncan Campbell, which was styled 
 a "wretched Book," and associated with "such scoundrel Books as 
 . . . Eobinson Crusoe, the Travels of Aaron Rill Esq; into Turkey, 
 Psalmanazaar's History of the Island of Formosa, and the more 
 scandalous Tale of a Tub . . . Works only fit to lead the ignorant 
 into Error, and to waste the Time, and deprave the Taste of such as 
 being more knowing read them only for 'Diversion. ' ' In the number 
 of the same periodical for July, everything that had been said against 
 the ' ' History ' ' of Duncan Campbell was taken back, the editor having 
 had time to read it carefully. It is interesting to know that this 
 editor was no less a person than Daniel Defoe, the biographer of 
 Campbell and of Eobinson Crusoe, and it seems clear that both notices 
 in Mercurius Politicus were designed to call attention to his newest 
 book. His attitude, therefore, towards Hill's Ottoman Empire is 
 scarcely worthy of more than a moment's amused attention. He is 
 not known to have had any personal relations with Hill, but he appears 
 to have had some sort of a quarrel with Hill's friend William Bond 
 (cf. post chapters IV and V), probably over this very life of Duncan 
 Campbell. 
 
26 AARON HILL 
 
 A second issue was published in March, 1710, with a 
 preface by the printer Mayo, announcing that he had pur- 
 chased the right to this edition. It contained commenda- 
 tory verses; one of them speaks of Hill's Ascanian youth 
 exhibiting the bounteous product of Nestorian years; and 
 another, by Marshall Smith, reads: 
 
 " Let Heaven point out a man like thee, possessed 
 Of all the charms that can inspire the blest; 
 A scholar, courtier, poet, and divine, 
 Historian, traveller, and all that's fine." 
 
 In the year of this second edition Hill married. His wife 
 was the daughter and heiress of Edmund Morris, of Strat- 
 ford in Essex, and the marriage was apparently a very 
 happy one. Of the nine children, only four lived, to bear 
 the names of Urania, Astraea, Minerva, and Julius Caesar. 
 The marriage marks a turning point in his life ; for it pre- 
 vented him from going abroad with Peterborough in No- 
 vember — his wife would not hear of the trip ; 51 and the 
 fortune it placed at his disposal enabled him to embark on 
 the projects, literary and commercial, that from this time 
 on filled his life. So varied, numerous, and complex were 
 his activities, that an attempt to record them in chrono- 
 logical order would be merely confusing. Only by group- 
 ing them — into commercial schemes, theatrical enterprises, 
 and relations with other literary men — can their signi- 
 ficance be brought out. Broadly speaking, chronology is 
 not so badly violated as one might expect in such a treat- 
 ment; for the most important projects occupy roughly the 
 years between 1712 and 1730; the most important work 
 for the stage, the years 1730-1738, though much has to be 
 recorded during the twenty years preceding; and the rela- 
 
 5i Letter to Peterborough, November 10, 1710. Worls, I, 1. 
 
hill's early life 27 
 
 tions with other authors extend from 1725 to 1750. In 
 that order they will be considered. In 1710-1711, Hill had 
 a brief but interesting connection with the theatre, best 
 treated with his other theatrical connections. Then, in 
 1712, he turned to devote himself to the commercial ad- 
 vancement of England. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HILL'S PEOJECTS 
 
 Hill, the indefatigable projector, passed his early man- 
 hood in an age of projects. The time-spirit of that age, 
 easily evoked for the imagination even today by the mere 
 names of Mississippi Bubble or South Sea Bubble, was one 
 of reckless speculation. The establishment in 1694 of the 
 Bank of England removed one restriction that had fettered 
 commerce — lack of capital ; and laid the basis of the credit 
 system — a new and powerful economic instrument, ready 
 for the experiments of men who did not yet understand its 
 use. Then, after the Revolution, the regulated companies 
 that had controlled trade gradually sank in importance, 
 and left an opening for individual enterprise. As small 
 traders found it possible to speculate on changes in the 
 market rates, legitimate business became more and more 
 speculative. The system of joint-stock trading made it easy 
 for the outside public to share the gains, without sharing 
 the cares, of business. "The new trades which were being 
 opened up, and the new industrial facilities which the credit 
 system seemed to offer, appeared to have turned the heads 
 of many of the men of that day." 1 The vision of un- 
 bounded wealth had all the compelling power of the earlier 
 visions of political and religious liberty. Men who were no 
 longer stirred by ideals, over which the last two generations 
 had fought, were excited by lotteries, dazzled by the 
 
 1 W. Cunningham : (Growth of English Industry and Commerce in- 
 Modern Times, 4th ed. of 1907, Part I, 447. For the characteristics 
 of this period see also Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. Ill, 
 and Lecky, Eighteenth Century. 
 
 28 
 
hill's projects 29 
 
 splendor of the Mississippi Bubble, and thrown into frenzy 
 by the seemingly unlimited possibilities of the vast and 
 little understood South Sea scheme. Then came the burst- 
 ing of that gigantic bubble. The fever subsided, leaving 
 behind it a distaste for projects, which extended to innova- 
 tions of all kinds, and made the Walpole era conspicuous 
 for the lack of public spirit and public enterprise. 
 
 Yet all the projects before 1720 were not bubbles, in- 
 spired by the gambling instinct. There were projectors 
 genuinely interested in improving the condition of their 
 countrymen by the introduction of new inventions, the 
 establishment of new industries, even the reform of social 
 conditions. One need only think of Defoe, and of some of 
 the ideas in his Essay upon Projects, 2 to realize how near 
 allied the projector might be to the reformer, and both to 
 the sane and practical man of business. To the more dis- 
 interested class of projectors — not, unfortunately, to the 
 more practical — belonged Hill. His devotion to inventions 
 and new enterprises was not to be affected by the mere 
 bursting of bubbles, for it was based on persistent, if not 
 always fruitful, researches in chemistry, physics, medicine, 
 agriculture ; and nourished by an insatiable desire to benefit 
 somebody — or rather everybody — and by an incurable be- 
 lief in himself. "When his schemes failed, as they had an 
 unlucky habit of doing, he deplored the loss of his own time 
 and money much less than the loss to his country of the 
 good he was firmly convinced it was in his power to bestow. 
 
 The most opprobrious epithet Hill's enemies could find 
 for him in later years was "beech-oil projector." The 
 germ of his famous beech-mast project — destined, in his 
 own opinion, to make more noise than any discovery in the 
 way of trade for ages past — lay in an incident that occurred 
 
 2 Such as the establishment of academies for women, of asylums for 
 the feeble-minded, and so on. 
 
30 AARON HILL 
 
 on his adventurous journey to Turkey in 1700. On his 
 arrival at Naples he caught a severe cold ; the apothecary 
 advised oil of almonds, and the boy observed with interest 
 the process of beating the nuts with an iron pestle and then 
 squeezing them in a wooden press. "A few days after," 
 to quote his own words, "I went with an Italian friar to 
 see the burning mountain Vesuvius, the cave, the grotto, 
 the tomb of Virgil, and many other rarities of that cele- 
 brated neighborhood ; and happening one day to take a by- 
 road for expedition, we crossed a very large wood. ... As 
 we rode along, the boughs, which were at that time over- 
 loaded with full-ripe mast, hung low and were exceeding 
 troublesome, so that I was often forced to bend forward 
 upon my horse, and to make use of a strong stick to guard 
 off the branches." He ate several of the kernels that fell 
 down on his hat, and finding the taste not unlike that of 
 almonds, concluded that, if taste and substance were 
 similar, the effects of pressing almonds and beech-nuts 
 would be similar. So he pocketed several, dried them, and 
 with the apothecary's mortar and pestle made an oil that 
 the apothecary himself could not distinguish from that of 
 almonds. So far Hill's "natural curiosity" led him; he 
 carried some of the oil about for a year or so on his travels, 
 and then forgot the incident. 3 
 
 "In the year 1712, some affairs of no great consequence 
 calling me into the west of England, I returned about the 
 middle of September from Devonshire, and taking no direct 
 road, came along by Henley and the woodiest part of 
 Maidenhead Thicket, where, for twelve or fourteen miles 
 together, a man can hardly see any other wood but beech." 4 
 Reminded of Naples by the sight of the mast, Hill resolved 
 to see what sort of oil the English nut yielded. It proved 
 
 3 An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Beech-oil Invention, 
 1715. 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
hill's projects 31 
 
 excellent. He experimented with it for various uses : the 
 clothiers, the perfumers, and the apothecaries all liked it 
 better than the oil they used. A short investigation proved 
 that the demand for oil was enormous. Then he journeyed 
 through the greater part of twenty-two counties in search 
 of beech, and found in the least of them enough to supply 
 oil to three kingdoms three times over. The next question 
 was how to raise stock to develop this new industry. Opti- 
 mistic as he was, he found it difficult to understand why 
 people did not embrace him as a benefactor to his kind, and 
 pour out money at the first hint of the secret. They did 
 not, however; they treated him as a mere borrower of 
 money and assailed him with cries of "whim" and 
 "project." He saw that he would have to explain his 
 process fully; and in order to do so safely, he took out on 
 October 23, 1713, a patent for fourteen years, and then 
 published his first proposals in January, 1714. 
 
 In this pamphlet, 5 Hill gives an abstract of the letters 
 patent granted by the Queen to her trusty and well-beloved 
 subject. Then, after a few reflections upon the opposition 
 every new proposal meets with from the envious and the 
 ignorant (his sentiments on this head expanded into elo- 
 quence within a few months), he states that there are many 
 hundred thousands of acres of beech within fifty miles of 
 London; and one bushel of mast will produce two gallons 
 of oil, far better than most of that for which England pays 
 thousands of pounds yearly to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. 
 The new discovery will give better oil at cheaper rates for 
 the soap and woolen manufactures, 6 raise the rent of many 
 
 s An impartial account of ... a new discovery . . . to make . . . 
 oil from the fruit of the Beech-tree. 1714. 
 
 6 Any scheme that had reference to the woolen manufactures 
 touched a vital question. Defoe, in his General History of Trade, 
 August, 1713, speaks of their preservation as the great concern of the 
 nation; the French run every risk to get hold of English wool, and 
 
32 AARON HILL 
 
 estates, employ great numbers of the poor, and enable Eng- 
 land to supply other nations (like Holland and Sweden) 
 that have no beech. 
 
 All possible objections, however, shall be answered. Some 
 say there is not enough beech. Yet Sussex, Surrey, Ox- 
 ford, Berkshire, and many other counties are so full of it 
 that a horseman can scarcely see the sun through the 
 branches, and the mast hangs like ropes of onions; right 
 along the banks of the Thames are woods, "as if they 
 courted the conveniency of water-carriage." That the 
 price will be too high for profit is another objection, an- 
 swered by a scale of charges for every hundred acres — 
 labor, carriage, ware-housing, and so on ; the cost would be 
 less than eight pounds, the sale-price, thirty pounds a tun. 
 The possibility of a combination on the part of the owners 
 of woods to raise the price of mast alarms some people, but 
 does not disturb Hill. Would seven or eight hundred 
 gentlemen, far apart from one another and unacquainted, 
 maintain a malicious league 1 If such a mad alliance were 
 practicable, there is enough mast in the unenclosed woods 
 
 the prohibition to restrain its export is ineffective; "unless some 
 speedy method be taken to redress this grievance ... we may soon 
 shake hands with our foreign trade." In his Appeal to Honor and 
 Justice, 1714 (vol. VIII, 205, of Aitken's edition), he says that were 
 the wool kept from France and the English manufactures spread 
 there upon reasonable duties, the improvement the French have made 
 in woolen manufacture would soon decay. Even the philosophers con- 
 cerned themselves with the subject: Mandeville (Essay on Charity 
 and Charity Schools) declares that it is not the smuggling into France 
 that is ruinous ; the trouble is that they can manufacture more cheaply 
 because their labor is cheaper; make English laborers more contented 
 by keeping them ignorant, and England can increase her exports more 
 effectively than by sitting still and damning her neighbors. Hill's 
 plan — to make the manufacturing cheaper by obviating the necessity 
 of heavy imports of oil — has more of humanity and social justice than 
 Mandeville 's. To go far beyond this period, Dyer's Fleece (1757) 
 has a passage in Book II on the dangerous smuggling of wool. 
 
hill's projects 33 
 
 of France — where their olives make them indifferent to 
 any other kind of oil — to render importation profitable. A 
 letter from W. Cecil, at Paris, October, 1713, is quoted in 
 proof. It is true that there are bad years, perhaps two 
 out of three; but mast may be stored without deteriora- 
 tion for a couple of years, or imported from abroad, where 
 the trees are not subject to "insulary mutations of 
 weather. ' ' That the oil will not keep may be disproved by 
 a very simple experiment: expose olive oil and beech oil 
 together for a day in the sun ; the former will become rank, 
 the latter remain good. As to the objection that the stock 
 proposed will make more oil than can be disposed of, Eng- 
 land imports perhaps twenty thousand tuns and makes 
 fifty thousand tuns at home from rape seed ; the stock will 
 not produce one-twentieth of this yearly consumption. ' ' I 
 hope I have said enough," concludes Hill, "to convince any 
 man living that this undertaking will be very profitable." 
 Samples of the mast were fastened to the books, with in- 
 structions how to test its oiliness by burning. 
 
 The stock was to be 20,000 pounds, one-fourth down, and 
 the rest at Michaelmas, 1714. Subscribers were to receive 
 an annuity of 50 per cent, upon the sum subscribed, to con- 
 tinue until the expiration of the patent, which was as- 
 signed to them by a deed enrolled in Chancery. The com- 
 pany was to be governed by nine directors, elected by a 
 majority of the subscribers from their own number; and 
 though the Patentee was to be at the head of the board, he 
 might be removed by the directors, if he failed to give 
 satisfaction. "The Oil Annuity Office will be kept at the 
 Patentee's house, against the upper end of the Duke of 
 Montague 's, in Great Russell Street, in Bloomsbury ; where 
 the books are now opened, in order to receive subscrip- 
 tions. ' ' 
 
 As a patron for the enterprise, Hill fixed upon the Earl 
 4 
 
34 AARON HILL 
 
 of Oxford, — not a very lucky choice, since his power ended 
 even before the fall of the Tory administration at the death 
 of the Queen in July. In a letter to Oxford of April 12, 
 1714, 7 Hill admits having already troubled him anony- 
 mously before. This was with a scheme for remitting the 
 land tax by a new sort of contribution, which would be 
 paid ' ' insensibly, ' ' and bring in a revenue of four millions 
 yearly. 8 Oxford's failure to inquire further about it has 
 deprived us. of the details. 9 A year later, in the third 
 beech-mast pamphlet, the same scheme is outlined in the 
 same terms, to be more fully demonstrated "if I have the 
 honor of a vote in the next Parliament, in gratitude to 
 those honest burgesses, who were lately pleased to send me 
 up an invitation to represent them, under the common seal 
 of their corporation." 10 But Hill never had the oppor- 
 tunity to reveal his plan in Parliament. The letter con- 
 cerning beech-mast was thus his second attempt upon 
 Harley. With a sample of the product new to Britain, he 
 sent a sample of his own proficiency as poet and flatterer, — 
 a poem, "no more than an honest man's poor acknowledg- 
 ment of duty inexpressible." The Dedication of the Beech 
 Tree hails the happy tree : 
 
 7Stowe MSS. 143, f. 128; also Sloane MSS. 4253. 
 
 s See letter to Oxford, April 14, 1714, Works, I, 3; and May 12, 
 1714, Worlcs, I, 7. 
 
 9 There were probably many of these schemes for remitting the land- 
 tax. The Examiner, September 25, 1713, advertises proposals for an 
 easy tax to raise two or three millions, in room of the land tax, to pay 
 the public debts. 
 
 i° In 1711 a bill was passed that all members of Parliament, except 
 the eldest sons of peers and those who sat for universities or Scotch 
 constituencies, must possess landed property, the borough members to 
 the extent of 300 pounds and country members 600 pounds a year. 
 Lecky, Eighteenth Century, I, 128. That Hill was considering Parlia- 
 ment at all indicates that he had some property at this time. 
 
hill's projects 35 
 
 " Would after ages know 
 To whom their sons thy oily harvests owe, 
 Oxford's loved name deep on thy bosom grave, 
 Who from his country did his country save; 
 
 Whose known esteem of arts gave birth to thee, 
 Omen of greater, which ere long shall be." 
 
 And among these greater things are several of Hill's most 
 cherished projects: the teeming glebe is soon to swell with 
 floods of generous wine; that "various insect" which spins 
 out its little life's industrious thread — the silk- worm, in 
 plain terms — is to be acclimated; more important than all, 
 the gummy pine in Scotland is to shed its pitchy store, and 
 the tall firs are to fright the seas. Something else is to 
 happen, too; but whether the last lines are a prophecy of 
 the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, or the discovery of the 
 Northwest Passage, I cannot decide; perhaps of all, for 
 Hill saw many visions and dreamed many dreams. In con- 
 cluding his letter, he humbly — and vainly — requests the 
 honor of attending on Harley in some unbending moment. 
 The result of the first proposals is stated in the second 
 pamphlet, published in May, 1714 : X1 the 20,000 pounds was 
 subscribed in ten days. 12 But it happened unfortunately 
 that 1713 was a very thin year for mast; it was not, as in 
 1712, hanging on the trees like ropes of onions. 1714 was 
 to be a wonderful year, but 1715 would again be poor. In 
 view of that prospect, therefore, Hill wished to increase his 
 stock, in order to lay up a supply of mast for two years. 
 The new proposals were for 100,000 pounds in fifty-pound 
 shares, one-tenth to be paid down. The directors increased 
 
 11 The proposals are advertised in the Examiner, May 10-14, 1714. 
 
 12 An advertisement in the Englishman, January 23, 1714, states 
 that 13,000 pounds was subscribed in nine days, "notwithstanding 
 the ridiculous reports and mistaken notions which have with so much 
 malicious industry been spread abroad to discourage the undertaking. ' ' 
 
36 AARON HILL 
 
 in number from nine to thirteen, were to be placed in 
 possession, without charge, of the granaries on the Thames 
 for two years; all expenses of operation were to be borne 
 by the patentee, in return for his one-tenth of the purchase 
 money; with the other nine-tenths, to be called for as the 
 directors should appoint, the directors were to pay for the 
 mast and issue such quantities to the patentee as he re- 
 quired, receiving from him double the sum they had paid 
 for it. As additional security, the patentee was to make 
 over to the directors, before Michaelmas, the work-houses, 
 presses, oil-works, and so on, with the power, in case the 
 mast were not paid for in two years, to take complete 
 possession with all profits, except what was due to the 
 annuitants on the first proposals. To support these offers 
 and get at the reasons of those who railed at him in the 
 coffee-houses as a projector, Hill resorted to a persuasive 
 dialogue, between Patentee and Country Gentleman. Most 
 of the objections disposed of in the first proposals are in- 
 corporated in this not very sprightly conversation. Among 
 other things, the Patentee assures his interlocutor that 
 patents do not encourage monopolies. At last Country 
 Gentleman exclaims, "Why, it is a national benefit you 
 propose ! " " So do I love to think it, ' ' Patentee replies. 
 
 The result, despite the cavilling of the envious, was the 
 subscription of the total amount in a few days ; and there 
 was thus a capital of 120,000 pounds, with two sets of 
 subscribers on different securities. Hill energetically set to 
 work. He rented granaries and provided a work-house at 
 Vaux-hall on the Thames, where barges from Berkshire 
 could readily unload ; not liking the machinery of the rape- 
 mills, he planned a new engine, capable (as any engine of 
 his would be) of doing "infinitely" more work at a quarter 
 of the expense; and he despatched agents over England — 
 especially to the wool manufacturing counties — and even to 
 
hill's projects 37 
 
 Europe, to ascertain the demand for oil and the supply 
 of beech available. During June, July, and August, 1714, 
 these agents sent in weekly reports that were both enthusi- 
 astic and specific, though the enthusiasm began to cool a 
 little by August. The demand for oil was indeed great, 
 but there was a blight upon the beeches. The next year, 
 however, was to be marvellous — they all agreed as to that. 
 John Brown, who journeyed through Kent, Sussex, Surrey, 
 and Hampshire, in September, must have been a man after 
 Hill's own heart: he is in such raptures that words fail 
 him at times. "I spoke," he says, "with the warreners. 
 . . . These have all prodigious tolls of beech in their several 
 limitations, and they told me that this time two years, the 
 whole forest was so thick with mast that they hung like 
 hops, and bore the branches down to the very ground ; and 
 when they fell, they lay so thick that they were forced 
 in several places to shovel them out of their foot-paths. 
 They said that every third year is such a bearing year, and 
 that by the early, thick, and most prodigious budding of the 
 trees, the next season must be the greatest and most plenti- 
 ful for beech-mast that ever was heard of." The reports 
 from Hamburg, Paris, and Orleans were favorable. 13 
 
 Nevertheless, the rumors of blight alarmed the sub- 
 scribers, only too ready, no doubt, in the unsettled state of 
 the country, to be uneasy. To have to explain again and 
 again that there was enough mast in England to keep the 
 works going, and that he had contracted for more from 
 abroad, began to weary Hill. When the time for paying 
 the rest of the subscription drew near, he announced that 
 those who were dissatisfied could withdraw what they had 
 already paid in, with a 25 per cent, profit. All the sub- 
 scribers on the second proposals accepted; those on the 
 first were divided ; and the result was the reduction of the 
 stock to 15,000 pounds. 
 
 is This account is given in the third Beech-oil pamphlet, 1715. 
 
38 AARON HILL 
 
 Within a short time, Hill had another set of proposals 
 out. 14 These he prefaced by some general reflections on the 
 attitude of the public towards projects. London, it is true, 
 has suffered so much from projects that the word has 
 become "downright scandalous." But there is a distinc- 
 tion between project and discovery: one is a mere notion 
 having no real or visible existence; the other is a fact in 
 nature or art capable of demonstration. His scheme be- 
 longs to the second class; hence the folly and wickedness 
 of those who "stir up a general odium against a devil of 
 their own raising and blast the credit of this new discovery, 
 which can possibly do no man hurt, but on the contrary 
 will save the nation millions of money, and give bread to 
 many thousands of families, when I and all these empty 
 prattlers shall be dust and ashes. . . . These idle busy- 
 bodies, these tongue-champions, who like a drum owe all 
 their noise to their being hollow, these waspish, stingless 
 insects, ought to know that the guilt they practice is not 
 only a misapplication of their time, and a prostitution of 
 their reason, but an act as base and villainous as breaking 
 open houses, because it prevents and intercepts a blessing 
 which would chiefly fall on the widow and the orphan." 
 England's cunning natives are always sharpsighted at dis- 
 covering impossibilities. "To refuse to be convinced, and 
 then conclude a thing impossible, is like winking hard at 
 noonday and swearing it is midnight. ' ' 
 
 After relieving his feelings by this outburst, he discourses 
 on the invention of useful arts ; blames the education of the 
 day as too little practical; and promises to speak more at 
 length some time on a "College of Arts," to train youth in 
 the knowledge of trade and manufactures. Every comfort 
 we have is due to some earlier project; and there are many 
 
 i* An Account of the Bise and Progress of the Beech Oil Invention, 
 etc., 1715. 
 
hill's projects 39 
 
 profitable secrets yet to be discovered. "I am almost 
 afraid to venture such a declaration among the disin- 
 genuous tempers of mankind, or I could instance and dis- 
 close some six or seven such examples, which I have myself 
 discovered in my small pursuit of nature, as might animate 
 the dullest clod, and would perhaps awake the sleepy genius 
 of our nation. . . . Not that I am sharper-sighted than 
 others; such discoveries are the result of downright in- 
 dustry, and thinking a little out of the beaten road. ' ' One 
 discovery he has "lately bestowed on an honest gentleman," 
 who will soon demonstrate the secret. "But to what pur- 
 pose should I enumerate these, which I am morally assured 
 the invincible stupidity of an unthinking age will rather 
 turn into ridicule, than believe or make the proper use 
 of ? However, if they serve to stir up the fire of some wiser 
 man's ingenuity, my country will be benefited, and my 
 design has succeeded; I pay back the impudence of folly 
 with an equal weight of scorn." He apologizes at the end 
 for the warmth of his style — he sometimes forgets that he 
 is not addressing his ignorant slanderers. 
 
 The new proposals increased the number of directors to 
 twenty-five, and the stock to 200,000 pounds, divided into 
 5,000 shares. On each share five pounds and some odd 
 shillings were to be paid to Hill, in consideration of past 
 charges; forty pounds were to remain in the company's 
 hands, to carry on the business; out of each forty pounds 
 was to be deducted a half-yearly payment of fifteen shil- 
 lings on the annuities. When dividends were made, the 
 subscribers' charges were to be repaid, one-twentieth of the 
 clear gain given to Hill, and the remainder divided among 
 the subscribers to whom the patent was assigned. 15 A 
 meeting for the election of the directors — one of whom 
 must be the patentee — was to be held March 5, 1715. The 
 
 is The Chancery document quoted bears the date December 20, 1714. 
 
40 AARON HILL 
 
 plan has great advantages : no one can lose more than the 
 five guineas down ; no one but directors chosen by the sub- 
 scribers themselves can call for more money ; in a bad year, 
 the shareholder is liable only for the thirty shillings on the 
 annuities; in a good year, the profit will be one hundred 
 and sixty pounds. 
 
 But the good year did not come. 1715, like 1714, disap- 
 pointed all expectations of a full harvest. A final pam- 
 phlet, issued in November, 1716, records the melancholy end 
 of the scheme. Shareholders, peevish and clamorous at the 
 bad year, have accused the patentee of faults he is free 
 from, and by which he is the greatest sufferer; if they 
 looked back, they would remember ' ' how often he publicly 
 gave leave to the jealous to withdraw their subscriptions, 
 and paid them back their money, when forfeited by the con- 
 ditions 'twas subscribed upon; they would remember that 
 while he held the power, there were no complaints of non- 
 payment, though the seasons were such as allowed not a 
 possibility of making a profit." He is not angry, being 
 seasoned to ingratitude and not perturbed at the "sociable- 
 ness of scandal." But as the bottom is still sound, in spite 
 of one losing voyage, he desires to lay the facts before those 
 interested. 
 
 About one-fourth of the annuitants 16 had been repaid, 
 leaving the patent charged with 7,500 pounds a year in 
 annuities ; the second and third proposals had been accepted 
 with full understanding that the patent was so charged, 
 and that annuitants were always to be among the directors. 
 The first half-yearly payment (3,750 pounds) was made by 
 the patentee, and never charged to the company. As the 
 time for another payment drew near, Hill, seeing that the 
 directors had been at extravagant expense for workmen in 
 
 16 The name of Edmund Morris, Hill 's father-in-law, is in the list 
 of annuitants. 
 
hill's projects 41 
 
 an unusually wet season, and were perplexed by the non- 
 payment of money on shares, for which they had called, 
 contributed 20,000 pounds of his 25,000 guineas as a loan ; 
 and then proposed to the board the union of sharers and 
 annuitants in one body. His scheme was to pay back a 
 guinea to a thousand shareholders who had not complied 
 with the calls, thus depriving them of any excuse for inter- 
 ference, and giving to the company the disposal of the 
 thousand shares. These were to be divided among the 
 annuitants ; 17 and as a further inducement to unite with the 
 shareholders, Hill offered his right in reversion to the 10,875 
 pounds to which the stock was then reduced, and which the 
 company had in possession. All but five or six consented 
 to change, 18 and gave their warrants in trust to a Mr. 
 Kennedy, a director for the annuitants and for the com- 
 pany. He did receive and divide the second half-yearly 
 payment and the thousand shares; but declared that the 
 reversionary security of 10,875 pounds remained with the 
 directors ; the money was either lost or spent — at all events 
 not in existence for the benefit of patentee, annuitants, or 
 sharers. 
 
 Where, asked the patentee, lay the blame 1 He had ful- 
 filled his agreement : he had put the annuitants in posses- 
 sion of his right in reversion to the stock by a deed enrolled 
 in Chancery, and had entered into bond under a fifteen 
 thousand pound penalty to indemnify the company against 
 all future payments on account of annuities, — a bond that 
 would become of force as soon as the stock was secured to 
 
 " Hill calculated that with these shares, and the 3,750 pounds 
 already paid and the same amount to be paid at Michaelmas, the 
 annuitants would receive eighty pounds for every one hundred they 
 had paid. 
 
 is On the ground that the patentee must believe in the profit, or he 
 would not have given away his twenty thousand pounds. Of course 
 the patentee believed in the profit ! 
 
42 AARON HILL 
 
 the annuitants. But the board did not fulfill the agree- 
 ment. At Christmas, 1715, the patentee offered to take on 
 himself the hazard and power of the whole affair (but ac- 
 countable to the board for the money) and to bind himself 
 to pay for three years a profit of forty shillings a year on 
 every share. The offer was rejected. "Upon which, and 
 many other provocations afterward," he asked for repay- 
 ment of 500 pounds lent to the company; but they denied 
 the indebtedness, and so he left them to their measures. 
 
 It is evident that the members of the board quarreled 
 among themselves. Some hot-headed annuitants, caring 
 little whose fault it was and much that they did not get 
 their money, filed a bill in Chancery, charging the patentee 
 and their own directors with a scheme to defraud them. 
 Eventually they took possession of the patent and chose a 
 governor of their own, being under no legal obligation to 
 admit the sharers, who had for a year failed to pay the 
 annuities. Hill had a plan, unnecessary to give in detail, 
 for reconciliation and reorganization; but they probably 
 did not even consider it. "See then," he exclaims at the 
 end of the last pamphlet, "what a grateful and generous 
 encouragement may be expected by men who would dedicate 
 their labor to the profit of others ! ' ' 19 
 
 Just what the final issue was is not evident. Hill's part 
 
 1 9 According to the facts stated in the last pamphlet, Hill must have 
 given back at least 23,750 pounds of his 25,000 guineas. There is a 
 reference to him in J. Oldmixon's Court Tales (1717), p. 52, that 
 suggests that he was occasionally in hard straits about this time : " It 
 was no wonder to see the fool Baevius (A-r-n H-l) in his gilt chariot 
 this week, and the next staring through the Counter-gates, when 
 Varus (Steele), a man of wit, set him the example. A humor which 
 has prevailed on more wits than one, whom I have known with great 
 pride lolling it in a gay chariot in May, and footing it with as good 
 a grace in December." The Tales are scandalous stories of intrigue, 
 and the reference to Hill and Steele is merely a passing one ; probably 
 it ought not to be taken too literally. 
 
hill's projects 43 
 
 was over; his patent in other hands, and his profit clearly 
 of the smallest, if any, for his four years' expense of energy 
 and enthusiasm. Of the causes for the ill-success of the 
 scheme, the most obvious is the failure of a good beech- 
 mast supply for several successive years. Another, no 
 doubt, lay in the general feeling of anxiety over the polit- 
 ical situation and the rebellion of 1715 ; rumors were prob- 
 ably credited far more than they deserved. Hill did what 
 he could to quiet the apprehensions of those concerned by 
 putting everything into their own hands — a step that re- 
 moved the one person who was genuinely interested more 
 in the profit of others than in his own, and turned the 
 management over to people with conflicting claims and 
 selfish motives. Doubtless the remembrance of the en- 
 thusiasm with which he had made his unfulfilled prophecies 
 acted as an irritant on those who had credited them. Yet, 
 a soaring confidence was so vital a trait in Hill's character 
 that his contemporaries might have been expected to recog- 
 nize it and make the necessary allowances. 
 
 Discouragement with Hill was never of long duration; 
 the failure of one project was always soon followed by the 
 launching of another from his inexhaustible supply, just as 
 the failure of a play or poem to win public applause was 
 succeeded up to the last by consolatory anticipations of a 
 more intelligent judgment from posterity. We find him 
 next engaged with a "society of gentlemen" in a plan to 
 publish monthly an account of some new invention. Pos- 
 sibly he was himself the whole society, for a MS. note on 
 the title-page of the British Museum copy of the Essays 
 reads "by Aaron Hill, Esq."; but more probably there 
 were others concerned with him. 20 The purpose of the 
 society is stated in the advertisement : ' ' All who would have 
 these books brought monthly to their houses, paying only 
 
 20 Four Essays, etc., 1718. See Bibliography as to the date. 
 
44 AARON HILL 
 
 a shilling for each book, at the delivery . . . may be fur- 
 nished with them, upon giving notice to the beadles of their 
 respective parishes. For our design being nothing but the 
 public good, we choose that way of spreading our essays, 
 that rich and poor may have them without trouble. . . . 
 Throughout the course of our design, there will be handled 
 such diversity of subjects that ... it will produce a uni- 
 versal solid benefit, by which there is no rank, profession, 
 trade, or circumstance of life but will in some part or 
 other of the treatise, be particularly . . . interested and 
 advantaged. ' ' 
 
 The first essay, "in respect to the ladies," is upon china- 
 ware. Although pottery was manufactured in Stafford- 
 shire in 1690, no further progress was made in England 
 for many years ; Josiah Wedgwood was not born until 1730 ; 
 1740-1745 is given as the earliest date for the established 
 manufacture of porcelain in England; about the time of 
 this essay, it was first produced at Dresden and Vienna. 
 Thus the writer was not overstating the case when he said 
 that the notion was commonly held that only in China and 
 from one sort of soil, buried for an age or two, could fine 
 chinaware be made. He was perhaps going a trifle too far 
 when he asserted: "We shall prove this report to be noth- 
 ing but amusement, by instructing the most ordinary potter 
 in England to make as fine china as ever was sold by the 
 East India Company; and that with such ease that it may 
 be afforded as cheap as the commonest earthen ware. ' ' Then 
 follows an explanation of the process of manufacture in 
 China. To reproduce these results in England, all that is 
 lacking — a somewhat serious deficiency, to be sure, — is the 
 earth; England has potters, glaziers, and painters. The 
 essayist is firmly convinced that tobacco pipe clay, refined 
 ad infinitum, might serve. But an easier way for the 
 present is to buy up the old broken china, grind it with a 
 
hill's projects 45 
 
 flat stone and a runner, refine it, and mix it with quick-lime 
 dissolved in gum-water ; it will then be ready for the potter. 
 The broken china will not, of course, last for ever, but 
 meanwhile there is a profit in the undertaking. And if 
 curiosity is sufficiently aroused by the success of the 
 scheme, people may look about them and discover suitable 
 earth in England. In that event, the essayist is prepared 
 with an "infallible, easy, and cheap way to discover what 
 different bottoms lie under all lands," whether marl, chalk, 
 or clay. The method seems simple enough. 
 
 The reason for ascribing to Hill the next essay, on Coals, 
 is slight: the cut illustrating the balls of fuel, made by 
 mixing broken coal and Thames mud, is precisely the same 
 as that in Sir Hugh Piatt's Jewell House of Art and Nature 
 (1594), a heterogeneous collection of inventions, 21 to which 
 a passing reference is made in the second beech-mast 
 pamphlet. The picture is very cheering: a drawing-room 
 fire, two symmetrical pyramids of cannon-balls on each 
 side of the hearth, and another pyramid burning in the grate 
 — like ten round plum-puddings alight. The essay gives 
 minute directions about the proportions of mud and coal, 
 the arrangements with lightermen and bargemen, and the 
 process of working together the ingredients into balls. A 
 bushel of these culm balls is worth two of sea coal, and costs 
 about one-third as much.- 2 The Thames "owse" is so fat 
 
 21 The inventions form an extraordinary list, from how to prevent 
 drunkenness (the method is not the simple one of abstaining from 
 drink), to how to catch pigeons and make a "pleasant conceited 
 chafing-dish." This earlier projector was less altruistic than the 
 society of gentlemen, for he refuses to reveal the secret of the fire in 
 the picture except upon a "reasonable consideration." In 1603, 
 Piatt published a tract entitled, ' ' Of Coal -Balls for Fewell wherein 
 Sea coal is, by the mixture of other combustible Bodies both sweet- 
 ened and multiplied." The coal was to be mixed with clay. 
 
 22 There was great scarcity of fuel in England at this time. See 
 Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Part I, 
 523, ed. of 1907. 
 
46 AARON HILL 
 
 and so naturally combustible that it burns with a ' ' striking 
 liveliness" for six or eight hours, and makes no foul smoke. 
 An inexhaustible supply of the necessary mixture of mud 
 and rushes may be found in the area flooded at every tide 
 through Dagenham Breach. 
 
 The success of the third project — the repair of Dagenham 
 Breach — would have had the unfortunate effect of cutting 
 off the fuel supply on which the success of the second 
 depended. As there is nothing to connect Hill particularly 
 with the scheme, it may be passed over. 23 The last essay 
 in the volume deals with the manufacture of wine in Eng- 
 land. This was a favorite scheme of Hill's: he mentioned 
 it in the Dedication of the Beech Tree, and he attempted to 
 carry it out twenty-five years later. Several passages in 
 the essay have a Hillian stamp; for instance: "It is a re- 
 markable flaw in the genius of our nation to distrust new 
 improvements," — a truth Hill was never weary of pro- 
 claiming. The experience of a farmer's wife in Kent, who 
 found a sparkling wine in place of the verjuice she had 
 stored away some months before, convinced "some gentle- 
 men of our society" that only through lack of industry was 
 England without wine of her own. In fact, six hundred 
 years ago wine had been made in England; but the Nor- 
 
 23 Piles were to be driven in on each shore, a strong float made of 
 small boats fastened between them, and bricks, manufactured on the 
 spot, rolled to the float in wheelbarrows and dumped overboard. The 
 force of the tide would tend to spread out the stones, so as to form 
 a solid foundation, and to fill the interstices with mud. Whatever 
 methods were adopted were not very successful. A notice in the St. 
 Ives Post Boy, July 12, 1718, states, ' ' On Thursday seven night last, 
 Dagenham Breach was finished and stopt, and it being then spring- 
 tide, it did not overflow, and 'tis hoped it will withstand all storms 
 and tempests." The Post Boy, March, 1720, advertises for laborers 
 to shovel mud into the Breach; and the WeeTdy Journal or Saturday's 
 Post, November 18, 1721, refers to Captain Perry, "who lately stopt 
 Dagenham Breach." 
 
hill's projects 47 
 
 mans, wishing to make the country dependent on the wines 
 of France, had discouraged grape culture; at least, the 
 writer adds, if this is an "imagination," it is not an im- 
 probable one. It is true that the rainy climate of England 
 is bad for grapes, but to offset that disadvantage the winters 
 are milder and the frosts less severe than in France, and 
 there are no hailstorms. The few good vineyards that even 
 now exist in England would succeed better if these direc- 
 tions were followed: choose a light gravelly soil and a 
 southern exposure upon a hillside ; select grapes that ripen 
 early and have small leaves to admit the sun; plant them 
 in long shallow trenches, ten feet apart, and train the 
 higher branches on a low wall. The cut that adorns the 
 essay is inspiriting: we see the vines climbing the hill, the 
 laborers picking grapes and trundling barrows, and the 
 owner, cane in hand, taking the air in his vineyard. 
 
 This was the pleasing picture Hill tried later to realize. 
 One of his chief objects in removing from London to 
 Plaistow, in 1738, was to try out his vineyard theories. He 
 writes to Richardson, April 12, 1739, 24 that he has been 
 ' ' defying the sharpness of the season in Essex . . . planting 
 near a hundred thousand French vines, with resolution next 
 year to extend them over forty or fifty acres of vineyard. 
 For knowing perfectly well it is not our climate but our 
 skill which is defective, both as to managing the vines in 
 their growth, and their juice in its preparation, I have 
 judged it an honester service to my country to establish, if 
 I can, the success of so considerable a branch of new 
 product to her benefit, than to busy my cares and make 
 war on my own quiet by a fruitless concern at [public] 
 affairs." In September, he announces that of the cuttings 
 put out in March and April, few are less than five or six 
 feet high, and some are already bearing fruit.- 5 A week 
 
 24 Eiehaxdson 's Correspondence, ed. by Mrs. Barbauld, I, 22. 
 
 25 September 21, 1739, Correspondence, I, 28. 
 
48 AARON HILL 
 
 later, he refers to a serious illness contracted by "defying 
 the season"; but he hopes to be well enough by the middle 
 of October to direct the making of about twenty hogsheads 
 of wine, ripened on less than two acres.- 6 His hope of 
 recovery proved delusive, and the vintage had to proceed 
 without his supervision. A year later, 27 he actually des- 
 patched a sample of the wine to Richardson (who had no 
 difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm about it), but the 
 enterprise had obviously not succeeded. The reason is not 
 far to seek. The marshy situation of the house, which 
 proved extremely injurious to the health of the entire 
 family, must have had an equally bad effect on the grapes. 
 For wine to soothe his sick hours, poor Hill had to thank 
 his kind friend Richardson, not his own industry and skill. 
 He attempted, indeed, to persuade his son to take up the 
 work; but the son, a very unsatisfactory person altogether, 
 was not likely to succeed where the father had failed. 28 
 
 The eagerness Hill displayed in some lengthy letters, 
 about 1740, to William Popple, concerning grape culture 
 in the Bermudas, proves at once his preoccupation with the 
 subject and his discouragement in regard to English wines. 
 Popple's brother was planning to go to the Bermudas, 
 where another brother held the post of governor; if he 
 would only plant vineyards there — a plan declared practi- 
 cable five years before by the Board of Trade — he would 
 make, Hill was convinced, enormous profits. Hill felt him- 
 self better fitted to give advice ' ' than most men in England, 
 where we are sadly defective in whatever relates to a vine- 
 yard, every circumstance whereof I had opportunities from 
 experience abroad and long and obstinate meditation at 
 
 26 Hill to Richardson, October 16, 1739, Forster MSS. 
 
 27 See his letter to Richardson, September 17, 1740, Correspondence, 
 I, 43. This letter contains an elaborate explanation of Hill's process 
 of grape fermentation. 
 
 28 Hill to Popple, November 12, 1740, WorTcs, II, 79. 
 
hill's projects 49 
 
 home to know both in practice and theory. ' ' The Madeira 
 wine of Bermuda, if made according to his directions, would 
 be finer and more saleable, beyond all comparison, than 
 that of Madeira itself. These letters to Popple are interest- 
 ing in their way, and the handling of certain objections 
 brought forward by some of Popple's Bermuda friends, 
 arrogantly conscious of their experience, is an effective bit 
 of argumentation. 29 Hill had some reason to scorn the ex- 
 perience of the colonial planters ; though his contempt may 
 have appeared at the time to be that of the enthusiastic 
 theorist for mere facts, subsequent events justified it in 
 several instances. Don't expect new lights, he says, 30 from 
 the planters and traders; "our mother country, God bless 
 her, among the rest of her rights and immunities, has had 
 the privilege from time immemorial to declare and believe 
 all things impracticable, till they have been proved easy by 
 the adventure of others." For instance, the English in 
 Jamaica would not believe that coffee could be grown there, 
 till they saw it done by the French, under their noses; 
 "then, indeed, like the four-footed supporters of our woolen 
 manufacture, they trooped quietly after their leaders." 
 For twenty years past, he has been trying to "persuade a 
 wooden head or two in the south of Carolina" to plant 
 sugar-cane. The failure of one experiment, made under 
 unfavorable conditions, convinced them that Carolina was 
 too cold, despite all proof of the success of sugar-planting 
 in still colder climates. "So they will continue to think, 
 till some Frenchman of the settlements at their back makes 
 it a common return from those colonies ; and then we shall 
 have them gravely petitioning Parliament for some aid in 
 relief of their ignorance." It did turn out as he antici- 
 
 29 The letters to Popple are dated November 30, 1740' (Works, II, 
 82), December 8 (II, 91), December 18 (II, 100), and January 1, 
 1741 (II, 108). 
 
 so November 30, 1740. 
 
50 AARON HILL 
 
 pated : sugar-cane was first cultivated by Jesuits near the 
 site of New Orleans, about 1751, and it was a staple 
 product there before it began to be grown to any extent in 
 South Carolina and Georgia. 31 
 
 Hill had once had more extensive plans in regard to the 
 land south of Carolina than the mere cultivation of grapes 
 or sugar-cane. On June 19, 1717, Sir Robert Montgomery, 
 of Skelmorley in Ayre, obtained from the Palatine (Lord 
 Carteret) and the Lords Proprietors of Carolina a grant 
 for himself and his heirs and assigns of the land between 
 the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah, with liberty to settle 
 south of the Alatamaha. The grant erected the district 
 into an independent province, to be called the Margravate 
 of Azilia; courts were to be established, laws enacted by a 
 Public Assembly, and Sir Robert himself was to be ap- 
 pointed governor for life. The Proprietors were to receive, 
 in addition to a yearly quit-rent of one penny sterling an 
 acre, one-fourth of the gold and silver ore taken from the 
 hills of Azilia. "In consideration of all which powers, 
 rights, privileges, prerogatives, and franchises, Sir Robert 
 shall transport, at his own expense, a considerable number 
 of families, with all necessaries for making a new settle- 
 ment in the said tract of land ; and in case it be neglected 
 
 3i The Plain Dealer, No. 99, March 1, 1725, reflects Hill's views of 
 the open-mindedness of those in charge of colonial affairs: the agent 
 of an American colony is represented as uttering the pious wish that 
 the gentlemen in charge of the trade of the Colonies might be pro- 
 moted to the peerage— an office of less trouble than their present one 
 and more in proportion to their abilities; he goes on with ironical 
 comments upon their experience and their vigor in forwarding move- 
 ments for the encouragement of their countrymen abroad; in illus- 
 tration, he tells of a Turkish sultan who sent several sages to en- 
 courage the industries in Egypt; they refused to remit certain taxes 
 to the cotton planters, whose crops had suffered in an inundation, on 
 the ground that they should have sown something that would not have 
 been hurt by water — wool, for instance. 
 
hill's projects 51 
 
 for the space of three years from the date of this grant, 
 the grant shall become void, anything herein contained to 
 the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 His grant secured, Sir Robert published his proposals, to 
 attract the capital necessary for the new settlement. 32 He 
 was himself well-fitted to write a prospectus : he had a fine 
 imagination, unembarrassed by facts; and he had, too, a 
 sort of ancestral experience in colonization, for his father 
 had accompanied Lord Cardross on the ill-fated expedition 
 to establish a military station near Port Royal in 1682. 33 
 A "colonizing humor," as he said, ran in his blood. But 
 there were other equally imaginative and experienced 
 gentlemen ready to assist him — among them Aaron Hill. 
 Hill's share in the prospectus is perhaps to be found in the 
 glowing promise of large profits, to arise, during the very 
 first year of the settlement, from the manufacture of potash 
 according to a new and cheap method. Hill and potash are 
 inseparably linked by his biographers: 34 he experimented 
 with his method in Scotland and at Plaistow, but his profits 
 were all on paper, and his secret died with him. Aided, no 
 doubt, by Hill's vision, Montgomery pictured an Eden 
 south of the Savannah. ' ' It lies in the same latitude with 
 Palestine herself, that promised Canaan which was pointed 
 out by God's own choice to bless the labors of a favorite 
 people. It abounds with rivers, woods, and meadows. Its 
 gentle hills are full of mines, — lead, copper, iron, and even 
 some of silver; 'tis beautiful with odoriferous plants, green 
 all the year. Pine, cedar, cypress, oak, elm, ash, or walnut, 
 
 32 A Discourse concerning the design' & establishment of a new 
 Colony to the South of Carolina, etc., London, 1717. Beprinted in 
 American Colonial Tracts, vol. I, May, 1897. The grant is quoted in 
 the Discourse. 
 
 33 The colony was destroyed by Spaniards in 1686. 
 
 si See Cibber's Lives, V, 271; and the life by "I. K." in Hill's 
 Dramatic Worlcs, I. 
 
52 AARON HILL 
 
 with innumerable other sorts, . . . grow everywhere so 
 pleasantly that though they meet at top and shade the 
 traveller, they are at the same time so distant in their 
 bodies and so free from underwood or bushes that the deer 
 and other game, which feed in droves along these forests, 
 may be often seen half a mile between them." The soil is 
 so fertile that orchards are raised merely to feed pigs 
 withal. "Paradise, with all her virgin beauties, may be 
 modestly supposed at most but equal to its native excellence. 
 . . . Nor is this tempting country yet inhabited, except 
 those parts in the possession of the English, unless by here 
 and there a tribe of wandering Indians, wild and ignorant, 
 all artless and uncultivated as the soil which fosters them. ' ' 
 The most sanguine of promoters could not quite ignore 
 the fact that the artless Indians had within the last two 
 years made South Carolina as little as possible like Para- 
 dise. Even Montgomery admits that the "unformidable 
 Indians" have taken advantage of the undefended position 
 of some isolated communities ; but he will avoid that danger 
 by enclosing his settlements within military lines. The 
 defense of each district is to be entrusted to men who will 
 employ their odd moments in Indian warfare, and the 
 greater part of their time in cultivating the land just within 
 the outer walls. 35 A plan reveals one district of Azilia in 
 the "fulness of her beauty": the one hundred and sixteen 
 squares, each with its little house, the city at the centre, 
 the four large parks, the hunters shooting game, the laborers 
 peacefully at work, and the guns trained upon possible 
 Indians somewhere outside of the picture, — all combine to 
 create a most pleasant impression of Azilia. 
 
 35 There were to be no " dangerous Blackamoors ' ' admitted into 
 the colony; laborers were to go over on a contract, and to receive a 
 gift of land upon the expiration of their term 1 of service. The 
 experiment of doing without slave labor was of course tried during 
 the early years of the colony of Georgia. 
 
hill's projects 53 
 
 Sir Robert offered land in the new province at forty 
 shillings an acre. The purchasers became in effect share- 
 holders, who received the profits of the land as dividends ; 
 and upon the least breach of Sir Robert's contract with 
 them, they were empowered to take possession of the 
 province. Subscribers were found on these terms, for in 
 February, 1718, Sir Robert stated that he had already 
 raised thirty thousand pounds among his friends. 
 
 But a more unpromising moment for the execution of the 
 scheme could scarcely have been found. The Proprietary 
 Government was already tottering. The Proprietors had 
 recently been forced to admit their inability to defend the 
 province against Indian and Spanish attacks, and the 
 colonists had appealed to the king for help. The Crown 
 was jealously watching for an opportunity to assume con- 
 trol. In so delicate a situation, the Proprietors felt it ad- 
 visable to have the royal approval of their grant to Sir 
 Robert Montgomery, and accordingly, in July, 1717, they 
 submitted it to the king. He referred the matter to the 
 Lords Commissioners for Trade, and they in due time con- 
 sulted the Attorney General. It was his opinion that there 
 was nothing prejudicial to the interests of the Crown in 
 the grant, but he doubted whether the powers of govern- 
 ment possessed by the Proprietors could be divided by them 
 so as to exempt the new province from liability to the laws 
 of South Carolina. A month later (April, 1718), a repre- 
 sentation to the king, signed by Charles Cooke and three 
 others, suggested that the Proprietors surrender their 
 powers of government over the new province to the king, 
 who could then appoint Montgomery governor. This they 
 were apparently unwilling to do, and the scheme lan- 
 guished. 36 
 
 36 The Collections of the Historical Society of South Carolina con- 
 tains lists and abstracts of the papers relating to South Carolina in 
 
54 AARON HILL 
 
 A few months later, Sir Robert, having discovered that 
 the protection of his colony from the '"poor unskilful 
 natives of America ' ' would put him to greater expense than 
 he had anticipated, petitioned the king to grant a lottery 
 under the Scotch seal, to provide him with funds. The 
 Attorney General, to whom the petition was referred, 
 agreed with Sir Robert that the act against lotteries in Eng- 
 land was probably not binding in Scotland, since it had 
 been passed prior to the Union. 37 But the request was ap- 
 parently denied. 3S 
 
 The next news of Azilia is that Hill has purchased the 
 grant. "It is sometime," he writes in 1718, 39 to some un- 
 named influential lord, "since I became concerned with 
 Sir Robert Montgomery and some other gentlemen in a 
 design to settle a new plantation of his Majesty's subjects 
 to the south of Carolina; the whole intent of which will be 
 justly apprehended by your lordship, on perusal of the en- 
 closed little treatise, which Sir Robert made public, with 
 less success than he expected; upon which, and some other 
 views which fell in his way, he declined any further en- 
 deavors for advancement of the colony proposed; and I 
 
 the old State Paper Office at London. The progress of Montgomery 's 
 scheme may be traced in the following references: I, 189; II, 232, 
 234, 255, 256. For the situation in the province at this time see 
 E. MeCrady: Hist, of South Carolina under the Proprietary Gov. 
 1670-1719, 575 f. 
 
 37 The date of the document quoted in A Description of the Golden 
 Islands (1720) is November 15; as reference is made in it to the ap- 
 proval of Sir Kobert's scheme by the Board of Trade, and as their 
 approval was expressed in February, 1718, the year is probably 1718. 
 
 38 The plan was to draw out 100,000 tickets, at 40' shillings apiece; 
 the fund was to be kept by some bank or society of general credit, 
 and a deduction of not more than 15 per cent, to be made on all prizes 
 and applied to the Azilia scheme. The lottery was to be drawn in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 30 Worl-s, 1753, II, 187 f. 
 
hill's projects 55 
 
 bought his grant of him with a firm resolution to pursue 
 the design by myself." He goes on to explain how, in a 
 recent attempt "to improve one of our natural advantages, 
 ... I erred in the choice of my means, and met with dis- 
 appointments which have made it necessary (for the sake 
 of my family) that I endeavor to repair a large breach in 
 my fortune ; and I would do it, if possible, the noblest way, 
 by owing any future prosperity of mine to some benefit I 
 procure to my country." He points out some of the pros- 
 pective benefits : the English trade with Spain is threatened 
 by the attempts of the French to establish communication 
 between the Lakes and the Gulf ; they already have a colony 
 on the G-ulf and a chain of forts along the Mississippi; 
 through this midland channel they will be able to reach 
 the Spanish market, and it will then be vain to exclude them 
 from the South Sea trade. Since the grant permits an 
 indefinite extension of the boundaries to the south and west, 
 Hill suggests that a settlement be established, for the 
 purpose of watching the designs of the French, somewhere 
 on the river of "Apalachia." 40 To meet the expense of 
 equipping the five hundred men needed for such an expedi- 
 tion, Hill appeals — in almost the precise terms of Mont- 
 gomery's petition — for the privilege of a lottery under the 
 Scotch seal. Will his lordship use his influence? Hill's 
 appeal had no more success than Montgomery's. The 
 reason for their failure is perhaps sufficiently explained by 
 a passage in Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, 41 under 
 
 40 Hill evidently means the river Appalachicola, or one of its tribu- 
 taries, flowing into the Gulf. On the map, his plan of sending his 
 colonists by land from the Alatamaha to an upper branch of this 
 waterway looks feasible enough; but the character of the country — 
 whether swampy or heavily wooded or otherwise difficult of passage — 
 probably did not enter into his calculations much more than did danger 
 from the Indians. 
 
 4i III, 63. 
 
56 AARON HILL 
 
 the year 1718 : ' ' The selling or buying of chances and parts 
 of chances of tickets in the state lotteries of Great Britain 
 being at this time in general practise, a clause in an act of 
 Parliament for continuing certain duties on coals and culm, 
 etc., prohibited such practises; and also all undertakings 
 resembling lotteries, or being on the footing of a state 
 lottery, were strictly prohibited under the penalty of 100 
 pounds over and above all penalties enjoined by former 
 acts of Parliament against private lotteries." In other 
 words, just when the necessities of Azilia demanded a 
 lottery, the laws against the practice were made more 
 stringent. 
 
 There must have been conditions attached to Hill's pur- 
 chase which were not fulfilled; for when Azilia reappears, 
 it is Sir Robert's name that is still connected with the 
 grant. 4 - To the dream of a Paradise on the mainland suc- 
 ceeded a vision, no less entrancing, of the Golden Islands — 
 a vision seen by both Montgomery and Hill in the Bubble 
 year. In October, 1720, shortly after the South Sea crash, 
 appeared a pamphlet entitled, A Description of the Golden 
 Islands, with an Account of the Undertaking now on foot 
 for making a Settlement there. 4 * The gentlemen con- 
 cerned in the undertaking, declares the pamphlet, published 
 these sheets to distinguish themselves from "that shadowy 
 tribe of Nothings, now lately deceased"; and they have 
 purposely delayed publication till this moment, "when 
 nothing would choose to appear that could not depend on 
 its stability. They never proposed to support their under- 
 
 42 Probably no complete purchase was effected. Sir Kobert, in a 
 temporary fit of discouragement, may have made some arrangements 
 with Hill about the grant that gave Hill a greater interest in it than 
 before, but did not go so far as an unconditional purchase. I have 
 not found any letters or other documents that explain the situation 
 more definitely. 
 
 43 It was advertised in the Post Boy, October 22, 1720. 
 
hill's projects 57 
 
 taking by the feeble arts of the Alley, having established it 
 on so solid and lasting a foundation, that they have nothing 
 to hope or fear from the rise and fall of opinions." 
 
 The pamphlet is doubtfully ascribed to Colonel John 
 Barnwell, who was sent to England to secure from the 
 Crown confirmation of the acts of the Convention that, in 
 December, 1719, had overthrown the Proprietary govern- 
 ment in South Carolina. He seems, however, to have 
 assisted the Proprietors with information, 44 and in the 
 pamphlet he asserts their right to make grants of land. 
 Sir Robert's grant is quoted — with the judicious omission 
 of the provision that a settlement must be made within 
 three years; 45 and the new plan is outlined. On May 3, 
 1720, according to the account, Sir Robert sold the Golden 
 Islands in 1,000 allotments of 100 acres each, at 20 
 shillings an acre ; the land was conveyed to the purchasers 
 in due form of law by a general indenture, but the money 
 was not conveyed to Sir Robert — it was merely subject 
 to call. The islands lay four or five miles off the coast 
 of Azilia. " As to the four islands which you have assigned 
 to the purchasers who are concerned in your settlement," 
 writes Barnwell to Montgomery, from the Carolina Coffee 
 House, "they are called St. Simon, Sapella, St. Caterina, 
 and Ogeche, to which last before I came thence I left 
 the name of Montgomery. You have given them a gen- 
 eral denomination, which I think they may well deserve, 
 of the Golden Islands, for as to convenient pasture, pleasant 
 situation, profitable fishery and fowling, they surpass any- 
 thing of that kind in all Carolina." The islands are safe 
 from Indians; thousands of acres are already cleared; the 
 
 44 See McCrady, Hist, of South Carolina under the Proprietary Gov., 
 575. 
 
 45 The Proprietors were probably willing to overlook the provision, 
 for the sake of having the grant in the hands of persons friendly to 
 their claims. 
 
58 AAEON HILL 
 
 trustees are completing the arrangements to ship an expedi- 
 tion to make the first settlement on St. Caterina ; the labor- 
 ers are to be also the defenders of the colony. As an in- 
 ducement to gentlemen in England and America to settle 
 in the Golden Islands, the trustees offer free grants of land 
 at a rental of one-fifth of the produce ; and announce their 
 intention of establishing a fund to buy all sorts of com- 
 modities from the planters at certain fixed prices. The 
 Crown has granted a free entry for seven years to silk, 
 wine, raisins, wax, almonds, oil, and olives. 
 
 Of this enterprise Hill was treasurer, if the authority of 
 a pamphlet published some years later may be trusted. 46 
 The author, referring to Hill's record as a projector, says 
 scornfully : ' ' I own he may carry on such another trade as 
 he did formerly, from his office in Scotland Yard, to the 
 Margravate of Azilia, when he acted as Treasurer to the 
 Golden Islands." The title has very pleasing fairyland 
 suggestions. In a world of facts, the whole scheme was 
 doomed to failure : its promoters trusted in lotteries at a 
 moment when lotteries were frowned on by the authorities ; 
 they chose a year of unparalleled financial disaster for their 
 final attempt; and they relied on the support of a pro- 
 prietary government that had actually perished. Only a 
 few weeks before their pamphlet appeared, a royal governor 
 had been sent to South Carolina; and it required eight 
 years for the satisfactory adjustment of the claims of the 
 Proprietors themselves. 47 Hill greeted the successful 
 colonization of Georgia in 1732 with a little "sally" of 
 
 46 B. M. 8223, a. 44, 1-7 (1728). 
 
 4 7 Even after the Proprietors had surrendered to the Crown, and 
 the colony of Georgia was founded, certain persons who had sub- 
 scribed to Montgomery 's scheme in 1720 claimed land under his grant. 
 Their contention that the grant was not void rested on a technicality. 
 See Col. of the Hist. Soc. of South Carolina, II, 139. 
 
hill's projects 59 
 
 verse; the ''universal benevolence" of the trustees com- 
 manded his admiration. 48 
 
 It is difficult to believe that the business of the Golden 
 Islands absorbed all of Hill's energy in the Bubble year. 
 He may possibly have had some interest in several of the 
 schemes that were brought to an end by the scire facias of 
 the South Sea Company in August. One was for beech- 
 oil — "Aaron Hill's project" — and others for making china- 
 ware and for supplying London with coal. 49 He must 
 surely have been one of the busiest members of the crowd 
 in Exchange Alley ; but beyond the connection of his name 
 with beech-oil and the Golden Islands, I have found no 
 record of his activity there. 50 
 
 It may be that in this year Hill first became interested in 
 the company that offered him his next opportunity to be 
 useful; his acquaintance with Colonel Horsey, one of its 
 most prominent members, goes back at least to January, 
 1722. Probably he was compelled by impaired fortune, or 
 by the discredit the failure of earlier projects had brought 
 upon his individual enterprises, to play a subordinate role 
 in those financed and managed by others. But subordinate 
 as it was, none of his roles was more picturesque than that 
 of agent for the York Buildings Company, and no com- 
 pany of that time had a more curious and chequered career. 
 
 Incorporated in 1691 for the modest purpose of supply- 
 ing the neighborhood of Piccadilly and St. James's with 
 Thames water, the Governor and Company of Undertakers 
 led a useful and respectable existence for nearly thirty 
 
 48 Forster MSS. folio XVI. The poem is in his WorTcs, 1753, IV, 152. 
 
 49 Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, III, 96. 
 
 so Carolina was in danger of being sold outright by its Proprietors 
 for 250,000 pounds, to a joint-stock company, in June, 1720. The 
 account is in McCrady, Hist, of South Carolina, etc., 669 f. The 
 Carolinians were not pleased at the idea of being bought and sold in 
 Exchange Alley. 
 
60 AARON HILL 
 
 years. Then, in 1719, a certain Mr. Case Billingsley, 51 
 solicitor and projector, discovered the possibilities of a 
 clause in their charter, empowering them to purchase lands ; 
 the great estates in Scotland and the north of England, for- 
 feited by the rebels in the uprising of 1715, were for sale. 52 
 Why not improve the water-works by the acquisition of 
 land? In March, 1719, the water-works were on the 
 market; in October, the stock was transferred to Mr. 
 Billingsley, his partner, James Bradley, and others, for 
 7,000 pounds; and a few days later, a subscription was 
 opened to raise a fund of 1,200,000 pounds to purchase 
 forfeited and other estates in Great Britain. Subscribers 
 were to receive annuities of some sort ; for by an act passed 
 in 1719, the purchasers of forfeited estates might grant rent 
 charges or annuities to the extent of the yearly value. The 
 whole amount was at once subscribed, and 59,575 pounds 
 
 si Mr. Billingsley was credited with being the contriver of the Har- 
 burg Lottery, which formed the subject of Parliamentary inquiry in 
 1723. He printed the tickets and kept them in the York Buildings 
 House. Parliament resolved that it was an infamous and fraudulent 
 undertaking. See Cobbett's Parliamentary Hist, of Eng., VIII, 62 f. 
 The St. James's Journal, March 9, 1723, notes that Mr. Case Billings- 
 ley has retired from Holland to remoter parts. 
 
 52 The government had had much trouble over these estates. "When 
 the thirteen Commissioners (among the six for Scotland was Sir 
 Richard Steele) tried to take possession they became involved in 
 difficulties: claims made by creditors of the estates were used as 
 blinds in the interest of the families of the rebels; many of the 
 factors, nominated by the creditors and appointed by the Court of 
 County Sessions, were in reality agents of the banished owners; 
 claimants sprang up, with conveyances apparently executed before 
 the rebellion in favor of minors; the Commissioners and the Lords 
 of Sessions constantly disagreed. In 1717, the government passed a 
 statute vesting the estates in the Commissioners to be sold at auction, 
 and by 1719-1720 they were ready for sale. But there was little 
 money in Scotland. In financial difficulties the age turned naturally 
 to a joint-stock company for relief. Hence the opportunity of Mr. 
 Case Billingsley. 
 
hill's projects 61 
 
 added the next month; the ten-pound shares were soon 
 selling at 305, and 10 per cent, dividends were promised. 
 The purchase of estates, begun on October 6, 1719, con- 
 tinued into the following year, to the total amount of 308,- 
 913 pounds. When the South Sea Company secured its 
 writ against the York Buildings Company and others (Au- 
 gust 18, 1720), the stock fell from 300 to 200, and two days 
 later had no buyers. The Commentator of September 5 
 jocularly explained that the company had not "broken in 
 upon the true intent and meaning of their charter, who in 
 the power of raising Thames water three story high, had, 
 no question, a power to raise a bubble to 300 per cent. For 
 bubble making in itself is a kind of water-work in its 
 original." But the same paper, a week later, 53 removed 
 the company from the list of bubbles, with apologies, hav- 
 ing learned that on the threat of government proceedings 
 it had returned to regular methods of raising money by 
 call. 
 
 To follow in detail the history of the company for the 
 next five years, until Hill comes into the story, is unneces- 
 sary. 54 Their financial transactions in London were as un- 
 sound as their management of the estates in Scotland was 
 inefficient. One board of managers after another, infected 
 with the evil principles of the Bubble year, gambled with 
 the capital. Money was raised in all possible ways — by 
 calls on the proprietors, transfers of nominal stock, and 
 even lotteries ; 55 and the only result was an annual shortage 
 
 ss No. 73. 
 
 s* A very interesting account, fully supplied with all the technical 
 details of high finance in the eighteenth century, is that by David 
 Murray, The YorJc Buildings Company: a Chapter in Scotch History, 
 Glasgow, 1883. Much of the material used here is taken from this 
 book. 
 
 55 Lotteries, all partial failures, were drawn in August, 1721, 
 February, 1722, and in 1723. To give a deceitful appearance of 
 value to the stock, seven half-yearly dividends were declared between 
 1721 and 1724, and paid out of the capital. 
 
62 AARON HILL 
 
 of four thousand pounds. Their Scotch estates, in Aber- 
 deen, Perth, Forfar, Berwick, Stirling, and elsewhere, were 
 almost totally uncultivated, and full of swamp and waste 
 land ; drainage was unknown ; fertilizing nearly so ; agricul- 
 tural implements were primitive — wooden ploughs, for 
 example, and wooden mallets for breaking clods; and the 
 chief crops were bere and oats. Rentals were paid in kind, 
 — in hens, butter, peas, meal, geese, and wool. Add to these 
 primitive conditions on the estates the incredibly bad 
 roads, 56 the unpopularity of the company (which inherited 
 the prejudice against the Commissioners), and the debts 
 upon all the estates (which the company also inherited), 
 and it is evident that the chances of profit, even with the 
 best of management, were small. 
 
 In spite of its difficulties, this task of managing extensive 
 estates all over Scotland and Northumbria — not to mention 
 that other duty of furnishing water to the inhabitants of 
 the West End— did not afford sufficient outlet for the 
 energies of the governor and his six assistants. 57 In 1727, 
 Colonel Samuel Horsey, then governor, made a proposal 
 for importing timber, masts, marble, and "other commodi- 
 ties of the natural growth of Scotland." 58 The idea was 
 not entirely new. Captain Edward Burt, writing about 
 
 5 6 It took eight days to travel the 170 miles between Edinburgh and 
 Eoss-shire. 
 
 57 An effort was made to improve the water-works: in 1725 a real 
 fire-engine was installed — a very noisy and smoky one, according to a 
 contemporary account — which proved too expensive, and was replaced 
 after three years by horse-power. The account of the engine, The 
 York Buildings Dragon, is reprinted in the appendix of T. Wright's 
 England under the Souse of Hanover, 1848. 
 
 58 Colonel Horsey was waiting for the confirmation of his appoint- 
 ment by the Proprietors as governor of South Carolina. For two 
 years or more (1725-1727), there is a recoTd of delays, petitions, and 
 memorials for and against the right of the Proprietors to appoint a 
 governor. Col. Hist. Soc. of South Carolina, I, 172. 
 
hill's projects 63 
 
 1729, says: 59 "I remember to have heard, a good while ago, 
 that in the time when Prince George of Denmark was lord- 
 high-admiral of England, some Scots gentlemen represented 
 to him that Scotland could furnish the navy with as good 
 timber for masts and other uses as either Sweden or 
 Norway could do, 60 and at a much more reasonable rate." 
 Two surveyors were sent up at that time, and, after a 
 narrow escape from hanging at the hands of a Highland 
 chieftain who cared nothing for credentials from Prince 
 George, they did survey the woods ; but nothing further was 
 done. 
 
 The real author of Colonel Horsey 's proposal was Hill, 
 who had found a place for Scotch timber in his poem to 
 Harley in 1714. Even before the governor submitted the 
 plan to the company, he had evidently come to some agree- 
 ment with Hill: "Mr. Hill has finished his affair," wrote 
 Savage to Mallet, on August 15, 1726, 61 "and by disposing 
 of it to a company, has secured a hundred thousand pounds 
 for himself. On Friday was s'ennight he set out in his 
 own coach and six to Scotland, with his wife, and his 
 mother-in-law accompanied him in her chariot. ' ' The coach 
 and six may be accepted on Savage's authority, but it is 
 impossible that anyone — least of all Hill — could secure a 
 hundred thousand pounds from the York Buildings Com- 
 pany. Another letter, 62 in October, refers to Hill's arrival 
 at Berwick, his intended tour, and halt at Inverness. The 
 appearance of his coach probably made a sensation in Inver- 
 
 59 Letters, 5th ed., II, 152. Burt was a surveyor and engineer, 
 engaged in laying out roads in the Highlands — a work begun by 
 Marshall Wade about 1726. 
 
 eo The Tar Company of Sweden had practically a monopoly of ship 
 supplies. Parliament, about 1704, tried with little success to encour- 
 age the making of tar, hemp, etc., in the Colonies. Cunningham, 
 Growth of English Industry, etc., Part I, 485 f. 
 
 6i Quoted in G. C. Macaulay's Thomson, 18, note 1. 
 
 62 Thomson to Hill, October 20, 1726. 
 
64 AAEON HILL 
 
 ness, where the tiny carts, drawn by diminutive horses, had 
 wheels formed of three pieces of plank. "The description 
 of these puny vehicles," wrote Captain Burt, "brings to 
 my memory how I was entertained with the surprise and 
 amusement of the common people in this town, when, in the 
 year 1725, a chariot with six monstrous great horses arrived 
 here by way of the seacoast. An elephant, publicly exposed 
 in one of the streets of London, could not have excited 
 greater admiration. One asked what the chariot was; 
 another, who had seen the gentleman alight, told the first, 
 with a sneer at his ignorance, it was a great cart to carry 
 people in and such like." 63 
 
 During his visit of several months, 64 Hill did more than 
 merely inspect the timber. " Is it not true, ' ' wrote a gentle- 
 man at Edinburgh in 1728, 65 "that Aaron Hill, Esq., with 
 the advice, concurrence, and assistance not only of the com- 
 pany, but likewise of Messieurs John Essington and James 
 Crisp of Wansworth, sent by a ship to Inverness all utensils 
 for cutting and clearing of wood, with copper kettles and 
 other things needful for boiling and extracting the salt out 
 of the ashes, and came himself last year to our woods in the 
 north, and having examined the same, did burn a consider- 
 able quantity of wood, in order to make Russian potash; 
 and upon his failing to perform the same, gave out, con- 
 trary to all expectation, that our wood wanted salt. ... By 
 this imaginary project was there not a very considerable 
 sum sunk?" 
 
 63 Letters, I, 77. 
 
 64 Hill was back in London in March, 1727 ; a letter from Thom- 
 son of March 4 refers to his return (Col. of 1751). 
 
 65 ' ' Letter from a gentleman at Edinburgh to his friend at Lon- 
 don," B.M. 8223. d. 7. The Londoner had sent to his friend the 
 Daily Post of November 21, 1727, which contained abstracts of the 
 proceedings of the two general courts of the company, held, in August 
 and November, 1727, and had asked his opinion of the company. 
 
hill's projects 65 
 
 Though the potash experiment failed, Hill was so de- 
 lighted with the woods that he wrote to Colonel Horsey 
 recommending the acquisition of the timber, and on his re- 
 turn to London urged it on him as a certain source of 
 wealth. It was then that Horsey proposed it to the com- 
 pany. "But as Hill's name, it was thought, would not be 
 acceptable to the shareholders, Thomas Fordyce and Mr. 
 Adam, the Company's agents in Scotland, were put for- 
 ward as the proposers." 66 According to the abstract of 
 the governor's report to the general courts of the company, 
 held in August and November, 1727, 67 the woods were 
 capable of supplying the entire demand of the kingdom for 
 great and small timber, even to masts for the first-rate ships 
 of the navy; a hundred shiploads a year for twenty years 
 might be taken from the famous Abernethy woods alone ; 
 and these woods were conveniently situated near the most 
 navigable river in Scotland — the Spey. Best of all, the 
 Admiralty was willing to buy from the company the masts 
 and yards for the navy. 68 The result of these representa- 
 tions was that in January, 1728, sixty thousand fir trees 
 were purchased. 69 To secure funds, the court determined 
 
 ee Murray, Yorlc Buildings Co., 57. 
 
 67 B.M. 8223. d. 44. 
 
 es < < As their Act of Parliament made no reference to importing 
 masts and marble, the company solicited, and by a due expenditure in 
 gratuities and presents obtained (August 21, 1728) a royal licence 'to 
 trade in goods, wares, and merchandise of the growth and produce of 
 that part of the kingdom.' " Murray, York Buildings Co., 58. See 
 also Macpherson, III, 145, under the year 1728 : " A premium is also 
 enacted for the importation of masts, yards, and bowsprits from 
 Scotland, where . . . there are in sundry parts great store of pine 
 and fir trees." 
 
 69 The trees were purchased at the rate of 2/4 a tree ; Francis 
 Place, who surveyed the woods in April, 1733, said that 20,000 trees 
 worth that price had been cut down, that 10,000 more still standing 
 were of the same value, but the remaining 30,000 were worth no more 
 
66 AARON HILL 
 
 to revive 200,000 pounds of a nominal stock of 600,000 
 pounds, which had been annihilated by an earlier order 
 of the court in 1725 ; and the proposers of the scheme were 
 to have the privilege of taking this up at 10 per cent., to be 
 paid for as fast as money was needed in the trade. The 
 apportionment caused squabbling: Hill demanded 16,000 
 pounds; but "after claiming personally and 'through one 
 Mrs. Blunt,' he agreed to take 8,000, in discharge of which 
 he got 6,800 pounds stock of the company." 70 This trans- 
 action is noticed by the questioning gentleman at Edinburgh 
 already quoted : " Is it not true that 200,000 pounds stock 
 was transferred by the company to one or two at London, 
 and that he or they sold so much thereof as repaid what 
 Mr. Hill's friends had advanced for satisfying the com- 
 pany's exigencies mentioned in the above-named second 
 general court, and likewise for raising money to carry on 
 the project of trees for masts?" 
 
 After this settlement, Hill set out once more for Scotland, 
 probably in the spring of 1728, and was received with high 
 honors. The Duke and Duchess of Gordon "distinguished 
 him with great civilities, ' ' and the magistrates of Inverness 
 presented him with the freedom of the city "at an elegant 
 entertainment made by them on that occasion." 71 On 
 August 18, he wrote to his wife "from the Golden Groves 
 of Abernethy" 7 - that he had everything settled to his satis- 
 faction; "the shore of the Spey, for a mile or two together 
 along our meadow, is all covered with masts, from fifty to 
 seventy feet long, which they are daily bringing out of the 
 wood, with ten carriages and above a hundred horses; and 
 [they] bring down from forty to fifty trees a day, one day 
 
 than /6 a tree (Murray, 57, quoted from the House of Commons 
 Journals). 
 
 70 Murray, York Buildings Co., 63. 
 
 7iCibber's Lives, V, 265. 
 
 " Works, 1754, I, 47 f. 
 
hill's projects 67 
 
 with another. In the middle of the river lie at anchor a 
 little float of our rafts, which are just putting off for Find- 
 horn harbor ; and it is one of the pleasantest sights possible 
 to observe the little armies of men, women, and children, 
 who pour down from the Highlands, to stare at what we 
 have been doing. Colonel Horsey came hither, on "Wednes- 
 day last, and is in such raptures at what he sees and hears, 
 that he scarce knows whether he walks on his head or his 
 heels." 73 The Highlanders had good reason to stare at 
 Hill's operations, for they were without precedent in that 
 region. The former owners of the woods had been ac- 
 customed to float their timber down in single logs or lots 
 loosely huddled together, attended by men in a currach — a 
 small wicker basket covered with ox-hides. 74 Rafting was 
 unknown until Hill introduced it. "When the trees were 
 by his order chained together into floats, the ignorant High- 
 landers refused to venture themselves on them down the 
 river Spey, till he first went himself, to make them sensible 
 there was no danger. . . . He found a great obstacle in the 
 rocks, by which the river seemed impassible ; but on these he 
 ordered fires to be made, when by the lowness of the river 
 they were most exposed, and then had quantities of water 
 thrown upon them ; which method being repeated, with the 
 help of proper tools they were broken in pieces and thrown 
 down, which made the passage easy for the floats. ' ' 75 The 
 
 "3 The base of the timber operations was at Culnakyle, twenty-five 
 miles up the Spey from Garmouth; the logs were floated down to 
 Garmouth, and then conveyed by rafts to Findhorn, a little distance 
 down the coast ; there the ships loaded. The building of a new harbor 
 was projected, because that of Findhorn was not safe, and the passage 
 from Garmouth was hazardous. William Stephens, who was appointed 
 agent for the company in December, 1728, and arrived at Culnakyle in 
 April, 1729, corroborates several of the details in Hill's letter. See 
 The Castle Builder, or the History of William Stephens, etc., 1759, 
 60 f. 
 
 7 * Murray, York Buildings Co., 60. 
 
 75Cibber's Lives, V. 265. 
 
68 AARON HILL 
 
 country people soon learned this new means of transport, 
 and floated down the river with their butter, cheese, skins, 
 and bark. 
 
 Towards the end of September, Hill was still in the High- 
 lands. "Nothing should have prevailed with me to have 
 spent so much time here," he wrote to his wife, 76 "but the 
 glorious prospect of the company's certain advantage, and 
 the fear I had, if anything should be left unregulated, that 
 the silly malice of some wicked spirits in Exchange Alley 
 would have made an ill use of it, to the stock's disad- 
 vantage." On the first of October, he set out on his re- 
 turn, 77 ' ' having left everything in the north on the happiest 
 and most flourishing foot in the world." 78 An unex- 
 pectedly long stay in the neighborhood of York, where his 
 wife then was, "had like to have proved of unhappy con- 
 sequence, by giving room for some, who imagined (as they 
 wished) that he would not return, to be guilty of a breach 
 of trust that aimed at the destruction of a great part of 
 what he was worth; but they were disappointed." 79 Just 
 what this breach of trust was is not explained. 
 
 How, meanwhile, was the enterprise regarded by others ? 
 Burt, an experienced engineer, doubted whether it would 
 pay to remove the wood over bogs, precipices, and rocky 
 rivers. 80 At the very time when Horsey was pictured by 
 
 ™ Sept. 20, 1728. Works, 1754, I, 50. 
 
 77 Letter to his wife from Dundee, October 8, Works, 1754, I, 51. 
 
 78 Hill left memorials of his visit on various window panes. Burt 
 observed "at the first stage on this side Berwick, a good deal of 
 scribbling upon a window"; among the lines were those of Hill on 
 the weather in Scotland. "By the two initial letters of a name, I 
 soon concluded it was your neighbor, Mr. Aaron Hill, but wondered 
 at his manner of taking leave of this country, after he had been so 
 exceedingly complaisant to it, when here, as to compare its subter- 
 raneous riches with those of Mexico." Letters, I, 181. 
 
 70 Cibber 's Lives, V, 265. 
 so Letters, I, 283. 
 
hill's projects 69 
 
 Hill in a state of delirious rapture, a significant advertise- 
 ment appeared in Mist's Weekly Journal 81 of a company to 
 be formed for furnishing naval stores from the plantations, 
 "there being no likelihood of the York Builders doing it 
 from Scotland," but this positive statement may have 
 represented merely the wish of a rival projector. While 
 Hill was yet in the country, the doubting Edinburgh gentle- 
 man expressed views at variance with Hill's: 82 the harbor 
 at Garmouth, he is told by a friend living on Spey-side, is 
 dry at low tide and only six or seven feet deep at high tide, 
 and is open to storms ; after heavy rains, the current of the 
 river is so rapid that trees cannot be stopped from rushing 
 into the ocean ; it required seven weeks to bring down sixty 
 small trees to Garmouth, though over a score of men worked 
 daily; "there is not one tree in their wood of proper 
 dimensions for a bowsprit to a first-rate," and as for the 
 harbor, it is indeed secure — "so secure that no ship that 
 can stow trees can reach it, for sands, and shingles. ' ' This 
 was probably among certain "lying papers" that Mrs. Hill 
 told her husband about ; he thanked her and added that the 
 directors had sent him a dozen or more "such monstrous 
 mixtures of folly, falsehood, and impudence; the magis- 
 trates of Edinburgh have thought fit to make a public 
 example of some who distributed them in this country." 83 
 They may really have been malicious and at least partly 
 false, for a specimen cargo that was cut and sent to London 
 was reported, by the master mast-maker at Deptford, to be 
 of excellent quality. But it was a fact that there were no 
 trees fit for masts for first-rates; Hill unquestionably saw 
 taller trees on Speyside than were really there. 
 
 Though William Stephens, the agent sent to Abernethy 
 
 si August 24, 1728. 
 
 82 B.M. 8223. d. 44. 1-7. 
 
 83 Works, 1754, I ; 50. 
 
70 AARON HILL 
 
 at the end of 1728, developed the plank and deal board 
 trade with some success, yet in four years the charges ex- 
 ceeded the returns by nearly 28,000 pounds. "Well might 
 the Reverend Mr. John Grant, the parish minister, say 
 of them : 'the most profuse and profligate set that ever were 
 heard of in this corner. . . . This was said to be a stock- 
 jobbing business. Their extravagancies of every kind 
 ruined themselves and corrupted others. Their beginning 
 was great indeed, with 120 working horses, waggons, elegant 
 temporary wooden houses, saw-mills, iron-mills, and every 
 kind of implement and apparatus of the best and most ex- 
 pensive sorts. They used to display their vanity by bon- 
 fires, tar-barrels, and opening hogsheads of brandy to the 
 country people, by which five of them died in one night. 
 They had a commissary for provisions and forage at a hand- 
 some salary, and in the end went off in debt to the pro- 
 prietors of the country. But yet their coming . . . was 
 beneficial in many respects, for besides the knowledge and 
 skill which was acquired from them, they made many useful 
 and lasting improvements. 84 They made roads through the 
 woods. They erected proper saw-mills. They invented the 
 construction of the raft as it is at present, and cut a passage 
 through a rock in Spey, without which floating to any 
 extent could never be attempted.' " 85 The death knell of 
 the timber project was sounded in July, 1730, when the 
 general court of the company, after considering Hill's claim 
 to a part of the 200,000 pounds stock at 10 per cent, "as a 
 reward for the timber scheme," resolved "that the timber 
 scheme had not in any point answered the expectations of 
 
 84 Hill tells his wife (Works, 1754, I, 53) that "Adam and Eve 
 in the wilderness lay in just such houses as the Highlanders — only I 
 believe they were not altogether so dirty." 
 
 ss Murray, York Buildings Co., 61 ; quoted from Old Stat. Acct., 
 XIII, 133. 
 
hill's projects 71 
 
 the company, from the character given by the proposers, and 
 that they had no title to the stock." 86 
 
 A brief summary of the later career of the company — too 
 interesting to be entirely passed over — will explain why 
 Hill, who still had some share in the stock, was by turns 
 hopeful of profit and dismally conscious of loss. 87 From 
 timber the company turned to iron ; by 1732, the debit on 
 the enterprise was nearly 7,000 pounds. Their coal works 
 and salt-pans at Tranent were equally unsuccessful; and 
 their glass works resulted in a loss of over 4,000 pounds. 
 They next tried lead and copper mining, and leased the 
 mines at a ruinous rental from Sir Archibald Grant and 
 others, who were interested in the "Charitable Corporation 
 for the Relief of the Industrious Poor," which lent small 
 sums upon pledges. Their interest for several years had 
 taken the form of treating themselves as industrious poor, 
 and borrowing the money of their Corporation on sham 
 
 se Ibid., 63, note. 
 
 8T See letter to Victor, April 9, 1733 (Victor's Hist, of the Theatres, 
 II, 192) : Hill states that he has 8,000 pounds in York Buildings 
 Company bonds, though he could make only 3,000 if he were to sell 
 them. In July, 1738, Colonel Horsey was appointed governor of South 
 Carolina {Col. Hist. Soc. of South Carolina, II, 269). He had been 
 turned out of the York Buildings Company in 1733, and sued by the 
 company in 1735. Hill's letter to his daughter, of June 23, 1737 
 {Worlcs, 1754, I, 335), refers to the South Carolina appointment as 
 possible : "As soon as it is confirmed, . . . then Mr. Stanlake may go 
 to him, and insist on an assignment from his salary for regular pay- 
 ment (not of the debt, for that he can't yet do) but of the current 
 yearly interest. And let him, if he can, include the interest on my 
 long arrears; for from 1729 to this day, I have received but 100 
 pounds upon the whole, instead of 75 pounds yearly, from the colonel. ' ' 
 In a letter to Popple, September 15, 1740 (Works, 1753, II, 67) is 
 another reference to Horsey: "What a lottery wheel is this world! 
 we have seen it in the melancholy fate of our poor friend Col. Horsey. 
 After twenty years unwearied pursuit of one flattering and favorite 
 prospect, he had no sooner possessed it . . . than he died." 
 
72 AARON HILL 
 
 pledges, for purposes of speculation. When on the verge 
 of ruin, they decided to lease their mines to the York Build- 
 ings Company, in the hope that the transaction would cause 
 a rise in York stock, by which they could profit. The 
 Corporation finally collapsed; there was a Parliamentary 
 inquiry ; and of course the York Builders reaped no benefit 
 from the notoriety. The mines, developed with enthusiasm, 
 were abandoned in 1740, having proved ruinous to share- 
 holders, but beneficial to the country. On the whole, Scot- 
 land profited considerably from the operations of the com- 
 pany, but no one else did. The details of bond issues and 
 reissues, of petitions of creditors, and of Parliamentary 
 inquiries, up to the year 1740, when the company finally 
 got into Chancery, may be read in David Murray 's account. 
 For fifty years more, there were proceedings in the Scotch 
 and English courts ; and when the estates were finally sold, 
 they had doubled and trebled in value, through the im- 
 provements in agriculture. In 1818, only the old water- 
 works were left, and these were closed by agreement with 
 the New River Company, for an annuity. In 1829, Parlia- 
 ment dissolved the company, and divided the proceeds of 
 the property among the stockholders. Thus, after a 
 troubled and adventurous existence of a century and a half, 
 the York Buildings Company ended as quietly and re- 
 spectably as it had started, with all its debts ultimately 
 discharged by the rise in the price of land. 
 
 Knowledge that the company would become solvent in the 
 next century would probably have afforded slight consola- 
 tion to Hill for his present losses and disappointments. 
 But he could at least reflect with satisfaction, in his seclu- 
 sion at Plaistow, that Highlanders were floating comfort- 
 ably on their rafts down a navigable Spey ; and to see their 
 efforts result in immediate good to the country was given 
 to few of the York Builders — their operations were directly 
 
hill's projects 73 
 
 disastrous and only indirectly and remotely beneficial. Hill 
 had now had enough of joint-stock enterprises and was 
 ready to keep the resolution he had made prematurely in 
 1723, — to have done with all designs he could not execute 
 himself. 88 Aside from his experiments with grapes and 
 potash at Plaistow, he did not attempt to carry out any 
 more of his ideas. Not that he ceased to conceive them ! 
 They were always ready for the consideration of those who 
 would listen. 
 
 When The Citizen, or the Weekly Conversation of a So- 
 ciety of London Merchants on Trade and other Public 
 Affairs, was started in February, 1739, Hill intended to 
 become a contributor; but whether he really wrote any of 
 the score of papers that were published is doubtful. 89 "I 
 am asham'd to have been so lazy a Correspondent with 
 The Citizen," he wrote Richardson in April of that year; 90 
 "tho' it has not altogether proceeded from Laziness, but, 
 chiefly, from a Desire to observe, from the Turn of a proper 
 Number of Papers, in what Manner, and with what Choice 
 of Subjects, Sir William wou'd incline to Distinguish his 
 Purpose : that so, I might vary as little as possible from the 
 General Aim of the Paper, in any of Those I shou'd send it. 
 I perceive it seems fondest of Hints that relate to our Trade, 
 and in particular to That of our American Colonies — and I 
 believe I cou'd say many Things, that might be fit to be 
 
 ss Hill to Victor, February 21, 1723. (Victor, Mist, of the Theatres, 
 II, 171). 
 
 89 They took up such subjects as the Spanish trade, the sugar trade, 
 the Carolina boundary question, the smuggling of wool, the need of 
 infirmaries and foundling hospitals, the designs of Russia, the decay 
 of the drama, etc. The "Sir William" mentioned by Hill was per- 
 haps Sir William Keith, who wrote a History of Virginia (London, 
 1738), at the instance of the Society for the Encouragement of 
 Learning; Richardson was printer and James Thomson secretary of 
 the Society. 
 
 oo April 12, 1739. Forster MS. 
 
74 AARON HILL 
 
 read on those Subjects." War and armies, as well as trade, 
 occupied his thoughts. He gave Lord Chesterfield the op- 
 portunity of stamping out a prevalent army disease by a 
 very simple remedy; 91 and he presented a Lord of the 
 Admiralty with an ingenious scheme for blocking the coast 
 against Spain. 02 It is to be regretted that his "tract of 
 new improvements in the art of war," a piece "very full of 
 novelty," remained unpublished; in the form in which he 
 intended to present it, it might have been worth reading: 
 ' ' Would it not be better, ' ' he asks Richardson, ' ' instead of 
 a dry dissertation on what might be done in arms, to present 
 it to the entertained imagination as what had already been; 
 laying the scene at some pretended time, in some imaginary 
 country ; and uniting, in a lively story, all the use, surprise, 
 and pleasure of historical narration, filled with warlike and 
 political events, of a new turn and species, to the active 
 demonstration of a theory that else might pass for project 
 only?" 93 He had by this time (1748) arrived at a fine 
 contempt for the practical. "How preferable," he ex- 
 claims, ' ' to whole lives of mill-horse rounds in practical con- 
 tractions, an extended theory may be ! " 
 
 Though the projecting spirit could exercise itself only in 
 "obstinate meditation" during these last years of Hill's 
 life, its triumph over sickness, repeated disappointments, 
 and misfortune is impressive. It would be hard to find — 
 among literary men, at least, — a more complete embodi- 
 ment of that spirit than Hill. Steele had his Fish-pool 
 scheme, Gay speculated in South Sea stock, and Bishop 
 Berkeley planned a college in the Bermudas. But Hill's 
 activity embraced the invention of machinery, the search 
 
 9i Hill to Chesterfield, Worls, 1753, II, 321 (1747). 
 02 WorTcs, II, 25. 
 
 as Hill to Biehardson, November 2, 1748, Biehardson 's Correspond- 
 ence, I, 130. 
 
hill's projects 75 
 
 for new processes of manufacture, the attempt to establish 
 new industries, in England and the colonies, the develop- 
 ment of unused natural resources, and the founding of new 
 settlements. He takes us from Exchange Alley, with all 
 its stock- jobbing mysteries, to the Alatamaha, and from the 
 Golden Islands to the Golden Groves. And to prove that 
 he was no mere dreamer, we have the evidence of the melted 
 rocks and the rafts in the Highlands. Into all these 
 projects he threw the energy of an ordinary life-time, and 
 yet they were only a part of his life. He ardently pursued 
 literature in his leisure moments, and after each commercial 
 disaster, he returned to the affairs of the stage. Before he 
 tried to introduce a new kind of oil, he had really intro- 
 duced Handel into England. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HILL AND THE STAGE 
 
 1709-1723 
 
 Of one niche in literary history Hill is secure : no account 
 of 18th century tragedy is complete without a reference to 
 his adaptations of Voltaire's plays. Had he done nothing 
 else, however, than win this doubtful honor, his dramatic 
 achievement would not merit a chapter to itself. No one 
 willingly reads the tragedies of Hill's age; and few, except 
 as a matter of duty, care to read much about them. But 
 this period of the drama, far from noteworthy from the 
 purely literary standpoint, was one of great interest in 
 other ways: it saw the acting of Betterton and Mrs. Old- 
 field and Garrick; the development of opera and panto- 
 mime as rivals of comedy and tragedy; and the establish- 
 ment by the Licensing Act of a theatrical monopoly that 
 for more than a century exercised a profound influence on 
 the history of the drama in England. 
 
 The questions discussed by men interested in the stage 
 were curiously like those with which we are familiar today. 
 We find the management of theatres denounced as in- 
 competent and mercenary; the public taste condemned as 
 depraved; and the popularity of vulgar farces and cheap 
 musical entertainments interpreted by moralists and un- 
 successful authors alike as a sure sign of the approaching 
 moral degeneration of the race. Has tragedy really ceased 
 to have any appeal for the general public? Should the 
 public be supplied with what it likes, or what it ought to 
 like ? Should there be any censorship of the stage, and how 
 76 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 77 
 
 should it be exercised? Can a national theatre be estab- 
 lished to encourage poetic drama, and managed by disin- 
 terested persons who will regard profit as a purely 
 secondary consideration? Is opera in English possible? 
 All these problems, essentially the same as they are today, 
 in spite of their eighteenth century dress, faced the in- 
 terested observer of theatrical conditions in Hill's time ; and 
 on all of them Hill had very definite opinions. Most of his 
 opinions were voiced, with perhaps less energy, by his con- 
 temporaries, but a few are peculiarly his. Nor did he con- 
 fine himself to vigorous expression of his ideas — he made 
 repeated efforts to carry them out. He was not merely 
 critic and adviser at large to actors, managers, playwrights, 
 and the general public ; he was himself author and manager. 
 To follow his activity from 1709 to 1749 is to review almost 
 every phase of the theatrical history of the period. 
 
 To make clear the situation in 1709 when Hill first en- 
 tered the field, it is necessary to go back to 1662. 1 In that 
 year Charles II granted two patents, one to Sir Thomas 
 Killigrew for the King's Company at Drury-Lane, and the 
 other to Sir William Davenant for the Duke's Company at 
 Covent Garden ; all other companies and theatres were sup- 
 pressed. In 1682, both companies were so feeble that the 
 king merged them ; the salaries of actors were reduced, and 
 shares in the patents were sold to speculators or assigned 
 by the patentees to others. In 1690, the lawyer Christopher 
 Rich secured Davenant 's patent; but he made his manage- 
 ment so irksome to a large number of his actors that led by 
 the famous Betterton, they laid their grievances before the 
 Lord Chamberlain and were granted a license, in 1695, 
 under which they built by subscription the New Theatre 
 in Lincoln 's-Inn-Fields. They had the support of Con- 
 
 i For the authorities used in this account of the history of the stage, 
 see the Bibliography. 
 
78 AARON HILL 
 
 greve, who wrote Love for Love for the opening of their 
 theatre, and who had a share in the company. But Rich 
 held his own, with the aid of tumblers, buffoons, and 
 singers, until his inexperienced actors (among whom was 
 young Colley Cibber) grew sufficiently expert to threaten 
 the prestige of Betterton's company. Then Betterton, too, 
 had to resort to illegitimate attractions. In 1705, Van- 
 brugh opened an opera house in the Haymarket under the 
 patronage of the Court, but the acoustics were bad, and the 
 opera failed; he joined forces with Betterton, and under 
 Betterton's license transferred the actors to the Haymarket ; 
 but nothing prospered, and he finally unloaded his burdens 
 on a certain Owen McSwiney — apparently an under- 
 manager of Rich's. 
 
 Rich, who was suspected of being behind the transaction, 
 did not at once get control, however. There were other 
 shareholders in his patent, who had come to regard it as 
 such a hopeless investment that one of them, Sir Thomas 
 Skipwith, gave his share in a jest to Colonel Brett. The 
 latter happened to be an enterprising man, with some influ- 
 ence over the Lord Chamberlain; he forced himself into 
 the management, and effected, about 1708, an agreement 
 between the two companies, by which the Haymarket, 
 managed by McSwiney, monopolized Italian opera, and 
 Drury-Lane, managed by Rich and Brett, kept the plays. 
 Skipwith, seeing a chance of profit, repented of his gift and 
 took back his property. Rich, at last in complete control 
 of the situation, resumed his tyrannical conduct, until he 
 again drove his actors to revolt and brought upon himself 
 in June, 1709, a silencing mandate. His theatre was closed, 
 but his actors were permitted to engage with McSwiney at 
 the Haymarket, where both plays and operas were per- 
 formed. It is to be noted that not all of the actors were 
 hostile to Rich, as Hill found out to his cost later. From 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 79 
 
 this date until 1714, the patent remained dormant in the 
 hands of Rich. 2 
 
 Then entered on the scene William Collier, M.P., who had 
 interest at Court and a share in the sleeping patent. Ad- 
 vised that if a shareholder submitted to the Queen and 
 waived all right in the patent the Queen would permit him 
 to reopen Drury-Lane, he made his submission, secured a 
 new lease from the landlord — for Rich held on to the lease 
 as well as to the patent — and took forcible possession on 
 November 22, 1709. The Tatler tells the story of Rich's 
 ("Divito's") departure: 3 
 
 "On the 22nd instant, a night of public rejoicing, the 
 enemies of Divito made a largess to the people of faggots, 
 tubs, and other combustible matter, which was erected into 
 a bonfire before the palace. Plentiful cans were at the 
 same time distributed among the dependencies of that 
 principality ; and the artful rival of Divito observing them 
 prepared for enterprise, presented the lawful owner of the 
 neighboring edifice, and showed his deputation under him. 
 War immediately ensued upon the peaceful empire of Wit 
 and the Muses; the Goths and Vandals sacking Rome did 
 not threaten a more barbarous devastation of arts and sci- 
 ences. But when they had forced their entrance, the ex- 
 perienced Divito had detached all his subjects and evacu- 
 ated all his stores. The neighboring inhabitants report, 
 that the refuse of Divito's followers marched off the night 
 before disguised in magnificence ; doorkeepers came out clad 
 like cardinals, and scene-drawers like heathen gods. Divito 
 himself was wrapped up in one of his black clouds, and 
 left to the enemy nothing but an empty stage, full of trap- 
 doors, known only to himself and his adherents." Ac- 
 
 2Eich had owned originally only about one-sixth of the patent; 
 "yet by obstinate dishonesty, he succeeded in annexing the remain- 
 der." Cibber's Apology, ed. Lowe, II, 99, n. 1. 
 
 3 No. 99, November 26, 1709. 
 
80 AARON HILL 
 
 cordingly, when the theatre opened the next day, the actors 
 were without properties or stage clothes. The players 
 whom Rich had kept inactive — among them Booth, not yet 
 famous, — came over to Collier; but they were secretly in 
 Rich's interest. 
 
 Although Collier had successfully engineered this excit- 
 ing transaction, he apparently felt his incapacity as stage 
 manager. Just why Aaron Hill sought the post, or what 
 arguments he used to persuade Collier of his fitness, is not 
 clear. Perhaps his influential patrons, Peterborough espe- 
 cially, were in themselves an argument, and perhaps his 
 schoolfellow Booth suggested the enterprise, just as he sug- 
 gested the subject of Hill's first play. At all events, when 
 Drury-Lane opened on November 23, 1709, with Auren- 
 gezebe, it was under the direction of Hill. His manage- 
 ment lasted until June, 1710; its chief events were the 
 production of his tragedy, Elf rid, and the trouble with his 
 actors that brought it to a close. 
 
 On January 3, 1710, Elf rid, with a farce, also by Hill, called 
 The Walking Statue, was performed, and afterwards acted 
 five times with moderate success. 4 The ' ' first dramatic sally ' ' 
 of his youth, written in less than a fortnight, he later re- 
 garded as "an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with here 
 and there a flower among the leaves." 5 For all that, he 
 tried to preserve the unities — more carefully, perhaps, as he 
 says in the preface, than an English audience thinks need- 
 ful. This is an interesting admission of the indifference of 
 the public to those idols of the critics of the day — the 
 unities. The play tells the story of Athelwold, who, sent to 
 report to the Saxon king Edgar of the beauty of Elfrid, 
 
 4 In the preface to Elfrid, Hill thanks Steele for trying to persuade 
 the actors at the Haymarket — Betterton and the old company were 
 acting there under McSwiney's management — to put off the represen- 
 tation of his Tender Husband until after the production of Elfrid. 
 
 s Preface to Athelwold, the revised play published in 1731. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 81 
 
 falls so deeply in love with her that he secretly marries her 
 himself, and tells the king that she is not worthy of his 
 royal notice. The action begins with the unexpected arrival 
 of the king at Athelwold's castle; Athelwold is forced to 
 explain to Elfrid the deception he has practised, and to 
 beg her to allow his less charming sister Ordelia to pose 
 as his wife; Elfrid consents, but reluctantly — the thought 
 of her narrow escape from the throne does not increase her 
 love for her husband. The scheme works very well until 
 one of Ordelia 's two lovers — the villain — discovers that the 
 king has taken a fancy to Ordelia; to divert the royal 
 thoughts into another channel, he reveals the secret, and 
 persuades Edgar, angry at the fraud and enraptured with 
 a glimpse of Elfrid, to send Athelwold off that night on a 
 mission and in his absence win his lady. But they reckoned 
 without Athelwold's father's ghost, who -forbids his journey 
 and sends him trembling back, to arrive inopportunely just 
 when his friend has despatched the villain, and the king is 
 emerging from Elfrid 's chamber. Athelwold starts to kill 
 the king, but on the appearance of Elfrid makes her the 
 victim instead ; he is then slain by the king, who devotes the 
 remaining lines of the play to a eulogy of his virtues. 
 
 Elfrid has the merits of comparative brevity and rapid 
 action, but the characterization is slight. It is hard to 
 resist picking at least one flower from the wilderness of 
 fancy: "Peace and rest," says Athelwold to Elfrid, 
 
 " Are woman's gifts to man ; when toils and cares 
 Have worn our weary souls, woman, dear woman, 
 Is nature's downy pillow of repose." 6 (Act I.) 
 
 c One other flower ought not to be overlooked: 
 
 ' ' Women are much to blame who cloak their wishes, 
 Perverting modesty from nature's meaning; 
 Her end in that bright virtue was to join 
 To guiltless freedom artless innocence; 
 
82 AARON HILL 
 
 There are occasional good lines, however ; such as these from 
 Act II. 
 
 "They who fight men fight equal enemies; 
 But they who war with conscience meet such odds 
 They lose by victory." 
 
 The little farce enjoyed a fair measure of success, and 
 was revived half a dozen times during the next twelve 
 years. 7 It was probably, as Genest says, more amusing to 
 watch than it is to read. In the dedication of Elf rid to the 
 Marquis of Kent, Hill declared comedy to be the easiest 
 way of pleasing; and perhaps one other play of the season 
 — Square Brainless, or Trick upon Trick, performed April 
 27, 1710, — was an attempt to demonstrate the theory. The 
 editor of the Biographia Dramatica states that it was 
 written by Aaron Hill, never published, and damned on 
 the very first night; but we see from Genest that it was 
 acted three times. Hill put on many old plays during the 
 season — those of Congreve, Farquhar, Dryden, Otway, and 
 Shakespeare — and a few new ones besides his own. The 
 most successful was Charles Shadwell's Fair Quaker of 
 Deal, which drew large crowds even during the trial of 
 Sacheverell. 8 
 
 There is a flattering picture of Hill's management in an 
 ode, "To Aaron Hill, Esq., upon his being appointed gov- 
 ernor of the Royal Theatre," published in the friendly 
 
 But modern ladies scarce find other use 
 
 For the new-moulded nymph, than to cloak nature" — 
 
 surely a novel use for a new-moulded nymph! 
 
 i D.L. February 6, 1712 ; July 26, 1723. L.I.F. March 30, May 4, 
 and May 10, 1720; February 13, 1721 (Genest). The plot is based on 
 the various attempts of Sprightly, his man Toby, and Corporal Cuttem 
 to get messages through to the fair Leonora, closely guarded by a 
 half-blind and wholly foolish father, Sir Timothy Tough. 
 
 s See Cibber's Apology, ed. Lowe, II, 91, n. 2. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 83 
 
 British Apollo, April 3, 1710. 9 The theatre is bidden to 
 lift up its head, for a mighty genius is now at the helm : 
 
 " A bard whose vast capacious soul 
 Hath innate force sufficient to control 
 The vain assaults of snarling critics, while 
 Beneath his auspices you sit and smile; 
 As these he awes, the rest his wit alarms, 
 While the fair sex are captivated by his charms." 
 
 "With such a director, the guilty stage shall be reformed! 10 
 However effectively his innate force controlled the vain 
 assaults of snarling critics, it failed to control the actors, 
 incited to intrigue as they probably were by Rich, the 
 silenced manager. Hill seems to have shared the manage- 
 ment with seven of the principal actors; but towards the 
 end of the season he became displeased with them and de- 
 posed them, to the satisfaction of the rest of the company, 
 with the exception of Bickerstaff, Keene, Booth, and a few 
 others. Booth was offered the post of manager of re- 
 hearsals, but he made the restoration of the seven a condi- 
 tion of his acceptance. Hill chose this critical moment to 
 pay a visit to Essex — this was the year of his marriage with 
 the daughter of Edmund Morris of Stratford in Essex — 
 and left his unlucky brother as stage manager. For some 
 neglect of duty, the brother exacted a fine from several of 
 the players. What then happened may be quoted from the 
 New History of the English Stage, by Percy H. Fitzgerald, 
 who bases his account upon a letter written by Hill to 
 Collier: 11 
 
 9 Vol. Ill, no. 3. 
 
 io The number for April 24-26 contains another poem, in which we 
 are assured that 
 
 ' ' The Thespian car, triumphant, scours the plains. 
 Heroic warmth now strikes the enervate swains, 
 For Talbot holds the staff, and strenuous Hill the reins. ' ' 
 11 1, 309 f. The letter is in the possession of a private collector. 
 
84 AARON HILL 
 
 " They threw up all their parts, broke out into insubordination, 
 and there were actually fears that they would seize on the house 
 and carry off 'the cloaths.' Mr. Hill hurried up to town, and 
 found all true, with this addition — that Mr. Bickerstaff had 
 ' beaten a poor fellow blind for reproving him for speaking 
 scurrilously of me/ and had actually pushed the manager off the 
 stage. For this offence Mr. Hill suspended Bickerstaff and 
 Keene, and when he remonstrated with the former and begged 
 of him not to be ' misled by villains/ ' he went into defiant revolt, 
 forced the printer to put his name in the bills, and told the 
 manager that he did not value him nor any man alive, but himself 
 was his own master. . . . Leigh, with an impudence unheard of, 
 exceeded all things. He told me he would not only be a manager, 
 when I was none, but would go down and act with Pinkethman 
 in spite of the Lord Chamberlain or me. 12 Booth with a thou- 
 sand rascally invectives told me publicly that he and they would.' 
 This foreboded an alarming state of things, and it showed to 
 what lengths of insolence the players could proceed. Meanwhile 
 Hill was receiving anonymous letters of warning that violence 
 was intended, and took measures to protect his theatre. He told 
 Stockdale, his deputy, not to open the doors for the performance 
 until a ' guard of constables should arrive to keep the boxes ' 
 and protect him from being assaulted in the performance of his 
 duty. But when he went down that night, he found a perfect 
 riot going on. Booth, heading a mob, had burst in the doors, 
 and rushed up the passages behind the scenes. Then followed a 
 scandalous scene. With drawn swords the infuriated players 
 rushed into the manager's office. He half drew his, and with 
 difficulty forced his way out into the passages. ' Powell then 
 shortened his sword to stab me in the back, but I was saved by 
 a gentleman. Leigh struck my brother a dangerous blow on the 
 head with a stick. All this was in the open, in the presence of 
 a number of men and women who had come to see the play.' 
 The hunted director rushed to the Lord Chamberlain, but unfor- 
 
 12 Pinkethman was to set up a booth in Greenwich; he did open on 
 June 15, and Powell and Leigh did play. See Tatler, no. 188, June 
 22, 1710, for a jocular notice of Pinkethman. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 85 
 
 tunately could not find him. Returning to the theatre, he found 
 all the regular doorkeepers replaced by men appointed by the 
 actors, and he himself was refused admission. 
 
 " Mr. Rich was then seen to pass by, who was greeted with 
 loud ' hurrahs,' his hands kissed rapturously, while Leigh saluted 
 him : ' God bless you, master ! See, we are at work for you.' 
 The ' cloaths ' of the theatre were not yet gone, but were to be 
 sent off the following day, and Rich was to be invited to take 
 possession. Hill declared that the ringleaders, Powell and Leigh, 
 were to be taken into custody and silenced. . . . The whole was 
 no doubt instigated by Rich, who seems to have been an intriguer 
 of the first quality." 13 
 
 The Tatler had no doubt of Divito's connection with the 
 riot. In the number for July 1, 1710 (no. 193), old Downes 
 the prompter is represented as giving a "notion of the 
 present posture of the stage": "A gentleman of the Inns 
 of Court (Rich) and a deep intriguer had some time worked 
 himself into the sole management and direction of the 
 theatre. Nor is it less notorious that his restless ambition 
 and subtle machinations did manifestly tend to the extirpa- 
 tion of the good old British actors, and the introduction of 
 foreign pretenders; such as harlequins, French dancers, 
 and Roman singers. . . . But his schemes were soon exposed, 
 and the great ones that supported him withdrawing their 
 favor, he made his exit, and remained for a season in ob- 
 scurity. During this retreat, the Machiavelian was not 
 idle, but secretly fomented divisions, and wrought over to 
 his side some of the inferior actors, reserving a trap-door to 
 himself, to which only he had a key. ' ' But by these trap- 
 door methods — whether figuratively or literally understood 
 
 is "On 14th Juiie, 1710, the Lord Chamberlain's Keeords contain 
 an entry which proves how rebellious the company were. Powell, 
 Booth, Bickerstaff, Keen, and Leigh, are stated to have defied and 
 beaten Aaron Hill, to have broken open the doors of the theatre, and 
 made a riot generally. For this Powell is discharged and the others 
 suspended." Gibber's Apology, ed. Lowe, II, 94, n. 1. 
 
86 AARON HILL 
 
 — Rich succeeded in doing little more than troubling Hill's 
 peace. He did not gain possession of Drury-Lane, and was 
 obliged to content himself with rebuilding the theatre in 
 Lincoln 's-Inn-Fields, — a task that kept him harmlessly 
 occupied until circumstances turned in his favor. 14 
 
 After June 6, there are no more bills for that season at 
 Drury-Lane. The Haymarket, meanwhile, with Cibber, 
 Wilks, and Betterton (who died in May, 1710) directing 
 the plays, and McSwiney the operas, was so prosperous that 
 it excited the envy of Collier, distracted by the troubles at 
 Drury-Lane; and he accordingly used his court influence 
 to force McSwiney and his actor-partners to take Drury- 
 Lane and give him the Haymarket and the opera. The 
 bargain was completed in November, 1710. 15 Knowing 
 Hill's temperament, one is not at all surprised to find that 
 he was so far from being dismayed by his spring's experi- 
 ences that he was eager to try again. He had a fortune 
 newly acquired by his marriage, and he had no difficulty 
 in persuading Collier to "farm out" his "Musical Govern- 
 ment," as Cibber expresses it, at a rent of 600 pounds a 
 year. 16 
 
 Hill's first enterprise as director of the opera was note- 
 worthy. Handel, who had planned for some time to visit 
 England, on the invitation of several English noblemen 
 to whom he had become known at the Court of Hanover, 
 arrived in London just at the opening of the opera season ; 
 and Hill, "hearing of the arrival of a master, the fame of 
 
 14 When John Rich opened, the theatre in the fall of 1714, he suc- 
 ceeded in drawing several of the actors away from Drury-Lane, and 
 among them were several of the rioters of 1710 — still faithful to the 
 house of Rich. 
 
 15 Collier was to be paid 200 pounds by the comedians, as a license 
 for acting plays; and they were to give no plays on Wednesday, when 
 that was an opera night. Gibber's Apology, II, 102, n. 1. 
 
 i6 Ibid,, II, 105-106. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 87 
 
 whose abilities had already penetrated into this country, 
 applied to him to compose an opera." 17 The result was 
 Rinaldo, composed in a fortnight. Giacomo Rossi wrote the 
 libretto, after a sketch supplied to him by Hill, and Hill 
 translated it into English. The opera, put on with great 
 splendor, February 24, 1711, was received with a degree 
 of enthusiasm unprecedented in England, and ran until 
 June of that year. To understand the significance of the 
 event, something must be said of the history of the opera 
 in England before Handel's arrival. 
 
 The death of Purcell had left England without any 
 musical genius of her own. Before the close of the seven- 
 teenth century, the taste for Italian music had been shown 
 by the popularity of a number of "consorts" by Italian 
 singers. 18 The first opera performed in the Italian manner 
 was Arsinoe, an English version by Thomas Clayton of an 
 opera sung at Bologna in 1677 ; it was presented at Drury- 
 Lane in January, 1705, by English singers. Recitative was 
 used for the narrative parts, and measured melody for the 
 airs. According to Burney, 19 the opera violated in every 
 song the common rules of musical composition, as well as 
 the prosody and accents of the language; "the English 
 must have hungered and thirsted extremely after dramatic 
 music at this time, to be attracted and amused by such 
 trash." Bononcini's Camilla was given by English singers 
 in 1706, and by a mixed company of Italian and English 
 the next year. In 1707, Addison wrote the libretto for 
 Clayton's Rosamond, — performed, much to Addison's 
 chagrin, only three times. Thomyris, a pasticcio of works 
 by Scarlotti and Bononcini, followed. A version of Scar- 
 lotti's Pirro e Demetrio introduced in 1708 the famous 
 
 it Burney 's History of Music, IV, 222. 
 is Ibid., IV, 195. 
 is Ibid., IV, 201. 
 
88 AARON HILL 
 
 Italian male soprano Nieolini. 20 The anonymous Almahide 
 was the first opera sung throughout in Italian (January, 
 1710) ; Maneini's Idaspe fedele, with its much ridiculed 
 lion, 21 and Bononcini's Etearco, both sung entirely in 
 Italian, complete the list of operas before Handel. ' ' Opera 
 had degenerated to such a degree, ' ' according to the Oxford 
 History of Music, "that the time was ripe for the successful 
 introduction of Italian opera under Handel." 22 
 
 Handel's work is said to represent the highest develop- 
 ment of the opera of the past — to be the result of a suc- 
 cessful evolution. As for Binaldo itself, "it is agreed by 
 all schools of later critics that its intrinsic beauties give 
 it special claims to consideration. . . . From its historical as 
 well as musical value, it would most probably be the work 
 selected if any manager should be found enterprising 
 enough to venture on a revival of one of Handel's operas 
 on the modern stage."' 23 The type to which Rinaldo 2i 
 belongs was characterized by very definite conventions, 
 governing the kind, number, and order of arias, and the 
 number and kind of performers. There were usually three 
 or four men, at least one of them an artificial soprano, and 
 three women. There were five classes of arias. 25 The 
 
 20 See Tatler, no. 115, for an appreciation of his powers as actor 
 and singer. 
 
 2i See Spectator, no. 13. 
 
 22 IV, 191. 
 
 23 Oxford Hist, of Music, IV, 207. 
 
 24 The most famous air is the "Lascia ch'io pianga," — Almirena's 
 song on being taken captive by Armida (II, 4) ; Handel considered 
 Einaldo's "Cara sposa" (I, 7) the best air he ever wrote; "II tri- 
 cerbero umiliato" (II, 3), sung by Rinaldo, was long popular as a 
 drinking song; the aria for Armida at the end of Act II had a 
 harpsichord accompaniment played by Handel himself. See Kockstro, 
 Life of Handel, 62 f . 
 
 25 The aria cantabile, simple and sweet ; the aria di portamento, a 
 slow movement, more strongly marked in rhythm; the aria di mezzo 
 carattere, with a richer accompaniment; the aria parlante, more 
 declamatory; and the aria di bravura, a display piece. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 89 
 
 opera was in three acts, and each artist sang at least one 
 aria in each act; no performer was allowed two in succes- 
 sion. In the last two acts, both hero and heroine had a 
 scena, — a recitative followed by a display aria ; there was a 
 grand duet and a lively chorus in conclusion. As the arias 
 were written to show off certain voices, regardless of 
 dramatic propriety, it is obvious that "the librettists were 
 unable to treat their subjects in a worthy manner, and the 
 composers cared little or nothing about suiting their music 
 to the dramatic emotion of the words" ; 26 "the result was to 
 kill all individuality, and even so strong a nature as 
 Handel's own could not preserve his identity of style." 27 
 
 No very inspired libretto could be written to suit such 
 conventions as these, and the Italian and English verses of 
 Rossi and Hill are quite as inane as those of some more 
 modern librettos. The argument prefixed by Hill gives a 
 sufficient idea of the story : ' ' Godfrey, general of the Chris- 
 tian forces in the expedition against the Saracens, to engage 
 the assistance of Rinaldo, a famous hero of those times, 
 promises to give him his daughter Almirena, when the city 
 of Jerusalem should fall into his hands. The Christians, 
 with Rinaldo at their head, conquer Palestine, and besiege 
 its king Argantes in that city. Armida, an Amazonian en- 
 chantress, in love with and beloved by Argantes, contrives 
 by magic to entrap Rinaldo in an enchanted castle, whence, 
 after much difficulty, being delivered by Godfrey, he re- 
 turns to the army, takes Jerusalem, converts Argantes and 
 Armida to the Christian faith, and marries Almirena, ac- 
 cording to the promise of her father Godfrey." The Eng- 
 lish version is in blank verse lines of irregular length, with 
 lyric outbursts for the arias; such, for instance, as Almi- 
 rena 's address to Rinaldo (I, 1) : 
 
 26 Arthur Elson, A History of Opera, 34, 1901. See also for char- 
 acteristics outlined here the Oxford Hist, of Music, IV, 204-205; and 
 W. S. Rockstro, Life of Handel, 62-63. 
 
 27 Oxford Hist, of Music, IV, 202. 
 
90 AARON HILL 
 
 " Go fight and succeed, 
 For each drop you shall bleed 
 
 Will increase the dear flame in my breast; 
 'Tis glory and fame 
 Win the generous dame, 
 
 And the conqueror's courtship is best." 
 
 Or the song of mermaids — early Ehine maidens — dancing 
 in the water (II, 3) : 
 
 " Your lovely May 
 Of life when gay, 
 Youth unheeding, 
 Counsel needing, 
 Pass away in love delighting" — etc. 
 
 Hill's aim, however, had been to produce, not a libretto 
 full of poetry, but one with ample opportunity for scenic 
 display. He had determined (as he informed the Queen in 
 his dedication) to devote his little fortune to a trial 
 "whether such a noble entertainment, in its due magnifi- 
 cence," could fail "in a city the most capable of Europe 
 both to relish and support it. . . . The deficiencies I found 
 ... in such Italian operas as have hitherto been introduced 
 among us were: first, that they had been composed for 
 tastes and voices different from those who were to sing and 
 hear them on the English stage ; and secondly, that wanting 
 the machines and decorations, which bestow so great beauty 
 on their appearance, they have been heard and seen to very 
 considerable disadvantage. " He chose a subject that would 
 afford scope to the music and fill the eye as well, — a story 
 out of Tasso,- 8 already used in opera in Europe; Handel 
 
 28 Hill was interested in Tasso at this time. In the preface to 
 Elf rid, he mentions him with enthusiasm and adds: "As a proof of 
 the veneration I profess to his memory, I have attempted a trans- 
 lation of his Godfrey of Bulloign, and shall very suddenly publish a 
 specimen and proposal for printing it by subscription. ' ' He probably 
 never carried the plan out, but may have utilized some of his material 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 91 
 
 did his part with the music, and Hill did his with the 
 stage setting. And indeed, the scenic effects are impressive 
 even to read about: Argantes rides in a triumphal car, 
 drawn by white horses led by armed blackamoors ; Armida 
 appears in the air, in a chariot drawn by two huge dragons, 
 out of whose mouths issue fire and smoke ; a black cloud 
 filled with dreadful monsters conceals Almirena and 
 Armida, and then passes away, leaving two frightful furies 
 to mock Rinaldo; a delightful garden in the enchanted 
 palace contains a grove full of singing birds; "a mountain 
 horribly steep, ' ' crowned by the blazing battlements of the 
 enchanted castle, and guarded by rows of ugly spirits, 
 opens to swallow the soldiers, ' ' with thunder and lightning 
 and amazing noises"; the crystal gate of the palace, struck 
 by a magic wand, vanishes, the mountain disappears, and 
 Godfrey and Eustatio find themselves on the side of a rock 
 in mid-ocean. 
 
 All these wonders were heralded by the British Apollo. 
 The number for December 15-18, 1710,- 9 contains a poem 
 in the form of question and answer, on the talked-of im- 
 provements at the Haymarket: the ear is to hear new 
 voices from foreign parts, the eye to behold new beauties — 
 
 " Groves in natural forms appear, 
 While their inmates charm the ear. 
 
 Kay, machines, they say, will move 
 Glorious regions from above." 
 
 The reply confirms these rumors : 
 
 " The ruler of the stage, we find, (Aaron Hill, Esq.) 
 A youth of vast extended mind; 
 Ko disappointments can control 
 The emanations of his soul; 
 
 in the libretto. William Bond also was interested in Tasso. See ch. V 
 for Bond. 
 
 29 Vol. Ill, no. 115. 
 
92 AARON HILL 
 
 But through all lets will boldly run, 
 Uncurbed, like th' horses of the sun " — etc. 
 
 The Spectator, on the other hand, was inclined to be con- 
 temptuous, but Addison's railleries were no doubt partly 
 inspired by the memory of Rosamond's failure. 30 Mr. 
 Spectator 31 saw a man carrying a cage of birds, which he 
 discovered were destined for the opera, to represent the 
 singing birds in Act I, 1; the real singing was to be per- 
 formed by the flageolets. The opera, he goes on, is an 
 agreeable entertainment for the winter, filled as it is " with 
 thunder and lightning, illuminations and fireworks; which 
 the audience may look upon without catching cold, and 
 indeed without much danger of being burnt ; for there are 
 several engines filled with water, and ready to play at a 
 moment's warning." It is satisfactory to know that Hill's 
 management did not neglect the necessary fire precautions. 
 Addison makes fun of Rossi's Italian, and at his calling 
 Handel the "Orpheus of our age"; says that it is no 
 wonder the scenes are surprising, contrived as they are by 
 two poets of different nations; belittles Tasso; and con- 
 cludes by mentioning a treaty on foot to furnish Binaldo 
 with an orange grove and with tom-tits for song-birds. 
 The libretto was legitimate game for Mr. Spectator, as the 
 absurdities of the operatic convention continue to be for 
 anyone who cares to dwell on them ; but in selecting Handel 
 as the butt of his ridicule, he was rather unfortunate. Hill 
 could very well afford not to mind the Spectator. 
 
 Hill's emphasis on the machinery might lead one to think 
 that his ideas of opera did not go very far beyond the 
 spectacular. But that would be a mistake. He grew to 
 recognize clearly enough the deficiencies of Italian opera, 
 and began about 1725 to express the hope that "our 
 
 so See Burney, IV, 227. 
 3i See nos. 5, 18, and 29. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 93 
 
 emasculating present taste of the Italian luxury and 
 wantonness of music will give way to a more passionate and 
 animated kind of opera, where not only the eye and ear 
 may expect to be charmed, but the heart to be touched and 
 transported." 32 He begged Handel, 33 just at the time 
 when the latter was abandoning opera for oratorio, to let 
 England owe to his genius "the establishment of music 
 upon a foundation of good poetry ; where the excellence of 
 the sound should be no longer dishonored by the poorness 
 of the sense it is chained to. My meaning is that you 
 would be resolute enough to deliver us from our Italian 
 bondage; and demonstrate that English is soft enough for 
 opera, when composed by poets who know how to dis- 
 tinguish the sweetness of our tongue from the strength of 
 it, where the last is less necessary. I am of opinion that 
 male and female voices may be found in this kingdom, 
 capable of everything that is requisite; and I am sure a 
 species of dramatic opera might be invented that, by recon- 
 ciling reason and dignity with music and fine machinery, 
 would charm the ear and hold fast the heart together. ' ' I 
 dare say Hill would have been willing, as poet, to col- 
 laborate with Handel, though he refrained from saying so 
 in this letter, — a mere note of acknowledgment for some 
 complimentary tickets. He was in accord with many of his 
 contemporaries in denouncing the wantonness and lack of 
 reason of the Italian music ; but unlike most of them, he had 
 in his mind the ideal not only of dramatic opera — an ideal 
 that did not begin to be realized until the production of 
 Gluck's Orfeo — but of dramatic opera in English — an ideal 
 still very imperfectly realized. 34 
 
 32 Plain Dealer, no. 94. 
 
 S3 Letter of December 5, 1732, Works, I, 115. 
 
 34 Of the two classes of people defined in the Oxford Hist, of 
 Music (IV, 190), Hill apparently belonged to the first: "almost ever 
 since the invention of opera, a ceaseless struggle has gone on between 
 
94 AARON HILL 
 
 Hill deserves all praise for engaging Handel to write his 
 first composition in England, and for helping to make the 
 venture successful. But with the ill-luck that overtook his 
 plans even when his own judgment was not at fault, he 
 was not allowed to reap the benefit of this operatic triumph. 
 Collier was a restless and unreliable person in stage affairs 
 — always dissatisfied with his own share, always envious of 
 the success of others. He now resumed the management of 
 the opera, for reasons rather vaguely indicated by the 
 theatrical historians. According to Cibber, "before the 
 season was ended (upon what occasion, if I could remember, 
 it might not be material to say) he took it into his Hands 
 again." 35 And Dibdin's account 36 is that when Collier 
 found out that Hill's management was bringing in con- 
 siderable profit, he "somehow or other found out an in- 
 formality in the agreement, and took the property back to 
 himself before the season was over ; while Hill, who was too 
 wise or too powerless to contend with him, relinquished 
 his right without murmuring." Collier with his Tory in- 
 fluence seems to have been able to shift the pieces on the 
 chess-board to suit his convenience. But this last move 
 gave him no advantage. Handel returned to Hanover in 
 the summer. The opera did not prosper the next season, 
 and Collier cast longing eyes at the theatre. Early in 
 1712, poor McSwiney had the opera, in a sinking condition, 
 thrown back upon his hands; and he became so involved 
 that in January 1713, he was forced to leave the country 
 for twenty years. Collier secured a new license for him- 
 self, Wilks, Cibber, and Dogget, and presently left the 
 
 those who regard it as an ideal means of stirring human emotion by 
 the dramatic representation of great deeds or tragic motives, and 
 those who look upon it as an expensive amusement, a vehicle for per- 
 sonal display, or a means of ostentation." 
 
 35 Apology, II, 105-106. 
 
 36 Stage, IV, 387. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 95 
 
 management to the actors for a consideration of 700 pounds 
 a year. 
 
 Until 1716, Hill was fully occupied with his beech-oil. 
 Meanwhile, the accession of George I (1714) had had 
 several interesting effects on the theatrical situation: "on 
 the change of the ministry, Collier became a nonentity; 37 
 the actors easily brought about his removal ; and knowing 
 that some one would demand his pension, they selected 
 Steele to be his successor, because of his influence with the 
 new government and his well-known friendliness to the 
 stage. In October, 1714, Steele secured a new license for 
 himself, Wilks, Cibber, and Booth (whose success in Cato 
 had brought him into the management), and converted this 
 a few months later into a patent for his life-time and three 
 years after. "Divito" the intriguer had no difficulty in 
 getting the order of silence withdrawn, but his death soon 
 afterwards left it to his son, John Rich, to open Lincoln 's- 
 Inn-Fields in December, 1714. 
 
 Hill turned again to tragedy after the beech-mast failure. 
 Possibly the complicated and dismal plot of The Fatal 
 Vision, or the Fall of Siam, reflects his state of mind at this 
 time. The new manager accepted the play, and it had its 
 first performance at Lincoln 's-Inn-Fields theatre on Feb- 
 ruary 7, 1716, and its seventh and last on March 6. At this 
 time, practically no new tragedies were being produced at 
 either theatre, though new farces and comedies appeared 
 occasionally among the stock plays of Vanbrugh, Congreve, 
 Shad well, Wycherley, and Farquhar; Rowe, Southerne, 
 Otway, Lee, Dryden, and Shakespeare satisfied the demand 
 for tragedy. This was a state of affairs far from satis- 
 factory to one who was himself a playwright, and Hill's 
 opinion about this and other matters appears in the dedica- 
 tion of the play to Dennis and Gildon. He writes, he says, 
 
 37 Genest, II, 545. 
 
96 AARON HILL 
 
 only for pleasure and to display his ideas; he is already 
 convinced of the stupidity of the modern audience, and yet 
 he scarcely blames them for their failure to be moved by 
 the "affected, vicious and unnatural tone of voice, so com- 
 mon on our stages. ' ' How can passion be expressed by in- 
 discriminate ranting? If in one man could be united Mr. 
 Cibber's assurance, Mr. Wilks's brisk and lively spirit and 
 soft address, Mr. Keene's majesty, and Mr. Booth's sweet 
 voice and just accent, 38 there would be some hope for 
 authors. In The Fatal Vision Hill tried, according to his 
 own account, to reconcile the ancient and the modern types : 
 he wished to be as regular as the French and observe the 
 rules with "all the necessary strictness," and as lively as 
 the Elizabethans — that is, "indulge the common taste for 
 fulness of design." He thinks it the first endeavor of the 
 kind; and so perhaps it was, though attempts to confine 
 Shakespeare within the rules had been going on for some 
 time. The result in a new tragedy is even more astonish- 
 ing than in the Shakespearean alterations. The Fatal 
 Vision is built, declares its author, ' ' upon the most variety 
 of turns, and has a deeper and more surprising plot than 
 any play which has been published, that I know of, in the 
 English tongue"; and he has found room, too, for "topical 
 reflection, large description, love, war, show, and passion." 
 Why need order confine the range of a poet's fancy? 
 China offered a fruitful field for the wandering of his 
 fancy, because our ideas of it are so dark, and it is so remote 
 from present fashions. 
 
 The plot must be read to be appreciated — no summary 
 can do it justice. There is an emperor of China, his two 
 sons, a captive princess of Siam, a captive general of Siam 
 in love (as are both the Chinese princes) with the princess; 
 
 38 Hill evidently bore Booth no malice for his part in the 1710 riot; 
 they were the best of friends in later life. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 97 
 
 there is Selim, the emperor's eunuch, who in Act II is dis- 
 covered to be the long since banished empress — banished 
 because of a prophecy that she would bear a third son who 
 would kill his father; the captive general turns out to be 
 this third son. Through a misunderstanding too com- 
 plicated to explain briefly, the emperor suspects the two 
 princes of treachery, and dooms them to death ; the eunuch 
 and the Siamese general (or the empress and her son) plan 
 to rescue them, and to that end turn loose the captive 
 Siamese soldiery, who, ignorant of the family secrets, not 
 unnaturally take the opportunity to kill off the Chinese 
 royal family, leaving the third son and the princess to 
 marry and occupy the two thrones. For "large descrip- 
 tion," we have an account by the princes of the defeat of 
 Siam — where "mingling deaths effaced the flowery sweet- 
 ness of the plain"; and one in Act III of a storm and 
 shipwreck; an elephant who took part in the battle does 
 not deserve to be forgotten : 
 
 " the roused elephant 
 Rears his huge trunk for battle; grins with wrath, 
 And inly ruminates the promised ruin." 
 
 Is there another elephant like that? For the vehicle of 
 topical reflection, there is a hermit, whom the captive 
 princess discovers reading and soliloquizing about Alex- 
 ander the Great — a fruitful theme for meditation. Surely 
 the "common taste for fulness of design" ought to have 
 been gratified by The Fatal Vision. 
 
 Another period of absorption in commercial projects fol- 
 lowed, and it was not until the beginning of 1721 that 
 Hill's attention turned once more to the stage. His motive 
 in writing his next play was purely philanthropic. A 
 Scotch friend of his, Joseph Mitchell the poet, was in dis- 
 tress ; and Hill, probably unable to assist him with money, 
 wrote The Fatal Extravagance, permitted Mitchell to call 
 
98 AAEON HILL. 
 
 himself the author, had the play put on at Lincoln 's-Inn- 
 Fields (April 12, 1721), 29 and supported it on the supposed 
 author's third night. 40 It was afterwards included in 
 Hill's Dramatic Works. The preface, written in Mitchell's 
 name, states that Shakespeare's Yorkshire Tragedy, which 
 furnished the hint for the play, was put into his hands by 
 his "good friend, Mr. Hill, to whom I take this occasion 
 of expressing my gratitude in the most public manner I 
 can. ... I owe much in the scheme, in the sentiments, and 
 language of this piece to the direction of that accomplished 
 gentleman." This is a virtual admission of Hill's author- 
 ship. 41 Later, Mitchell made the play in a manner his own, 
 "improving" it into five acts by the addition of several 
 new characters and episodes. The additions are not an 
 improvement; the one-act play is, as the author of the 
 sketch in Cibber's Lives says, 42 one of Hill's best. "I 
 know not if Mr. Hill has anywhere touched the passions 
 with so great a mastery." 
 
 The play belongs in the class of domestic tragedies, and 
 took its inspiration from the South Sea frenzy. 43 Hill, in 
 the prologue, proclaims how unworthy of compassion are 
 the "rants of ruined Kings": 
 
 " Empires o'erturned, and heroes held in chains, 
 Alarm the inind, but give the heart no pains. 
 
 39 The play was performed at L.I.F. April 22, 1721; January 11, 
 1722; May 2, 1723; February 21, 1730; at Dublin in 1721; and at 
 Covent Garden, for Mitchell's benefit, November 25, 1734. 
 
 40 Victor's Hist, of Theatres, II, 123; Cibber's Lives, IV, 349. 
 
 41 It is said that Mitchell undeceived the world, and made known, 
 the real author of the play, and that he took ' ' every proper occasion 
 to express his gratitude and celebrate his patron." 
 
 42 IV, 349. 
 
 43 According to the prologue written on the revival of the play 
 in 1729. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 99 
 
 Not so, when from such passions as our own, 
 Some favorite folly's dreadful fate is shown." 
 
 Bellmour, addicted to gambling, loses his entire fortune 
 and that of his friend in speculation. When the play 
 opens, he hears of his friend's arrest for debt, and is soon 
 forced himself to face the cruel creditor, Bargrave. Find- 
 ing entreaties useless, and maddened by Bargrave 's taunts, 
 Bellmour forces him to a duel and kills him. Urged by 
 his wife to escape, he walks apart for a moment to consider, 
 but decides instead to kill himself, his wife, and children, 
 justifying his dreadful resolve by various desperate argu- 
 ments. 44 The wife and children, in their ignorance, drink 
 the cordial he prepares for them; he then undeceives her, 
 and kills himself. Courtney, the uncle, however, had seen 
 the fatal cup, suspected poison, and substituted some harm- 
 less drink. News of a bequest that will keep his family 
 from want cheers Bellmour 's last moments. The action is 
 rapid and the play readable. 45 Mitchell said in the preface 
 to the fourth edition that it "took," and Mallet wrote to 
 
 4 * Such as, ' ' He who beggars his posterity begets a race to curse 
 him. ' ' 
 
 45 The scene where Bellmour tells his wife of his resolve to take the 
 journey she has urged upon him is effective, with its touch of 
 dramatic irony: 
 
 B. "I have bethought me of a means to evade 
 
 The malice of my fortune. 'Twill be a journey 
 
 A little longer than thy love could wish it, 
 
 Yet not so far but we shall meet again. 
 L. "0, be the distance wide as pole from pole, 
 
 Let me but follow thee and I am blessed. 
 B. "It shall be so, Louisa. 
 L. "A thousand angels 
 
 Spread their wings o 'er thee, and protect thy steps. 
 
 Now thou art kind! — But the dear little ones, 
 
 Shall they go too? 
 B. "All! All! shall go!" 
 
100 AARON HILL 
 
 Ker that it was acted with a great deal of applause. 46 So 
 it must have achieved its end in relieving the poet's neces- 
 sities. 
 
 The success of this play probably brightened Hill 's views 
 on theatrical affairs, which were just then entering upon 
 a new phase. In January, 1720, the Duke of Newcastle, 
 Lord Chamberlain, had closed Drury-Lane, to punish Steele 
 for the stand he had taken on the Peerage Bill, — a stand 
 opposed to that of most of his party. Of course, the 
 ostensible reason for the action of the Lord Chamberlain 
 had nothing to do with politics. Steele remonstrated, but 
 was forbidden to write or speak to Newcastle. He stated 
 his case in the Theatre, of which the first number came out 
 on January 2, 1720; and in its columns, and in the pam- 
 phlets written against him, the question of the validity of 
 the Lord Chamberlain's action in overriding the patent was 
 discussed. Steele claimed that his patent was a freehold, 
 and quoted legal authorities, but to no purpose. The actors 
 themselves submitted, and received a license to play, but 
 Steele was not restored to his place as controller until the 
 friendly "Walpole became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
 May, 1721. 47 The point of interest in this dispute was its 
 effect on the theatrical monopoly. The Crown had not 
 hesitated in Rich's case and in Steele's to disregard patent 
 rights, and issue licenses or silencing orders as it saw fit. 
 Of the patentees, Steele alone seriously questioned the 
 Crown's prerogative, and he had been conspicuously de- 
 feated. The result was the rise, between 1720 and 1737, of 
 unlicensed minor theatres: patent rights were regarded as 
 inferior to the authority of managers, and private specula- 
 tion was stimulated by the prosperity of Drury-Lane. 
 
 46 September 3, 1721. 
 
 47 See Aitken's Life of Steele, II, 221 f. On December 19, 1719, 
 Cibber was forbidden to act, and various explanations were given of 
 Ms offence. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 101 
 
 "Within a decade after 1720, London boasted half a dozen 
 theatres, and every street had its theatrical booth where 
 performances similar to those at the other theatres might 
 be seen. ' H8 The two unlicensed theatres that became most 
 famous were the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, the scene 
 of the production of Fielding's farces, and Goodman's 
 Fields, where in 1741 Garrick made his first London ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Among the first to appreciate the opportunity apparently 
 offered to open a theatre without a patent was Hill. In 
 1720, the Little Theatre in the Haymarket was built as a 
 speculation by one Potter, a carpenter, who relied on its 
 being hired for dramatic exhibitions. 49 On December 29, 
 1720, a newspaper advertisement announced the opening of 
 the house with "La Fille a la mode, ou le Badaud de Paris," 
 "under the patronage of a distinguished nobleman, the 
 company calling themselves 'the French Comedians of his 
 Grace the Duke of Montague.' " 50 This French specula- 
 tion languished and on May 4, 1721, came to an end. Very 
 shortly afterwards, Hill must have begun to get a company 
 together. Rich remonstrated and quoted his patent privi- 
 leges, but Hill replied 51 that his pretence to exclusive power 
 reminded him of "a poor merry fellow, who used to sleep 
 when he was hungry, in hopes to dream of a surfeit. ' ' He 
 was, however, willing to compromise: "I suppose you know 
 that the Duke of Montague and I have agreed, and that I 
 am to have that house half the week, and his French vermin 
 the other half ; but I would forbear acting at all there this 
 
 48 Nicholson, Struggle for a Free Stage, etc., 21. 
 
 49 Genest, III, 159. G'enest 's first bill is dated December 12, 1723. 
 so H. Barton Baker, The London Stage, I, 173-174. Fitzgerald, 
 
 New Hist, of the Eng. Stage, II, 98-99, notes an advertisement of 
 December 15, 1720, announcing the expected arrival of the French 
 company. 
 
 si September 9>, 1721, Works, IT, 46 f. 
 
102 AARON HILL 
 
 season, if you will let me your house for two nights a week 
 in Lent, and three a week after. On all those nights I will 
 pay full actual charge of your company and my own, and 
 either give you a sum certain, or share the remainder with 
 you. I will use your music, your doorkeepers, etc. But 
 the players, the scenes, and the clothes shall be my own. 
 . . . My own company's affairs permit me not to wait long 
 for an answer." 
 
 The rest of the story is told in several long letters that 
 Hill wrote to the Duke of Montague in January, 1722. 52 
 It seems that the new company was then ready to open at 
 the Little Theatre, to act English tragedy — a design in 
 which Colonel Horsey and some other gentlemen were con- 
 cerned with Hill. But the Duke's Frenchmen had come 
 back. "Before the Frenchmen came over," Hill tells his 
 Grace, "I made an absolute agreement with Mr. Potter for 
 the House, and undertook to pay him 540 pounds for two 
 seasons. And when he first talked with me of the French 
 Actors' design to come over, I consented, on condition they 
 should act there but ten nights, and take all those nights 
 within the month of November. Now, they came not only 
 much later than they agreed, but have greatly exceeded 
 their number of nights already. And the English Com- 
 pany being now ready for opening, I have warned them 
 that they can have liberty to act at that House no longer 
 than Tuesday next. But they may certainly get permission 
 to act two or three times a week at the Opera House." He 
 would not have mentioned the matter to his Grace, but for 
 the fact that the Frenchmen used his name as their en- 
 courager and patron; and he appeals to the justice of his 
 Grace in this difficulty. His Grace, who is said to have been 
 a man of some talent but with much of the buffoon about 
 
 •« Hist. MS. Comm., IX, 369-370. The dates of Hill's letters are 
 January 20, January 21, and January 24. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 103 
 
 him, has gone down to history as the author of a famous 
 hoax on the public at the Haymarket Theatre in 1749. 53 
 Hill was apparently the victim of one of the Duke's jokes, 
 for he wrote the next day : "I am sorry, my Lord, to dis- 
 cern, by the turn of your Grace's letter, that there is some 
 very great mistake, which from a person of your good- 
 nature, humanity, and love of justice, could occasion me a 
 treatment so undeserved. ... I writ to you in mere respect, 
 because the French used your name. I was far from even 
 supposing it true that you knew anything of them — much 
 less that they were your servants. And so little did I 
 dream that the House itself was your Grace's, that in my 
 covenant with Potter, I agreed that all the rent which the 
 French Players should pay till I was ready to open, and 
 what he should weekly receive afterwards from me, should 
 be ... in discharge of a sum which he told me you had 
 promised to see paid, if the old French Company did not 
 pay it." Thus his bargain with Potter seemed to be really 
 to the Duke's advantage. He begs the Duke to inform him 
 if there is anything "dark" in Potter's proceedings. 
 "Again, therefore, I must earnestly entreat your Grace to 
 reflect on the resolution you are taking to refuse me admis- 
 sion to the House, after a very great expense of money and 
 time for making and painting entire new sets of scenes, and 
 clothes, all which are now ready, as also in getting together 
 an entire new Company of actors, fit for Tragedy, most of 
 whom . . . are persons of some character and distinction, 
 and at least a better company than either of the old ones. 
 ... It is a daily and intolerable loss which I am kept at, 
 unless your Grace shall be so good as to change your resolu- 
 tion. For, whatever right the law may give me, I know 
 not ; but I am sure I shall never put that to the trial, if I 
 
 53 See Baker, The London Stage, I, 183. The audience was so 
 angry at the hoax that it nearly broke up the theatre. 
 
104 AARON HILL 
 
 must have your Grace for my enemy." He suggests an 
 arrangement with the French players, and even offers to 
 pay part of their rent at the Opera House. 
 
 His Grace's reply filled Hill with amazement: "I must 
 acknowledge that you have done nothing for support of the 
 poor Frenchmen but what your honour and your charity 
 obliged you to. All I could wish to have been otherwise is, 
 that my reputation had stood so well in your Grace's 
 opinion as to have merited this notice before you took those 
 measures, which have made much noise in Town, and which 
 I should then have made unnecessary." To the Duke's 
 suggestion that Hill try the Opera House, Hill points out 
 that he has had scenery painted — "after a model perfectly 
 out of the general road of scenery" — that fits only the stage 
 of the Little Theatre. He begs the privilege, in case he 
 can make no arrangement at the other house, of having the 
 use of the Haymarket on certain nights; he will not inter- 
 fere with the French ; ' ' and when your Grace shall acquaint 
 them how Potter's double-dealing has been the occasion of 
 all this, they will no longer mistake me for an enemy; I 
 will take particular care that they are used with all possible 
 civility. ' ' 
 
 But evidently the double-dealing carpenter and the 
 merry Duke did nothing to help Hill out, and the scheme 
 fell through. 
 
 Probably his alteration of Henry V, for which he had 
 had new scenery painted, was the tragedy Hill had ready 
 for his company; but when it was produced (December 5, 
 1723), it was under the protection of the patent at Drury- 
 Lane, with Booth and Mrs. Oldfield in the leading roles. 
 Henry V had not been acted since the Restoration, although 
 the comic scenes had been worked up into a farce, under 
 the title of Half-Pay Officers. 54 One can foretell with some 
 
 s* Produced at L.I.F. January 11, 1720 (Genest). 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 105 
 
 accuracy what 18th century adapters will ' cut out of a 
 Shakespearean play; but only a genius akin to their own 
 can conceive what they will put in. So, although we might 
 expect Hill to omit Fluellen, Gower, Pistol and the rest, 
 and even parts of the Princess Katherine's conversation 
 with Alice, nothing can prepare us for the appearance of 
 a lady once betrayed by the king, the revengeful Harriet, 
 who roams about the camp disguised as a page, acts as 
 emissary between the English conspirators and the 
 Dauphin, assumes the role of Viola in an interview with 
 Katherine (when she speaks of her own case as that of her 
 sister), and is finally so touched by Henry's platitudes 
 about his undiminished love and his kingly responsibilities 
 that she reveals the conspiracy and then stabs herself. 55 
 Henry's youthful follies, in this lady's account, assume 
 startling proportions: his time has been spent, not in 
 tavern-drinking and playing practical jokes on Falstaff, but 
 in. working devastation among the maidens of England — he 
 has ruined ' ' countless crowds of beauties. ' ' When Harriet 
 first appears, her uncle, Lord Scroop, urges her to be 
 reasonable; "reason?" she cries, "I detest it!" 
 
 " Calm ? No — let cottage fools with helpless sighs 
 Bewail their ruined innocence. My soul, 
 Full charged with hate and pride, breaks out in passion, 
 Bold as my wrongs and dreadful as my purpose." 
 
 The "gentle Harriet" talks in this strain all the time. 
 Hill's Katherine bears no resemblance to Shakespeare's, — 
 she is, of course, much more refined. Hill represents her as 
 ss The platitudes are to this effect : 
 
 ' ' Still I regard thee with the same desires, 
 Gaze with the same transporting pleasure on thee, 
 As when our bounding souls first flew together, 
 And mingled raptures in consenting softness. 
 But kings must have no wishes for themselves" — etc. 
 
106 AARON HILL 
 
 already in love with a mysterious stranger, whose addresses 
 and unnamed perfections had charmed her listening soul a 
 year before; this turns out to be Henry — her high-beating 
 heart recognizes his voice immediately. There is a delight- 
 ful novelty in Act V : the battle, in approved French style, 
 takes place behind the scenes, and is recounted to the audi- 
 ence by the Genius of England, who arises suddenly during 
 the noise of drums and trumpets and sings : 
 
 "Look! behold! the marching lines! 
 See, the dreadful battle joins! 
 Hark! like two seas the shouting armies meet! 
 Echoing hills the shock repeat," etc. 56 
 
 In cutting out the comic parts of serious pieces and 
 dropping "low" characters, Hill illustrates the attitude of 
 
 56 The unities are preserved by confining the action entirely to 
 France — the conspiracy as well as the siege of Harfleur and the battle 
 of Agincourt. Scenes are joined together: II, 4, and III, 5, in 
 Shakespeare form part of Hill's II, 1; and Shakespeare's V, 2, is 
 included in Hill's III; Hill retains the boasting scene between the 
 Dauphin and his friends — it introduces Act V (Shakespeare's III, 7). 
 In combining and transferring speeches, in altering good lines, and 
 in omitting the best, Hill ranks well with his predecessors. The 
 speeches of the Chorus are distributed among the other characters; 
 Exeter's account of the deaths of Suffolk and York is retained in 
 part, with (it is almost needless to say) the omission of its most 
 beautiful line — "Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly abreast." 
 Hill 's crowning achievement is to put into Katherine 's mouth Henry 's 
 soliloquy on ceremony (IV, I. Katherine 's speech is in Act II). 
 Nothing Hill did, however, is worse than Otway's mangling of 
 Eomeo's speech — "It was the lark, and not the nightingale," — in 
 his Caius Marius. — To see what Hill 's princess is like, read her speech 
 on being told the interests of France demand her marriage with 
 Henry : 
 
 "Sooner than stoop to this, were mine the sceptre, 
 I would turn Amazon — my softness hid 
 In glittering steel, and my plumed helmet nodding 
 With terrible adornment, I would meet 
 This Henry with a flame more fierce than love." 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 107 
 
 all the uninspired Shakespearean adapters of the age. 57 
 They all thought they were acting in the interests of art; 
 they all desired to reveal Shakespeare's greatness. 58 And 
 to introduce a love story, if there were none, or to add 
 another, if there were not enough, was a common practice 
 with them. Tate patched up a love affair between Edgar 
 and Cordelia in Lear, and as late as 1771, Cumberland 
 supplied Timon with a daughter, courted by Alcibiades. 
 Hill 's Harriet, therefore, is one of a goodly company. But 
 the public did not take kindly to this particular alteration. 
 Booth tried to explain their indifference by their disposi- 
 tion to look upon Henry V, not as a new play, but merely 
 as a play altered from Shakespeare — not an unreasonable 
 point of view, surely. "The many beauties you have im- 
 proved from him," Booth remarks, 59 "and some noted 
 speeches you have made use of with no very material altera- 
 tion . . . have possessed the gross imaginations of the audi- 
 ence that most of the fine passages of your own are his 
 too. . . . This I have found from some whose education, 
 understanding, and acquaintance . . . might have taught 
 them better; and yet their knowing his manner of writing 
 so well, perhaps, might the sooner lead them into the mis- 
 take." Booth is absolutely of the opinion, however, "that 
 
 57 Genest says that Hill had taken a hint from Orrery 's Henry V. 
 The only possible' hint is Orrery's use of the name Tudor to designate 
 the lover whom Katherine had seen a year before; but in Orrery's 
 play, he is a real person, and a rival of Henry's — not Henry himself 
 in disguise. Orrery's play, which is in rhyme, has scarcely any 
 resemblance to Shakespeare's. See Dramatic Works of Eoger Boyle, 
 Earl of Orrery, etc., I. London, 1739. 
 
 ss < ' Not a single one of these adapters, even the very wretchedest 
 of them, doubted for a moment that his work was a decided im- 
 provement upon the original." Lounsbury, Shakespeare as a Dra- 
 matic Artist, 293. 
 
 59 Letter from Booth to Hill, dated ' ' Sunday morning, ' ' in the 
 Col. of 1751. 
 
108 AARON HILL 
 
 after it has slept some time, it will appear again upon the 
 stage, with a much better grace, and continue in the stock 
 in the first form of tragedy forever." 60 
 
 The production occasioned a little bickering in two of 
 the periodicals — Pasquin and the True Briton. The Pasquin 
 correspondent 61 is firmly of the opinion that Shakespeare's 
 soul has "transmigrated" to Hill; and a writer in the True 
 Briton of December 13 is amazed at Harriet's failure to 
 affect the ladies : " To what must we impute it that the sex 
 most concerned in this incident of the play, seemed so little 
 to be touched by it ! " Few in that day would have thought 
 of imputing it to the innate good-sense of the sex. All this 
 praise was treated with scorn by "Menander," in the 
 Pasquin of December 20. The Trite Briton had admired a 
 passage in Hill 's play about the unbusied shepherd 's having 
 a pleasanter time than the king: the expression, says 
 "Menander," is vastly labored and distorted to disguise, 
 if possible, the obviousness of the sentiment; of course a 
 hawthorne shade is sweeter than a canopy, even if the latter 
 were not shaken by treason — it only teaches us "that it is 
 better to be safe in a cellar than blown up in a drawing- 
 room. ' ' He contrasts the old Harry 's way of making love 
 with the new one 's, much to the latter 's disadvantage. Hill 
 was much hurt at this attempt to "justify the grossest 
 mixture of insult and rusticity in a speech of Shakespeare's 
 Harry to the Princess of France"; and he reflected, in 
 typical eighteenth century fashion, that the men who injure 
 Shakespeare most are his admirers, who make no distinction 
 between his errors and his excellences. 62 And so we may 
 
 so The play was performed six times (Genest). 
 
 6i December 3, 1723. 
 
 62 See letter to the ' ' reputed author of Pasquin, ' ' in Worlcs, II, 
 130. The editor of Hill's letters confused the periodical with Field- 
 ing's play of Pasquin, and represents the letter as addressed to 
 Fielding. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 109 
 
 leave Henry V to await the resurrection prophesied by 
 Booth. 63 
 
 63 ' ' Menander, ' ' whose sense commands one 's respect, unfortunately 
 mistook the strawberry and nettle passage for one of Hill 's additions, 
 and thus laid himself open to the True Briton's retort of not knowing 
 the difference between Shakespeare and Hill. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HILL AND THE STAGKE (Continued-) 
 
 1723-1749 
 
 Hill 's own idea of the reason for the failure of his Henry 
 V introduces us to a new and important dramatic develop- 
 ment. "There is a kind of dumb drama," exclaims Hill, 
 "a new and wonderful discovery! that places the wit in the 
 heels ! and the experience of both our theatres might have 
 taught any writer but so dull a one as I am, that the 
 Harlequins are gentlemen of better interest than the 
 Harrys." 1 Harlequin and Scaramouche were familiar to 
 Londoners even in Restoration days, for a company of 
 Italians visited London in 1673, and there are various 
 allusions to Arlequin before the eighteenth century. In 
 1702, John "Weaver arranged a pantomime, often acted 
 by Rich, called The Cheats of Scapin, — "an entertainment 
 of dancing, action, and motion only"; and he also arranged 
 pantomimes — Mars and Venus, Orpheus and Eurydice, and 
 Cupid and Bacchus — for Drury-Lane. In 1718, a French 
 company presented The Two Harlequins at Lincoln 's-Inn- 
 Fielcls, and an Italian company, about 1724, acted at the 
 Haymarket. 2 Although, before 1723, John Rich had pro- 
 duced some little Harlequinades "in the taste of the Italian 
 Night-scenes," 3 his genius did not really blaze forth until 
 that year. A little before the performance of Henry V, a 
 pantomime called Dr. Faustus had been brought out at 
 
 i Preface to Henry V. 
 
 2 Wyndham, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre, I, 12 ; Winifred 
 Smith, The Commedia Dell' Arte, 222 f. 
 
 3 Genest, III, 155. 
 
 110 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 111 
 
 Drury-Lane by Thurmond the dancing-master; Rich fol- 
 lowed on December 20 with his Necromancer, or History of 
 Br. Faustus; and on January 21, 1725, with Harlequin 
 Sorcerer. 
 
 Fielding, in a well-known passage, describes these enter- 
 tainments as consisting of two parts, "which the inventor 
 distinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. 
 The serious exhibited a certain number of heathen gods 
 and heroes, who were certainly the worst and dullest com- 
 pany into which an audience was ever introduced ; and . . . 
 were actually intended so to be, in order to contrast the 
 comic part of the entertainment, and to display the tricks 
 of Harlequin to the better advantage. This was, perhaps, 
 no very civil use of such personages, but the contrivance 
 was, nevertheless, ingenious enough, and had its effect. 
 And this will now plainly appear, if, instead of serious and 
 comic, we supply the words duller and dullest, for the 
 comic was certainly duller than anything before shown on 
 the stage, and could be set off only by that superlative 
 degree of dulness which composed the serious. So intoler- 
 ably serious, indeed, were these gods and heroes, that 
 Harlequin . . . was always welcome on the stage, as he 
 relieved the audience from worse company." 4 
 
 A more friendly account of Rich's achievement is given 
 by Thomas Davies : " By the help of gay scenes, fine habits, 
 grand dances, appropriated music, and other decorations, 
 he exhibited a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses, or some 
 other fabulous writer. Between the pauses or acts of this 
 serious representation, he interwove a comic fable, consist- 
 ing chiefly of the courtship of Harlequin and Columbine, 
 with a variety of surprising adventures and tricks, which 
 were produced by the magic wand of Harlequin; such as 
 the sudden transformation of palaces and temples to huts 
 
 4 Tom Jones, bk. V, eh. 1. 
 
112 AARON HILL 
 
 and cottages; of men and women into wheel-barrows and 
 joint-stools; of trees ... to houses; colonades to beds of 
 tulips; and mechanics' shops into serpents and ostriches." 
 And of Rich 's acting he says that ' ' his gesticulation was so 
 perfectly expressive of his meaning, that every motion of 
 his hand or head, or of any part of his body, was a kind 
 of dumb eloquence that was readily understood by the 
 audience"; his leave-taking of Columbine was at once 
 graceful and affecting. 5 
 
 These two quotations represent pretty well the divergent 
 views of critics and audience about the new entertainment. 
 The critics denounced, and the public enjoyed. In Ho- 
 garth's plate of Masquerades and Operas (1723), Satan 
 appears dragging a multitude to the masquerade and opera, 
 and on the opposite side crowds rush to witness the panto- 
 mimes; over the gateway is the sign of Dr. Faustus, with 
 dragon and windmill; a woman is carting off Shakespeare, 
 Jonson, and the rest in a wheelbarrow. A correspondent in 
 Pasquin writes with much concern: "Dear Pasquin, if 
 affairs go on at this rate, the poet and the player will be- 
 come useless things, while the joiner, the dragon-maker, and 
 posture master run away with all the credit and profit." 6 
 On the other hand, a writer in the Weekly Journal, or 
 Saturday's Post defends pantomime on the ground that 
 there were rope-walking elephants in Rome. 7 There is, 
 of course, no question what position Hill would take. In 
 the Plain Dealer for July 6, 1724, 8 he describes the accom- 
 plishments of an African elephant and a Russian bear, and 
 suggests that they apply at the theatre, — "entering lately 
 with much vivacity upon new plans of action which fall 
 immediately within the genius of our four-footed virtu- 
 
 5 Life of Garrick, I, 92, 331. 
 
 e January 21, 1724. See also February 4, 1724. 
 
 7 January 23 and 30, 1724-1725. 
 
 s No. 31. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 113 
 
 osos. ' ' His scorn increases month by month ; by December, 
 he is commenting on the genius of the actors' limbs, the 
 readiness of their "elastic capacity," the "voice of their 
 muscles"; and is hoping presently to see Mr. Lun (Rich) 
 ' ' crawling up the edge of one of his scenes, and sticking to 
 the roof like a spider over the heads of a shouting pit! 
 where he will spin himself into their good graces, till their 
 necks are half broke with the sublimity of their enter- 
 tainment." 9 
 
 The scorn of the judicious had no effect on Rich; and 
 even the other house, in self-defense, had to try to imitate 
 him as best it could, thus winning for its managers a place 
 in the Dunciad. 10 The success of Harlequin and of the 
 Beggar's Opera raised the prosperity of Lincoln 's-Inn- 
 Fields to a height that embarrassed the older house. The 
 famous actors of Drury-Lane were dropping out one by 
 one : Mrs. Oldfield died in 1731 ; Wilks, in 1732 ; Booth, in 
 1733, after a long illness that had kept him off the stage for 
 several years; Cibber was growing old. Meanwhile, the 
 Haymarket and Goodman's Fields (opened in 1729) were 
 nourishing ; the most successful new tragedy, George Barn- 
 well, was brought out at the latter house. The prosperity 
 of the minor theatres, the increasing tendency to satirize 
 political conditions, the popularity of pantomime, the dis- 
 appearance of the old school of actors, — all made the situa- 
 tion about 1730 interesting and full of possibilities. It was 
 clearly a period of change and readjustment, with many 
 opportunities for the critic and the author. 
 
 Such Hill found it. From 1730 to 1738, when he re- 
 
 9 No. 77. See also Nos. 51, 59, and 82. 
 io See Dunciad, 1st ed., Ill, 215: 
 
 "When lo! to dark encounter in mid-air, 
 New wizards rise, here Booth and Cibber there; 
 Booth in his cloudy tabernacle shrined, 
 On grinning dragons Cibber mounts the wind." 
 9 
 
114 AARON HILL 
 
 tired to Plaistow, he was actively concerned in one way or 
 another with the stage : he wrote plays that were successful, 
 a play that failed, and a play that no manager would pro- 
 duce ; he elaborated a theory on the art of acting and prac- 
 tised it on several pupils, one of whom did him much credit ; 
 he wrote innumerable letters of advice to young actors and 
 actresses ; he had ideas about national theatres and schools 
 of dramatic art, and several schemes for theatrical manage- 
 ment that almost came to something; he took an active 
 part in the discussion over the regulation of the stage ; and 
 he published a periodical, the Prompter, in which all his 
 schemes, ideas, and criticisms found expression. Though in 
 many ways he reflected current ideas, the keenness of his 
 comment in some respects has not had the justice done it 
 that it deserves. 
 
 It may have been the moderate success of his friends, 
 Mallet and Thomson, in tragedy, that fired his dramatic 
 ambition again. Thomson's Sophonisba was produced in 
 1730 and Mallet's Eurydice in 1731. 11 For his own 
 attempt, Hill rewrote and (in his opinion) vastly improved 
 the old play of Elf rid; under the name of Athelwold, it was 
 accepted in 1731 by Drury-Lane. Hill left no stone un- 
 turned to make the representation a success. He exhausted 
 his entreaties and his flatteries to induce Wilks, then 
 already near the end of his career, to take the title-role; 12 
 
 ii Hill knew much better than Mallet what Mallet meant by the 
 play; they discussed its moral in a brisk correspondence during the 
 month of February. (See letters from Hill to Mallet February 6, 
 1731, February 9, February 12, February 18, and February 23, in 
 Hill's Works, I, 28, 31, 39, 43, 45). Mallet was not at that time, to 
 quote Dr. Johnson, "too high to accept a prologue and epilogue from 
 Aaron Hill, neither of which can be much commended." Few of 
 the prologues and epilogues of the day did deserve any commendation. 
 
 i 2 See letters from Hill to Wilks September 17 and 25 and Novem- 
 ber 4, 1731 (Works, I, 69, 73, 96) ; and from Wilks to Hill, September 
 24 and October 10 (Col. 1751). 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 115 
 
 it was a part sure to give pleasure to Mr. Wilks, and receive 
 life from him; "the turn of it is amorous, inconstant, 
 spirited, attractive, and distressful; it consists of fire and 
 vivacity, endeared and tempered by the softer passions." 
 But Wilks firmly declined to throw lustre on the character 
 of the hero; he had all he could do to "rub through" his 
 parts in comedy ; and Mr. Mills would, he was sure, do the 
 part well with Mr. Hill 's assistance — it would be a wretched 
 actor who could not do well with that ! 
 
 Then Hill tried to arouse his interest in the dressing of 
 the parts, by sending drawings for "a novelty in the old 
 Saxon dresses," based on Verstegan's Antiquities, with 
 possibly some Hillian variations. 13 This antiquarian con- 
 cern for the correctness of the costumes was in itself a 
 novelty. "To say nothing," he writes, "as to impropriety 
 in the custom of dressing characters so far back in time 
 after the common fashions of our days, it weakens proba- 
 bility. ' ni There had been in the seventeenth century some 
 feeble efforts at historical accuracy on the French stage, 
 but they were abandoned, either for contemporary dress, 
 or for the hero-costume of flying feathers, Louis XIV wigs, 
 gilt armor, festooned skirts, gilt-fringed gloves, and so 
 on. 15 Garrick, who "never willingly put on the Roman 
 habit," 16 adopted a simple modern costume in tragedy. 
 Hill 's hints about these Saxon dresses are tantalizing : there 
 were furs, though Hill assures Wilks that they need not be 
 real ; "as to the coronets, it was a custom of those times 
 
 is Hill to Wilks; October 28, 1731. Worts, 1, 89. 
 
 i* Hill had more to say about theatrical costume in the Prompter, 
 No. 22: "An old Roman could never with any propriety be made to 
 look like a modern Frenchman; nor a Dutch Burgomaster's wife 
 like the Queen of Great Britain." 
 
 is See Karl Mantzius, Hist, of Theatrical Art, Y, 227-228, 370, 391. 
 Pepys, in his diary for March 8, 1664, mentions "garments like the 
 Eomans" in a performance of Heraclius. 
 
 ie Davies, Life of GarricTc, I 96. 
 
116 AAEON HILL 
 
 for persons of high rank to wear them upon common as 
 well as extraordinary occasions; but they must be distin- 
 guished more than they are in the papers, to point out the 
 different degrees; and worn in a more becoming position, 
 higher off from the forehead, and a little leaning to one 
 side." 17 To Hill's distress, Wilks kept silence on this 
 subject. 
 
 Mallet hastened to offer ' ' an engagement of his friends in 
 favor of the tragedy"; a reading was held at Lord Tyrcon- 
 nel's; 18 and Pope (who had reasons just then for being 
 very complaisant) not only corrected the play, but promised 
 to do his part in preparing the "expectations of people 
 of the first rank" — a necessary precaution, "if one would 
 wish a play that kind of fame which noise can give it." 19 
 And just before the date of presentation, Pope had in a 
 manner rounded up a very respectable audience: Lord 
 Bathurst, Lord Burlington — "who comes on purpose to 
 town," — another noble Lord (Peterborough, apparently), 
 Gay and Sir William Wyndham.- 
 
 The play was acted on December 10, and survived only 
 three nights. "I need not inform you," Hill wrote to 
 Pope, who, in a kind attempt to gloss over the failure, had 
 reported the audience attentive and a few of the ladies even 
 tearful, 21 ' ' how it dragged itself along for two lean nights 
 after the first; as lame and wounded as the snake in your 
 poem, but not half so delightfully. It would be affecta- 
 tion, not modesty, to deny that I am nettled at the mon- 
 strous reception which the Town has given this tragedy." 
 
 17 October 28, 1731. Works, I, 91. 
 
 is Hill to Tyrconnel, November 22. Works, I, 100. 
 
 i9 Hill to Pope, September 30, 1731. Works, I, 82. 
 
 20 Pope to Hill. Col. of 1751. The date should be December 9, 
 not November 12. 
 
 2i Pope to Hill. Col. of 1751. There and in Elwin and Courthope 's 
 Pope, the letter is wrongly dated November 14 instead of December 14. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 117 
 
 He has a faint hope that "some persons of rank and dis- 
 tinction to bespeak plays and compel audiences may be 
 kind enough to Athelwold to introduce him now and then 
 into civiler company, for the sake of the company. It were 
 a downright shame if these good people, who gave the 
 tragedy all its merit of fine dressing and scening, should be 
 suffered to lose their money, while the good-for-nothing 
 author, who was guilty of the dull part of the entertain- 
 ment, has lost nothing but his labor. But enough of this 
 subject." 
 
 No one who reads the play can fail to sympathize with 
 the audience. The simple plot of the earlier play is com- 
 plicated by the introduction of new episodes, which crowd 
 the action so that the supposed unity of time becomes an 
 absurdity. Athelwold is made the betrayer, before his 
 marriage, of a certain Ethelinda, a lady of rank ; his reason, 
 in fact, still prefers her to Elfrid, but he has married the 
 latter chiefly, I suppose, because the king wanted her, and 
 the deed offered him an unexampled opportunity to put 
 himself in a position from which there could be no honor- 
 able escape. One felt some sympathy for him when his 
 deception of the king was the result of passionate love for 
 Elfrid; but the combination of lying lover and lying sub- 
 ject is too much for the most charitably disposed. Hill 
 "raised" the king's character — Genest calls it putting him 
 on stilts; no one ever talked like Edgar. 22 Elfrid, after 
 discovering how Athelwold acts and hearing how the king 
 
 22 He had onee seen Elfrid, in the crowd at his coronation, and he 
 recalls it thus: 
 
 "My raised eye 
 Met her flashed charms, amidst a gazing crowd, 
 Who, from the scaffolded cathedral's sides, 
 Poured their bold looks upon me; greatness and languor 
 Flowed in a softened radiance from her mien, 
 Sweetness sat smiling on her humid eyeballs; 
 And light-winged Fancy danced and flamed about her. ' ' 
 
118 AARON HILL 
 
 speaks, wisely gets herself to a nunnery ; Ethelinda plunges 
 a dagger into her bosom (behind the scenes), and Athel- 
 wold (also behind the scenes) takes her body in his arms 
 and leaps with it into the sea. It is but just to say that 
 there are good lines in the play, and even one or two good 
 speeches; and Pope, who was reported as having been 
 "warmed" by it, may not have been warmed, as one at first 
 suspects, merely by honest mirth. 23 
 
 For the moment, Hill was determined to let the stage go 
 its own way to destruction ; but events soon persuaded him 
 to abandon that resolution. Booth, a few months before 
 his death, disposed of one-half his share in the patent (re- 
 newed in 1732 in the names of Cibber, Wilks, and Booth) 
 and of all his power to John Highmore, a wealthy young 
 man ambitious of histrionic distinction, who had "exposed 
 himself," in Genest's phrase, by acting Lothario; after 
 Booth's death, his widow sold the remaining half-share to 
 Giffard of Goodman's Fields; and Mrs. Wilks delegated 
 her power to the inexperienced Mr. Ellis. Colley Cibber 
 grew disgusted at the importance of Highmore and the 
 ignorance of Ellis, and appointed as his deputy his son 
 Theophilus, "who wanted nothing but power to be as 
 troublesome as any young man living." To rid himself of 
 
 23 Pope said that ' ' no play had ever more warmed him ' ' (Booth to 
 Hill, November 8, 1731, Col. of 1751). Ethelinda 's speech (Act IV) 
 to Elf rid, after the latter has confirmed the tale of Athelwold's 
 treachery, is good: 
 
 "Farewell for ever. 
 
 Kneel and pray Heaven, to whose indulgent hand 
 
 You owe attraction, to increase and guard it ; 
 
 Else will your destined ruin soon instruct you 
 
 That he, who, tempted by your charms, betrayed 
 
 His heart's vowed mistress, and deceived his king, 
 
 Will for some new temptation give up you, 
 
 And leave you subject to another's pity, 
 
 As I am now to yours." 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 119 
 
 Theophilus, Highmore, at the end of the season of 1732-33, 
 purchased the elder Cibber's share in the patent; but the 
 discontented young Cibber drew all the actors after him 
 to the Haymarket, and left Highmore to open Drury-Lane 
 in September with such raw recruits as he could collect 
 from the country theatres. The town was thrown into 
 parties, and the two patentees joined forces against the 
 seceders. Persuasion failed; an attempt to secure the in- 
 terference of the Lord Chamberlain also failed; then the 
 Vagrant Act was put into operation against the actors, and 
 one of them, Harper, was arrested. The outcome of his 
 case was watched with interest on all sides, for it was 
 another test of the patent monopoly. That monopoly was 
 again proved, as in Steele's case, to be ineffective, for 
 Harper was discharged on the ground that he was a free- 
 holder in Surrey and a housekeeper in Westminster. 24 
 This was in November, 1733. By the following March, 
 Highmore, discouraged by his losses, gave up the struggle, 
 and sold out to Fleetwood, a man of fortune and fashion, 
 who persuaded the seceders to return to Drury-Lane.- 5 
 
 During this period of storm and stress, Hill's mind and 
 his pen were busy. He began in January, 1733, by re- 
 vising a tragedy for Victor, and writing a farce at his 
 request. 26 Then he grew interested in Highmore 's manage- 
 ment, and was deterred from buying the other shares in 
 the patent merely by lack of funds. In April he was con- 
 sidering, apparently on Victor's suggestion, some arrange- 
 
 24 Cibber reflected pertinently on this case ' ' that if acting plays 
 without license did not make the performers vagabonds unless they 
 wandered from their habitations so to do, how particular was the case 
 of us three late managing actors, at the Theatre-Eoyal, who in twenty 
 years before had paid, upon an average, at least twenty thousand 
 pounds to be protected (as actors) from a law that has not since 
 appeared to be against us." Apology, ed. Lowe, I, 284. 
 
 25 See Genest, III, 373 f ., for the details of these transactions. 
 
 26 The farce was to be called The Maggot. It was not performed. 
 
120 AARON HILL 
 
 ment with Highmore : "I am so much rather inclined to 
 unite my endeavors with Mr. Highmore 's, for raising and 
 establishing Drury-Lane to and in a condition it has not 
 yet been acquainted with, than to open a new house (and 
 to that end either enlarging the little one in the Haymarket, 
 or building another in a better place) that I will not think 
 of anything but a union with Mr. Highmore, if you can 
 find, upon giving yourself the trouble of a conversation 
 or two on the subject, that it is practicable." "Will Victor 
 sound Mr. Booth and Mr. Ellis as to their willingness to 
 farm out their shares to him 1 If the patent were all High- 
 more 's, he would give him a thousand pounds a year for 
 half his profits, and would "add to that company some 
 actors, who have never been seen, heard of, or thought of; 
 and yet at their very first appearance shall be able to put 
 an end to the Town's complaint for the loss of the great 
 men of the stage. ' ' He would like to know whether Victor 
 has had any conversation with Highmore, because some 
 gentlemen are desirous of being concerned with' him in a 
 design of his own, and he must decide quickly. 27 
 
 Immediately after the defection of the actors, Hill told 
 Highmore what he thought of the capacity of actor-man- 
 agers: "If to have surfeited the town with a choking suc- 
 cession of absurdities; if to have dressed . . . Mr. Cibber 
 and his string of comedies; if to consider the new pieces 
 which are offered them in no other light than whether their 
 authors will make interest to support them ; if to revive so 
 few old ones that . . . our audiences are able to bear part 
 with the actors ; and, finally, if not to have found, made, or 
 left one promising genius for the stage to succeed to the 
 fame of such notable instructors : — if these are the marks 
 of a capacity for directing a theatre, then the players have 
 
 27 These letters are found in Victor's Hist, of the Theatres, II, 174- 
 193. They are dated January 1, January 5, March 22, April 5, 
 April 9. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 121 
 
 a title that can never be questioned." Surely the stage 
 should be in the hands of those competent to instruct actors. 
 He then offers advice for the fall performances, and adds 
 that he has "a considerable variety of new and humorous 
 entertainments in his hands, prepared with the idea of 
 attempting a new theatre"; but he prefers to purchase 
 some share in the patent — "about which Mr. Victor tells 
 me you have no exception to my treating with the ladies. ' ' 2S 
 Highmore must have been indifferent. On August 31, 
 Hill writes to an unidentified correspondent 29 of a design 
 to establish ' ' an academical theatre for improving the taste 
 of the stage, and training up young actors and actresses for 
 the supply of the patent theatres. ' ' The company is formed 
 and could open in November, with "a race of plays and 
 entertainments so new in themselves and the manner in 
 which they will be acted that the success will, I think, be 
 insured by the novelty." He had been offered a patent 
 at 400 pounds a year, and was about to accept it when it 
 occurred to him that his correspondent might secure a 
 license. He intends to publish a pamphlet explaining the 
 design, and proposing a subscription for six nights to a 
 "fashionable folly" and a tragedy. 30 But all this must 
 have fallen through, for during the autumn, we find Hill 
 acting as adviser to Highmore 's raw company, and mark- 
 
 28 July 5, 1733. Works, I, 129. 
 
 29 ' <■ Mr. B- - -r. ' ' Works, I, 135, 
 
 so In an anonymous pamphlet, A Proposal for the better Regulation 
 of the Stage, published in January, 1732, there are ideas similar to 
 some of these expressed by Hill: the stage has been too long under 
 the tyranny of the players; it is not strange that the acting is so poor 
 when a promising young player is dreaded by the management as a 
 possible rival; the actor should be regularly educated. The author 
 suggests a new theatre, managed by a company of stockholders — 
 men of quality, taste, figure, and fortune. 
 
122 AARON HILL 
 
 ing the parts that were sent to him for that purpose. 31 It 
 was a thankless task. There was a strong current of preju- 
 dice running against Drury-Lane, which Hill was afraid 
 would increase " to an insurmountable degree of odium very- 
 soon, unless the Patentees can be prevailed upon to see 
 their own interest in giving up their unpopular pretensions 
 to prosecute the people who are universally thought to be 
 better actors than their own, and protected, without doubt, 
 by much more powerful hands than the Patentees are 
 aware of." 32 
 
 Fleetwood's purchase of the patent ended Hill's hope 
 of an active business interest in Drury-Lane affairs. But 
 the power of criticism remained; and within a few months 
 he had launched his theatrical periodical, The Prompter. 
 The first number was published on November 12, 1734, and 
 the paper continued to appear twice a week until July 2, 
 1736. Associated with Hill in the enterprise was William 
 Popple, 33 who had contributed to Savage's Miscellany in 
 1726, and who had recently had a play or two produced. 
 Hill did not especially admire Popple's work in the 
 Prompter — he thought his friend's genius more strikingly 
 displayed in other directions. 34 Literary tradition ascribes 
 the papers signed "P" to Popple and those signed "B" 
 to Hill; after the 132d number, there is no signature. 35 
 
 3i See in Hill's Worls, J, the following letters written in 1733: 
 October 8 (138), October 9 (146), October 15 (149), October 19 
 (152), October 24 (155), October 24 (159), October 31 (162), Octo- 
 ber 31 (165), November 3 (168), November 16 (183). Mr. Bridge- 
 water was told that in Tamerlane he ought to "speak like an angel 
 and move like a god." That was not very practical advice; but Hill's 
 description of Mrs. Porter's interpretation of the part of Imoinda in 
 Oroonoko is both very interesting and full of practical hints. 
 
 32 Letter of November 6 to some author. WorTcs, 1, 171. 
 
 33 See ante, ch. II. 
 
 34 Forster MS., July 10, 1746. 
 
 35 Thomas Dale wrote to Dr. Birch (Birch MSS. 4304) that he 
 thought James Ealph had a hand in the Prompter. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 123 
 
 "B," as the author explains in the second number, stands 
 for Broomstick, not Blockhead: "I will sweep away no 
 folly, abuse, or presumption till I have prompted them over 
 and over ; but if after such fair and repeated caveats, there 
 shall be found any reprobate obstinacy that despises my 
 word in the ear, or calls in question my authority, I shall 
 . . . show no regard to distinction of persons, but sweep the 
 front and side boxes with as little ceremony and respect as 
 is shown before the curtain by broomsticks of inferior 
 degree to obtruding apples and orange peels." 
 
 He chose for his motto, "All the world's a stage, and all 
 the men and women merely players"; when we daily see 
 so many act amiss, can there be any doubt that a good 
 prompter is wanting? The stage prompter never appears 
 on the stage, but "has some influence over everything that 
 is transacted upon it. . . . Nor can I think it any dishonor, 
 since the stage has so long been transcribing the world, that 
 the world should now make reprisals, and look as freely 
 into the theatres. Let their managers, therefore, be upon 
 their guard; and their dependents, tragic or comic, take 
 good heed to their parts ; since there is from this day for- 
 ward arisen a prompter, without doors, who hath a cat-call 
 as well as a whistle; and whenever the players grow flat, 
 will himself make bold to be musical." 36 
 
 The specifically theatrical purpose with which the paper 
 was thus started remains prominent throughout. But other 
 subjects were handled: there were philosophical papers, 
 most of them signed " P, ' ' — typical eighteenth century dis- 
 cussions about the nature of evil, the origin of moral virtue, 
 the evidences of order and harmony in the universe, free- 
 will, chance, and the like; 37 papers touching upon social 
 and economic problems, such as the evils of debtors' 
 
 36 NO. 1. 
 
 37Nos. 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 78, 86, 89, 90, 151, 153, 156. See ch. VI 
 for a controversy with the Grub Street Journal, ostensibly over deism. 
 
124 AARON HILL 
 
 prisons, slavery, and the development of Georgia; 38 and 
 papers of literary criticism, — the beauties of the epic (illus- 
 trated by extracts from Hill's unpublished epic of Gideon), 
 and the relative merits of rhyme and blank verse (also 
 illustrated by Hill's own efforts). 39 A very small group 
 deals with politics, chiefly the evils of party spirit; 40 and 
 another group preaches short sermons on social morality, 
 ranging from the advantages of cleanliness or of the due 
 submission of wives to husbands, to the wickedness of hunt- 
 ing or duelling; they are very "elegant" and very plati- 
 tudinous, and several of them would furnish admirable 
 texts for the lectures of the modern eugenist or suffragist. 41 
 But the stage papers are both most interesting in them- 
 selves and most important historically. Unfortunately, the 
 Prompter is rare, unattractive with its double columns of 
 fine print, and burdened with many dull papers. Pick out 
 the essays of dramatic criticism, however, read them in 
 connection with what was going on, realize that they pre- 
 ceded a crisis, — and they will appear of some value as 
 documents in literary history. If carefully selected, re- 
 arranged, repunctuated, respelled, — edited perhaps in the 
 old unscrupulous way that made excisions without com- 
 
 38 Nos. 18', 36, 40, 87, 124, 135, 143, 163, 167, 168. On practical 
 grounds, Hill gave slavery a qualified approval as the less of two 
 evils in the case of Georgia; better limit the importation of slaves 
 than prohibit it (No. 87). "B" is the author of two papers making 
 an appeal on behalf of debtors; he estimates the number then con- 
 fined at 12,000; points out their slight chance of escape from disease; 
 the uneconomic waste of good material; and the tremendous expense 
 in money alone of the system — 390,000 1. spent in law-charges and 
 jailors' fees by debtors and creditors. 
 
 39 Nos. 28, 48, 59, 71, 72, 76, 96, 148, 149, 154, 164, 172, 173. 
 
 40 Nos. 4, 12, 27, 83. 
 
 4i Nos. 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 25, 26, 31, 32, 43, 49, 52, 58, 61, 63, 65, 
 75, 82, 85, 97, 121, 157, 160, 161. Most of these are by "P," and 
 justify Hill's disparaging opinion of Popple's gifts as an essayist. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 125 
 
 punction, — they would form a pleasant little volume illus- 
 trating the stage of their day. And the criticism they 
 embody has received the praise of being the best con- 
 temporary criticism of an interesting situation. 42 This dis- 
 cussion will treat them as a group, and attempt a classifica- 
 tion that may bring out their significance. They deal 
 with the true function of the stage and its proper sphere 
 of influence, and with its actual influence for evil ; and they 
 try to place the responsibility for that evil influence, and to 
 suggest remedies. Similar opinions are scattered through 
 the plays, periodicals, letters, and pamphlets of the day, but 
 the Prompter's value is that it focusses them all. 
 
 There is, of course, no conception of the drama purely as 
 an art. Its function is to combine amusement with in- 
 struction; and precept and example — the methods of phi- 
 losophy and of history — are both at the service of the 
 dramatic author. The Athenians understood its function : 
 they made tragedy a school of wisdom and comedy a school 
 of reproof. And the stage should teach manners as well as 
 morals ; it is the mirror held up to the world that the world 
 may see and correct its deformities. This was the ideal. 
 How far did the contemporary stage realize it? It was a 
 school of vice, not virtue. Our tragedy, says the Prompter, 
 corrupts the mind and breathes into the soul rash revenge 
 and wanton love; our comedy, though it pretends to re- 
 prove finical dress in youth, misanthropy, pedantry in 
 ladies, and the like, actually tends towards conjugal infi- 
 delity, foolish indulgence of wives, and ridicule of old age. 43 
 Fielding observes of the heroes of some plays of the day 
 that they are "commonly eminent for those very talents 
 which not only bring men to the gallows, but enable them 
 to make an heroic figure when they are there." 44 
 
 42 Nicholson, Struggle for a Free Stage, 67, note. 
 
 43 See Nos. 30, 79, 80, 105, 109, 113, 134, 171. 
 
 44 Tom Jones, book VIII, 1. 
 
126 AARON HILL 
 
 So much for the plays. What of the actors? We have 
 already seen that Hill held very positive views about the 
 art of acting. In the Prompter he does not as a rule single 
 out individuals for his criticism; but Colley Cibber and 
 James Quin come in for some hard knocks. Cibber, under 
 the pseudonym of "Outis," had been expressing in the 
 Grub Street Journal a very favorable opinion of his own 
 abilities, and Hill, in a comment on the letter, declares that 
 "Mr. Quin must be confessed to be sometimes wrong in his 
 tragic characters; Mr. Cibber to be always so." Nature, 
 by voice, figure, and conception, limited Cibber to be a 
 comedian — "he was born to be laughed at." He praises 
 his "exquisite propriety of affectation, where he squeaks, 
 bows, ogles, dresses, laughs, or any other way exerts the 
 comedian, in Sir Courtly and Lord Foppington." But 
 when in Syphax or Richard III, Hill sees, "in place of 
 menaces and majestic transports, the distorted heavings of 
 an unjointed caterpillar," he must conclude him unfitted 
 for tragedy. 45 As for Quin — "Mr. All-weight" — he was 
 told that to be always deliberate and solemn was as much 
 of an error as never to be so. 46 Cibber laughed at the 
 caterpillar, but Quin was angry, and "meeting Mr. Hill in 
 the Court of Requests, a scuffle ensued between them, which 
 ended in the exchange of a few blows." 47 
 
 Other strongly personal comments Hill wisely confined to 
 dead actors, and some of his descriptions of their acting 
 are very graphic. That of Booth is often quoted: 48 "Two 
 advantages distinguished him in the strongest light from 
 the rest of his fraternity: he had learning to understand 
 perfectly whatever it was his part to speak, and judgment 
 
 45 No. 3. 
 46No. 92. 
 
 ■"Davies, Life of Garrick, I, 138. 
 
 48 Published in Victor's Life of Booth, 1733, and in Hill's WorTcs, 
 II, 115. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 127 
 
 to know how far it agreed or disagreed with the character. 
 Hence arose a peculiar grace. . . . He could soften and slide 
 over with a kind of elegant negligence the improprieties in 
 a part he acted, while ... he would dwell with energy upon 
 the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit, which had been 
 kept back for such an occasion, that he might alarm, 
 awaken, and transport in those places only where the 
 dignity of his own good sense could be supported by tftat of 
 his author. . . . The passions in comedy were not strong 
 enough to excite his fire; and what seemed want of quali- 
 fication was only absence of impression. One might have 
 said of him in the Scripture phrase, 'He is not dead, but 
 sleepeth.' ... He had a talent at discovering the passions 
 where they lay hid in some celebrated parts, having been 
 buried under a prescription of rantings and monotony, by 
 the practise of other actors. When he had discovered, he 
 soon grew able to express 'em. And his secret . . . was an 
 association, or adaptation of his look to his voice ; by which 
 artful imitation of nature, the variations in the sound of 
 his words gave propriety to every change in his counte- 
 nance. So that among players in whom it is common to hear 
 pity pronounced with a frown upon the forehead, sorrow 
 expressed by a grin upon the eye, and anger thundered out 
 with a look of unnatural serenity, it was Mr. Booth's 
 peculiar felicity to be heard and seen the same, whether 
 as the pleased, the grieved, the pitying, the reproachful, or 
 the angry. One would almost be tempted to borrow the 
 aid of a very bold figure, and . . . affirm that the blind might 
 have seen Mm in his voice, and the deaf have heard him 
 in his visage." 
 
 Mr. Booth was Hamlet's solemn half and Mr. Wilks his 
 gay half. The latter 's method of delivering the speech of 
 Hamlet to the ghost was ineffective: 49 he hurried through 
 « No. 100. 
 
128 AARON HILL 
 
 the whole scene without pause; the words, "By Heaven, I 
 say away ! " he addressed to the ghost, and advanced against 
 it with drawn sword, not perceiving the "shocking inde- 
 corum" of drawing one's sword against one's father's 
 ghost. The Prompter would have Hamlet speak in low 
 amazement when he sees the ghost, "fixing his eyes with a 
 kind of riveted doubt"; after the words "angels and min- 
 isters of grace," he should stop a moment, and then com- 
 mence -a slow approach, accompanied by broken sentences in 
 a voice struggling against the oppression of a growing 
 terror ; ' ' questionable ' ' should receive marked emphasis, for 
 he draws courage from the reflection that the ghost is a 
 shape he may question; he kneels at the word "father," 
 anxiously awaits the effect of each of the names he adjures 
 him with, and in the "0, answer me," his voice should 
 express a sort of "desperate impatience." 
 
 The Lear comments are interesting. Had a certain 
 player who acted Lear some time since, says the Prompter, 
 heeded Shakespeare 's description of anger in Henry V, the 
 house would not have remained cold. This Lear was calm 
 and resigned; delivered his passionate outburst at Regan's 
 reception of him with a look of affliction and patient re- 
 straint ; and ' ' upon every occasion that required the sharp 
 and the elevated, the stretched note and the exclamatory, 
 the king mistook, like a dog in a dream, that does but sigh 
 when he thinks he is barking." Instead of grinding out 
 his curse of Regan from between his teeth, he advanced to 
 the foot-lights, knelt, and pronounced it with the calmness 
 of a prayer, thus destroying the pity of the audience for 
 him, and scandalizing them by his serene malice. 50 
 
 If Hill refrained from mentioning names, he did not 
 hesitate to lump together the whole company of players 
 as "the very worst set of actors that ever disgraced the 
 
 so No. 95. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 129 
 
 nation." Their faults are ranting, affectation, mouthing, 
 bellowing, and whining, — the last the peculiar crime of the 
 ladies, who probably wish thereby, to create an effect of 
 innocence, and succeed only in being innocent of meaning 
 and "inarticulately diverting, like infancy." 51 They are 
 all so indolent that they cease to act as soon as they cease to 
 speak, and amuse themselves by examining the audience, 
 until they hear their cue; "at which, like soldiers on the 
 word of command, they start suddenly back to their 
 postures, tone over the unanimating sound of their lesson, 
 and then (like a caterpillar that has erected itself at the 
 touch of a twig) shrink back to their crawl and their quiet ; 
 and enjoy their full ease till next rousing." They cannot 
 even die with judgment and decency. Hill has seen a 
 "periwig-pated fellow" shake a tempest of powder about 
 him, and fall "like a chimney in a high wind, not only 
 frighting but blinding all who stood under his ruins. ' ' 52 
 
 The players address to the audience whatever they should 
 keep to themselves, and retain for themselves what they 
 ought to bestow on the audience. In a soliloquy they 
 should look anywhere except at the audience. If, when an 
 actor "comes forward to the line of lamps on the edge of 
 the stage, and after sending his eyes like his gentlemen- 
 ushers into the pit or the boxes, begins to tell the spectators, 
 ' I am alone ! ' " some honest lover of truth should call out, 
 "That's a lie, for you look in the faces of twelve hundred 
 people who are able to contradict you," — that would be 
 more effective than cat-calls. 53 They are afraid of express- 
 ing passion. The Prompter urged an actress who had a 
 part of "distressful anguish" to look sorrowful: "0, dear 
 
 si No. 99. 
 
 52 No. 62. 
 
 53 No. 104. The numbers dealing with acting are 3, 56, 62, 64, 66, 
 67, 92, 95, 99, 100, 103, 104, 113, 117, 118, 129. Most of them are 
 signed "B. " 
 
 10 
 
130 AARON HILL 
 
 Sir ! anything but making faces in tragedy ! ' ' She was in 
 fact too much rouged, he remarks, to permit crying in good 
 earnest. 
 
 Hill did not confine himself to destructive criticism. He 
 had a carefully elaborated theory of the art of acting, of 
 which the Prompter gives samples both in prose and verse. 
 The poem (in revised form) was afterwards published sepa- 
 rately in 1746, and the prose essay 54 was considered valu- 
 able enough to be reprinted with comments in 1821. To 
 depict the passions one must have some knowledge of them ; 
 let the actor first conceive the passion of anger, for in- 
 stance; his body will fall into appropriate attitudes; and 
 when the eye is inflamed and the muscles braced, he cannot 
 help speaking angrily. This power of conception is, of 
 course, the gift of the imaginative artist — a fact Hill does 
 not sufficiently emphasize. But stripped of its verbiage 
 and its strange pseudo-scientific terms, Hill's theory seems 
 to be in accord with the modern theory of the emotions: 
 make the appropriate gestures, assume the appropriate 
 attitudes, and you will feel the emotion; the frown and 
 the clenched fist come first and the anger follows. Why he 
 thought of embodying his ideas in verse is more than one 
 can imagine. "What is a little oddly phrased but quite 
 intelligible, in the prose, becomes simply absurd in verse : 
 
 " On the raised neck, oft moved, but ever straight, 
 
 Turn your unbending head with easy state." 
 " Spread be your opening breast; oft changed your face; 
 
 Step with a slow severity of grace; 
 
 Pausingly warm, significantly rise, 
 
 And affectation's empty swell despise." 55 
 
 54 WorJcs, IV, 355 f . 
 
 55 No. 113. These lines inspired a poet to write "The Praise of 
 Tobacco, in imitation of Mr. A. H - - l's style, ' ' Gent. Mag., VI, 547, 
 September, 1736: 
 
 ' ' On the raised lip, oft moved, obliquely straight, 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 131 
 
 A more poetical expression than any in the poem is one in 
 prose: "The passions are what keys are in a harpsichord. 
 If they are aptly and skilfully touched, they will vibrate 
 their different notes to the heart, and awaken in it the 
 music of humanity." 
 
 There is no question that the acting of tragedy did need 
 reform. When Charles Macklin, later a rival of Garrick, 
 engaged with Rich about 1725, he spoke, he says, "so 
 familiar, and so little in the hoity-toity tone of the tragedy 
 of that day, that the manager told me I had better go to 
 grass for another year or two." 56 And Davies' account of 
 the effect of Garrick 's acting throws light on the old manner 
 that excited the wrath of the Prompter: "Mr. Garrick's 
 easy and familiar, yet forcible style, in speaking and acting, 
 at first threw the critics into some hesitation concerning the 
 novelty as well as propriety of his manner. They had been 
 long accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden 
 mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite 
 admiration and to entrap applause. To the just modula- 
 tion of the words, and concurring expression of the features 
 from the genuine workings of nature, they had been 
 strangers, at least for some time." 57 Of Garrick, Mr. "All- 
 weight" Quin said that "if the young fellow was right, he 
 and the rest of the players had been all wrong. ' ' 58 
 
 Let the glazed tube recline, with easy state ; 
 
 Pointedly look 
 
 Puff, with a slow severity of grace, 
 Pausingly wise," etc. 
 Hill's revised version is much less absurd, 
 ss Cook, Memoirs of Charles MacTclin, 99. 
 
 57 Life of Garrick, I, 40. Davies says (I, ch. 13) that Hill was 
 "almost the only gentleman who labored assiduously to understand 
 the art of acting, and who took incessant pains to communicate his 
 knowledge of it to others. ' ' He speaks of his ' ' just and important ' ' 
 sentiments on acting, and of his admirable lessons to Rich's per- 
 formers. 
 
 ss Davies, Life of Garrick, I, 44. 
 
132 AARON HILL 
 
 The audience needed prompting as much as the actors. 59 
 Their manners were often more suited to bear-gardens than 
 to his Majesty's theatres. The Prompter was present one 
 night at ''his Majesty's dramatical bear-garden, to observe 
 the success of a baiting, called 'Every Man in his Folly.' 
 . . . The audience, from the footmen's gallery to the boxes 
 beneath them, so prevented by their noise any use of their 
 understanding, that it was impossible either to acquit or 
 condemn from anything that we heard on the theatre." 
 When a new play comes on, three-fourths of the audience 
 entertain themselves for the evening with a mob-scene of 
 their own, and the author, like a Presbyterian reprobate, 
 is predestined to be damned. Applause might compete 
 with hisses, but not with hisses, cat-calls, shouts, and 
 "horse-laughs." He begs the boisterous young men with 
 cudgels to "hold themselves contented at Hockley-in-the- 
 Hole." 60 
 
 The Prompter was not alone in its criticism. James 
 Ralph 61 tells how the tradesmen in the pit, in their im- 
 patience to get good seats, bring their unfinished meals tied 
 up in colored handkerchiefs, and neglect Mark Antony for 
 the leg of a pullet, or drown Monimia's distress in a glass 
 of sack. The boxes whisper, nod, talk scandal, and conduct 
 intrigues ; others get on the stage and jostle the performers. 
 In the gallery the people are well enough behaved, except 
 that they are liberal of orange-peel to the stage and the 
 pit; but the footmen's gallery disturbs everything. The 
 Weekly Register 62 describes the footmen lolling over boxes, 
 
 59 Hill was much pleased with Garrick 's acting, especially with his 
 lack of affectation (letter to Mallet, April 20, 1744, Works, II, 34). 
 Not that he thought him in need of no further instruction; he offered 
 to mark all the occasions for the "most alarming attitudes" in 
 Othello (letter to Garrick, October 14, 1746, II, 266). 
 
 eo See nos. 20, 136, 139. 
 
 6i The Taste of the Town, 1732, p. 130 f. 
 
 62 March 25, 1732. Quoted in the Gent. Mag., II, 661. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 133 
 
 where they are keeping places, taking snuff, humming, 
 laughing, talking across the house, and interrupting the 
 play with their bear-garden quarrels in the upper gallery. 
 Joseph Andrews, who "led the opinion of all the other 
 footmen at an opera, ' ' was ' ' a little too forward in riots at 
 the playhouse." 63 Tom Jones went with Mr. Nightingale 
 and his company to a "new play, which was to be acted 
 that evening, and which a very large party had agreed to 
 damn, from some dislike they had taken to the author"; 
 Sophia left terrified at the end of the first act, for "being 
 a new play, at which two large parties met, the one to 
 damn and the other to applaud, a violent uproar and an 
 engagement between the two parties" arose. 64 Lord 
 Dapper, in the Historical Register, 65 thought himself a very 
 good judge of plays, though he spent half the time in the 
 green-room talking to the actresses, and the other half in 
 the boxes talking with the women of quality. "Thou art 
 a sweet judge of plays, indeed," comments the Prompter in 
 the play. 
 
 But what of the plays? "What did the turbulent audi- 
 ence like? Pantomime and entertainments, of course, — 
 "those disgraces of our stage, those wild triumphs of 
 folly." 66 At the end of the 6th number of the Prompter 
 appears an advertisement for Common Sense, hunted or 
 strayed out of the theatres of the city, and supposed to be 
 lurking in some remote region. Not until a year and a 
 
 63 Joseph Andrews, bk. I, ch. 4. For an account of one of the worst 
 of these riots, see Gent. Mag., for March, 1737: the footmen, denied 
 entrance to the gallery because of their rudeness, broke open doors, 
 and wounded twenty-five persons. 
 
 ei Tom Jones, book XIII, ch. 9. See also Jonathan Wild, book I, 
 ch. 6. 
 
 65 Act I, near the end. 
 
 66 See nos, 6, 12, 35, 105, 109, 117, 125, 127, 128, 149, 166. For 
 comments on the opera, which was a dangerous rival of tragedy, see 
 nos. 7, 14, 23, 37, 106, 155. These are mostly by "P." 
 
134 AARON HILL 
 
 half later is the lost stray discovered, in Fielding's theatre, 
 armed with wit and satire rather too forcible to be graceful. 
 Of new plays, tragedy has little chance of a hearing, and 
 comedy and farce must be combined with some entertain- 
 ment before the audience will suffer it. The poor author 
 sees a battery of pantomime levelled against his play ; and 
 worse still, he has to contribute to the expense of the show 
 that is destroying the taste for plays — to pay for a knife to 
 cut his own throat. The stage is peopled with "monsters, 
 tumblers, ladder-dancers, Italian shadows, dumb-shows, 
 buffoonery, and nonsense " ; it will soon become a place like 
 Sadler's Wells, Bartholomew Fair, Fawkes's Dexterity of 
 Hand, or Cups and Balls. Surely the songs would lose 
 none of their merit, if a little meaning were mixed with 
 (their mirth. But Hill himself tried the experiment; the 
 managers would none of his Daraxes; ' ' in things . . . which 
 have a chain and dependence of scenes," they said, "a poet 
 expects more than in good manners he ought from the at- 
 tention and patience of persons of quality; whereas in 
 grotesque entertainments . . . there being neither beginning, 
 middle, nor end, the company are held down to no indecent 
 necessity, but may look on or off at their pleasure." I see 
 no reason for the managers ' refusal, on this score, of Hill 's 
 musical entertainments — they hold one down to no indecent 
 necessity. 67 
 
 67 Contemporary literature is full of satirical references to Kich and 
 the pantomimes: James Miller's Harlequin Horace (1732) is dedicated 
 to J - - n E - - h, who ' ' first introduced among us the present delicate 
 and amazing taste in our diversions"; The Dramatic Poetaster, a 
 Vision (1732) describes many of the shows: 
 
 ' ' There strong no-meanings flash upon the sight, 
 
 Baboons enchant and crocodiles delight; 
 
 Then cats are eloquent and sticks are wise; 
 
 Sense starts from raree-shows and art from pyes. ' ' 
 The Grub Street Journal (No. 269) has a burlesque satire on enter- 
 tainments called The Tower of Babel; Fielding's Tumbledown Dick, 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 135 
 
 As to the managers, Hill is hopeless of their improve- 
 ment. He excepts from his condemnation Fielding and 
 Giffard, who were running the Haymarket and Goodman's 
 Fields; both these unlicensed houses are better managed 
 than the patent theatres. The patentees, Rich and Fleet- 
 wood, whom he admires for some admirable qualities, he 
 dubs "Lunny" and "Lightwit," and declares that there 
 is little to choose between them in the matter of general 
 incompetence. It is a case of "Arcades ambo — id est, 
 rascals both" — 
 
 " Both managers, and both alike inspired 
 To act what neither sense nor wit required." 
 
 On the plan of Virgil's Third Pastoral, Hill gives a dia- 
 logue between Lunny, Lightwit, and Common Sense. 
 Lightwit is discovered reading: 
 
 " Lunny: What read you, Lightwit? Pantomime, no doubt? 
 Lightwit : No, Lunny, guess again, for there you're out." 
 
 It appears that he is reading tragedy — to get material for 
 a burlesque. Common Sense agrees to be referee in a 
 contest of skill, in which the stakes are monkey-skins, dog- 
 skins, and other transformation scene properties. Lightwit 
 boasts that the audience claps his "squeaking pig" ; Lunny, 
 that he can lay his own eggs and bring forth Harlequins. 
 Common Sense awards them both the monkey-skin. 68 
 
 or Phaeton in the Suds satirized Rich; see also Gent. Mag., II, 662, 
 III, 179, and Ralph's Taste of the Town, eh. III. Hill's SnaJce in 
 the Grass (Dramatic WorTcs, II) is a burlesque of pantomimes: 
 among other details, Tragedy is routed through a trap-door by Harle- 
 quin; the Genius of the stage, a mixed Scaramouche and Columbine, 
 suggests the introduction of a dancing cat or two to make tragedy go 
 down with the audience; the Poet cries out "wooden swords, wooden 
 heads, wooden management." 
 
 68 No. 132. See also nos. 35, 50, 51, 53, 56, 100, 117, 123, 127, 128, 
 132. Most of these are by Hill. Davies describes Fleetwood as a 
 gentleman of elegant manners, but addicted to gambling and to low 
 
136 AARON HILL 
 
 The managers are improvident as well as incompetent: 
 as a result of their failure to form plans in the summer for 
 the coming winter, the same monotonous succession of 
 tragedies appears every season, and for variety an equally 
 tiresome succession of the same old comedies — "in liquid, 
 burnings or in dry to dwell, is all the sad variety of hell." 
 They have a right to seek their profit; but in seeking it, 
 they have no right to use their patent for purposes it was 
 not originally intended for. Hill suggests an amendment 
 to the statute of Elizabeth : " A vagrant, in the plainest and 
 most rational sense of the word, is a wanderer. Not only 
 he who strolls from his place of habitation, but he also 
 who wanders out of the sphere of his understanding, is a 
 stroller. . . . How happy, therefore, would it have been for 
 the stage, had there been added to the act a clause, declar- 
 ing all such managers to be vagrants and liable to the 
 merited correction, who, without the pretensions of genius 
 or judgment, should presume to stroll into dramatical 
 regions, and impudently assume the direction of a province 
 wherein they have never been naturalized." 
 
 What constructive criticism did the Prompter offer for 
 the whole deplorable situation ? Hill is sometimes inclined 
 to find the true root of decay in the players' gross ignor- 
 ance of their art, and in the Town's indulgence towards 
 both vicious plays and bad acting; and as one remedy, he 
 suggests a subscription for a new theatre. The best ac- 
 count of this scheme is found, not in the Prompter, but in 
 a letter to Thomson (September 5, 1735) : no experiment 
 can be made in the old theatres, under their present man- 
 agement; Hill would like to hazard a trial in a new, with 
 the support of some "untaxed encouragers, " and establish 
 
 company; lie made fair promises and broke them; bailiffs were often 
 in possession of his theatre towards the close of his managership 
 (Life of GarricTc, I, 60-61). 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 137 
 
 a "tragic academy for extending and regulating theatrical 
 diversions, and for instructing and educating actors in the 
 practise of the dramatic passions." If the Prince could 
 only be engaged to put his name at the head of a list of 
 those willing to countenance the undertaking! But the 
 Prince could not. 69 
 
 Other efforts were being made to reform the theatre. A 
 bill for restraining the number and abuses of the play- 
 houses was introduced by Sir John Barnard in the House 
 of Commons, March 5, 1735, only to be withdrawn after 
 much discussion on April 30. The immediate occasion of 
 the measure was the outcry raised by the projection of a 
 new theatre in St. Martin's le Grand. A pamphlet 70 that 
 came out in support of the bill argued that any increase in 
 the number of theatres — especially in a district full of 
 apprentices — was dangerous, for apprentices were not im- 
 proved by seeing how ancient heroes made love, or men of 
 rank plotted against the virtue of the daughters and wives 
 of citizens; and in the entertainments they saw something 
 ten times more immoral. But Hill mentions, as a report that 
 meets credit among thinking men, that the announcement 
 of this new theatre was merely a strategem of one of the 
 patentees to incense the magistrates, and pave the way for 
 the establishment of "his throne (and that of his brother 
 monarch) in the empire of nonsense, by a Parliamentary 
 exclusion of all other pretenders." ^Regulation of some 
 sort, he agrees, is necessary, for it is useless to hope for a 
 change in the taste or an enlargement of the understanding 
 or the morality of the managers. But why merely restrain 
 the number of corrupt and ridiculous theatres ? Why not 
 remodel and correct the abuses of the old? Put the direc- 
 tion in qualified hands, under regulation, not restraint; 
 
 69 Works, II, 126. Hill refers again to the plan as one that had to 
 be given up, in a letter to Thomson of May 20, 1736, Worls, I, 233. 
 ™ A Seasonable Examination, etc., 1735. 
 
138 AARON HILL 
 
 and do not allow any patentee to suppose he deserves a 
 monopoly to the exclusion of better capacities. One clause 
 in the bill provided that no person should act, represent, 
 or perform, any tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, or 
 other entertainment for gain, hire, or reward, except the 
 holders of patents or their deputies; and of this the 
 Prompter says, "There is no possibility the stage should 
 aver subsist in this kingdom if authors and actors are sub- 
 jected without control to the caprice or ignorance of any 
 men who may hereafter look upon a patent only as a 
 proper security upon which to lay out their money." 
 
 After the suspension of the bill, the Prompter felt at 
 liberty to speak freely, without disrespect to Parliament. 
 This was Hill's plan: to deprive the present "licentious 
 and licensed incumbents" of a power they were not worthy 
 of, and then institute an inquiry to discover how it might 
 be placed in abler hands. "When such blunder-headed 
 undertakers as these cry out to the public authority to 
 protect their incapacities from the correction of better 
 examples, I can consider it in no other light than as one 
 of the silliest of all those impudent farces, which have been 
 acted by, for, or under them." Rich had tried to prove 
 his actors rogues several years before ; a fool at the head of 
 rogues was dangerous and absurd. As for the Act of 
 Elizabeth invoked for that purpose, it was directed only 
 against the abuse of the players' art. The stage is corrupt ; 
 will it be reformed by giving to those who have corrupted 
 it already the power to corrupt it further? Permit free 
 competition, cries Hill. If theatres are allowed to mul- 
 tiply, the wisest among the managers will surely silence the 
 silliest. "Prohibit the acting any farce, harlequinery, 
 buffoonery," or other dancing, singing, dumb, or deserving- 
 to-be-dumb entertainment, or anything beyond plain 
 tragedy or comedy, except only in the royal and licensed 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 139 
 
 theatres." This would leave their Delilahs to the present 
 Samsons of the stage, and bestow on their rivals only what 
 they have parted with already. The Town would be 
 pleased — the gay and fashionable might meet at the "sign 
 of the License," and the wise and serious could go else- 
 where. Either the new theatres would die for want of en- 
 couragement, or their success would be due to the merits 
 of the play and the actors; and in that case would react 
 favorably on the patentees, and shame them out of their 
 corruption and ignorance. 71 
 
 The Prompter finally came to a close in July, 1736, less 
 than a year before the passage of the Licensing Act. Hill 
 had noted with approval Fielding's productions at the 
 Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and had pointed out that 
 while the patent houses were competing in spectacle and 
 dumb-show, a " gentleman, under the disadvantages of a 
 very bad house, with scarce an actor, and at very little 
 expense, by the single power of satire, wit, and common 
 sense, has been able to run a play for 24 nights, which is 
 now but beginning to rise in the opinion of the town." 
 Pasquin actually had a run of fifty nights, and was suc- 
 ceeded by the Historical Register, another keen satire on 
 Walpole. Fielding's satire did not bring about the Licens- 
 ing Act; a contributing cause was certainly the jealousy 
 felt by the patentees for the success of the unlicensed 
 theatres ; but it was perhaps the last straw. When a play 
 called The Golden Bump, containing a still more violent 
 attack on the Government, came into Walpole 's hands, the 
 ministry made up its mind. 7 - A bill similar to Sir John 
 
 7i See nos. 53 and 54. For other papers on. the question of manage- 
 ment, see nos. 38', 42, 45, 117. 
 
 72 This play was sent to Giffard, perhaps to entrap him; but he was 
 wary and sent it to Walpole. As a reward, he was suffered to keep 
 Goodman's Fields open under one pretext or another for a time. 
 Hill noted in No. 23 of the Prompter that the stage would soon have 
 
140 AARON HILL 
 
 Barnard's was prepared and hurried through Parliament 
 (June 21, 1737) : no performance not sanctioned by a 
 patent from the Crown or a license from the Lord Chamber- 
 lain could be presented, and the play must be put into the 
 Lord Chamberlain's hands a fortnight before representa- 
 tion. The immediate results were the closing of the Hay- 
 market and Goodman's Fields, and the prohibition of 
 Thomson's Edward and Eleanora and Brooks's Gustavus 
 Vasa. 
 
 The monopoly of the legitimate drama, thus established, 
 held its own almost unchallenged for fifty years. Then fol- 
 lowed years of struggle against it, with many interesting 
 phases, until the bill of 1737 was finally repealed in 1843. 
 Though tragedy and comedy were confined to the patent 
 theatres, small houses, running under licenses of one sort 
 or another, produced burlettas, farces, and musical enter- 
 tainments of all kinds; and continued to increase in the 
 face of patent opposition and in spite of many vicissitudes. 
 In 1787, "it clearly appeared that the predictions of Aaron 
 Hill over half a century before had come to pass, namely, 
 that a monopoly of the legitimate drama must ultimately 
 lead to a lowering in tone of theatrical performances." 73 
 From 1787 to 1810, many unsuccessful efforts were made 
 
 to act political satire or nothing, and he quoted a bill, distributed by 
 Punch and Harlequin at a masquerade: "On Thursday^ by the Nor- 
 folk Company of artificial Comedians,, at Eobin's great Theatrical 
 Booth in Palace-Yard, will be presented a comical and diverting Play 
 of Seven Acts, called Court and Country; in which will be revived the 
 entertaining Scene of Two Blundering Brothers, with the Cheats of 
 Babbi Eobin, Prime Minister of King Solomon; the whole concluding 
 with a great Masque, called, The Downfall of Sejanus, or, The 
 Statesman's Overthrow, with Axes, Gibbets, and other Decorations 
 proper to the Play." Whether this particular bill was ever printed 
 or not, it is a good illustration of the lengths to which attacks on 
 Walpole were carried. 
 
 73 Nicholson, Struggle for a Free Stage, etc., 121. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 141 
 
 to establish a third patent theatre, for the production of 
 national drama. The older houses had been so enlarged 
 that plays could not be heard by many of the spectators, 
 and as a result, spectacle, show, and melodrama usurped 
 their stages. Dramatists, who could seldom get their plays 
 produced, joined forces, in the closing period of the 
 struggle, with the minor theatres, and at last won the 
 victory. "Had the wise counsel of the editor of the 
 Prompter been followed in 1735, to restrict the minors to 
 the legitimate drama, the false position which the patent 
 houses had been forced to assume for the last fifty years 
 of their existence would have been reversed, and, though 
 the monopoly was sure to fall sooner or later, the patentees 
 might have enjoyed the last years of their 'exclusive privi- 
 leges' in some degree of comfort." 74 
 
 For the academical theatre of which Hill dreamed in 
 1733, he had ready his adaptation of Voltaire's ZaJire, 
 which had been recently produced with great success in 
 Paris. Hill was so "strongly delighted" 75 with the play 
 that he lost no time in making a translation ; one scene was 
 printed in the Gentleman's Magazine in May, 1733, and 
 the public was told how Rich had refused the tragedy. 76 
 Highmore accepted it in the fall, but delayed the produc- 
 tion from month to month until his season was over. Hill 
 had intended to give the profits to William Bond, an old 
 friend of his, whose acquaintance was "too large for his 
 fortune"; 77 but two years' solicitation of the managers had 
 no result. At length, in June, 1735, Hill's nephew hired 
 Sir Richard Steele's great Music-room in Villars Street, 
 York Buildings, for an amateur performance, in which he 
 took the role of Osman and Bond that of Lusignan. 78 
 
 74 Struggle for a Free Stage, 418. 
 
 75 Letter to Pope, November 7, 1733, Works, I, 177. 
 
 76 Gent. Mag., April, 1733. 
 
 77 Letter to Pope, November 7, 1733, WorTcs, I, 177. 
 
 78 See Prompter, no. 60. 
 
142 AARON HILL 
 
 "The reputation of the author," says Davies, "brought 
 some of the best company in London to this diminutive 
 theatre." 79 On the first night, Bond, old and feeble as 
 the character he was supposed to represent, fainted in 
 earnest in the scene where Lusignan blesses his children, 
 and died a few hours afterwards. In spite of this tragedy, 
 there were two more performances, so successful that the 
 Drury-Lane management at last saw fit to bring Zara out 
 in the following January. 80 
 
 The result was, comparatively speaking, a triumph, for 
 the play had an uninterrupted run of fourteen nights. 
 Much of the success was due to the acting of one of Hill 's 
 pupils in dramatic art — Susanna Maria Cibber, 81 who had 
 never before appeared in tragedy. Hill had taken infinite 
 pains to instruct her in every look and gesture, and to mark 
 every accent and emphasis in her part. "Her great excel- 
 lence," according to Davies, "consisted in that simplicity 
 which needed no ornament; in that sensibility which de- 
 spised all art ; there was in her person little or no elegance ; 
 in her countenance a small share of beauty; but . . . the 
 harmony of her voice was as powerful as the animation of 
 her look. In grief and tenderness her eyes looked as if 
 they swam in tears ; in rage and despair, they seemed to dart 
 flashes of fire. In spite of the unimportance of her figure, 
 she maintained a dignity in her action, and a grace in her 
 step." 82 Unfortunately, Hill's delight in the deserved ap- 
 plause of this pupil was "damped by the unhappy failure 
 of his nephew in Osman; the young gentleman's figure and 
 voice were by no means disagreeable ; but a certain stiffness 
 in action and too labored and emphatical an emphasis in 
 
 ™ Life of Garrick, I, ch. 13. 
 so January 12. 
 
 si She was the daughter of the musician Arne, and the wife of 
 Theophilus Cibber. 
 
 82 Life of Garrick, II, 109. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 143 
 
 speaking, disgusted the critics, who too severely corrected 
 a young performer, whom, on the first night of his acting, 
 they cruelly exploded." 83 Young Hill retired from the 
 stage after that evening. 
 
 Voltaire was "too generous to disclaim" his Zaire, 
 "though naturalized in England." 84 Through his friend 
 Thieriot, he signified to Hill his pleasure at the success of 
 the English performance; and in the Dedicatory Epistle 
 prefixed to the second edition (1736) of the tragedy, he 
 referred in flattering terms to the translation and to the 
 translator — "M. Hill, homme de lettres, qui parait con- 
 naitre le theatre mieux qu'aucun auteur anglais." 85 He 
 praised Hill especially for abandoning a long-established 
 custom of English playwrights — that of concluding each 
 act with a rhymed couplet or two, containing a comparison. 
 This statement contained several slight inaccuracies, which 
 Lessing took pleasure in pointing out later. 86 But the 
 
 83 Davies, Life of Garrick, I, ch. 13. 
 
 s* Hill to Voltaire, June 3, 1736, Works, I, 241. 
 
 85 Voltaire makes one little criticism of Hill 's translation. Although 
 Hill has, he says, generally reproduced the decorum of the French 
 play in the expression of love, he has yielded to old custom in one or 
 two places: — when Osman tells Zaire that he no longer loves her, she 
 weeps, and Osman exclaims, ' ' Zaire, vous pleurez ! ' ' The translator, 
 not content with this simplicity, makes Zara grovel at the sultan's 
 feet, but does not change the Sultan's exclamation; the sultan ought 
 to have said, remarks Voltaire, ' ' Zaire, vous vous roulez par terre ! ' ' 
 
 86 Hamburgische Dramaturgic, XV, June 19, 1767. Lessing points 
 out that rhymed couplets, by no means always containing a compari- 
 son, are common in English plays from Shakespeare on, at the end of 
 act or scene; but they are not invariably found before Hill's day, nor 
 did they disappear as a result of his influence — a statement made by 
 Voltaire; and in Zara itself, Hill ends several acts with couplets, 
 though not with a comparison. As Lessing says, ' ' Es sind nicht mehr 
 als nur drei Unwahrheiten in dieser Stelle ; und das ist fiir den Herren 
 von Voltaire eben nicht viel. " In Appendix I of L. Morel's Thom- 
 son the whole matter is discussed and an attempt made to support 
 Voltaire. 
 
144 AARON HILL 
 
 praise of Hill's translation as accurate is on the whole 
 deserved. He follows the French text closely, merely 
 warming a few speeches with his own poetic fire, and 
 softening the character of Osman by many touches of 
 gallantry. 87 
 
 Voltaire did not think it necessary to mention what Hill 
 was careful to point out in the Prompter (114), — that in 
 this play Voltaire had ' ' been nobly warming himself at the 
 fire of our English Othello." At this time the English 
 were disposed to be rather pleased and nattered than other- 
 wise by such evidence of French appreciation of Shake- 
 speare. The play is based on the conflict between religion 
 and love in the breast of Zara, a maiden of Christian 
 parentage, who has been a captive from infancy in the 
 hands of the Saracens. She is passionately in love with 
 the generous young Sultan and he with her, and they are 
 about to be married, when she discovers in the noble captive 
 general, Lusignan, her own father, and in young Nerestan, 
 just returned from France with a ransom for the Chris- 
 tians, her brother. The joy of this recognition is followed 
 by general dismay, when the father and brother find that 
 Zara is herself a Mohammedan and about to become the 
 bride of the Sultan ; they beg her to adopt the religion of 
 her ancestors and give up her love. Meanwhile, the 
 Sultan's jealousy is aroused by her troubled manner and 
 
 « 7 Cf . ' ' Lorsque les Sarrasins, de carnage f umants, 
 
 Kevinrent 1 'arracher a nies bras tout sanglants ' ' 
 and Hill's 
 
 "When from my bleeding arms fierce Saracens 
 Forced the lost innocent, who smiling lay 
 And pointed playful at the swarthy spoilers. ' ' 
 Hill's sultan says gallantly: 
 
 "For Zara — but to name her as a captive 
 Were to dishonor language" 
 a touch all Hill's own. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 145 
 
 her interviews with Nerestan, whom he does not know to be 
 her brother; he discovers a secret meeting between them, 
 rashly stabs Zara, then learns the truth from Nerestan, and 
 kills himself in despair, after bidding the survivors to make 
 known his unhappy story. The resemblance to Othello — 
 in the unfounded jealousy of the Sultan, his reliance upon 
 a confidant (much less interesting than Iago), his murder 
 of the woman he loves, his remorse, and suicide — is very 
 obvious. In the death of old Lusignan, from joy at his 
 release and at the discovery of his long-lost children, there 
 is, as Professor Lounsbury has pointed out, a reminiscence 
 of Lear. 8S This play is usually considered to be the best 
 of Hill 's attempts ; it continued to be acted at intervals for 
 many years, and was republished in a number of editions. 
 
 Alzire was produced at Paris in January, 1736; and 
 when Hill wrote to Voltaire in June, he had the pleasure 
 of assuring him that the task of translating and producing 
 it in England was nearly complete. His bookseller had 
 sent him the French play about three weeks before ; he had 
 lost no time in adapting it for representation; and the 
 actors were already perfect in their parts. Haste, he ex- 
 plained to Voltaire, had been necessary — ''to protect you 
 from a winter storm of mercenary pens, that, tempted by 
 your Zaire's success, were threatening to disjoint Alzira." 89 
 It was acted on June 18, 1736, at Lincoln 's-Inn-Fields, and 
 had a run of nine nights. The Prince of "Wales honored 
 Alzira with such "warm and weighty" applause that Hill 
 was encouraged to dedicate it to him. 
 
 The prologue breathes an air of generous patronage of 
 France : 
 
 " Rich Britain borrows, but with generous end ; 
 Whate'er she takes from France, she takes to mend." 
 
 88 Shakespeare and Voltaire, 78-80. Voltaire's indebtedness is there 
 analyzed in detail. 
 
 89 Worls, I, 241. 
 11 
 
146 AARON HILL 
 
 And the Prompter, a few weeks before, had taken even 
 Voltaire 's private character under its protection : " I have 
 heard a thousand petty falsehoods in disadvantage of this 
 gentleman's private character, not one of which I have 
 been able to believe, since first I read his writings. And 
 yet, admitting these things truths, they ought to weigh but 
 light against those virtues which his works have taught the 
 public." 90 This particular work Voltaire had written to 
 show how the true spirit of religion overcomes the natural 
 virtues — a laudable endeavor that quite deserved the 
 Prompter's commendations The scene is laid in Peru. 
 Don Alvarez, a model of all the Christian virtues, and a 
 marvel in the eyes of the Indians who have learned to 
 expect only cruelty from Christians, delegates his power to 
 his son, Don Carlos, who loves Alzira, daughter of the 
 conquered Indian king. Believing her Indian lover dead, 
 and pressed by Alvarez and by her father, she marries 
 Carlos. Then the lover, Zamor, returns with a band of 
 followers, makes a desperate assault upon the city, and is 
 defeated and captured. Of course, there are moving scenes 
 of despair between Alzira and her lover. At length Zamor 
 attacks Carlos (behind the scenes), wounds him mortally, 
 and is condemned, together with Alzira, to death — unless 
 he will turn Christian. He refuses with scorn. Then 
 Carlos, who in the rather slow process of dying from his 
 wound has grown as mild as his father, is brought in, for- 
 gives his slayer, and expires ; and Zamor, astonished at the 
 change wrought in his enemy by Christian principle, is 
 promptly converted, and allowed to marry Alzira. 
 
 "A moderate tragedy," is Genest's verdict. Voltaire 
 did better when he snatched a brand from Othello. 91 Hill 
 translates rather more freely than in the earlier play, and 
 
 so No. 159, May 14, 1736. 
 
 91 As Colley Cibber expressed it in the prologue he wrote for Zara. 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 147 
 
 breaks up some of the long speeches of declamation; and 
 he improves upon Voltaire by making the altars tremble 
 at the marriage of Carlos, and Heaven draw back. Carlos, 
 too, is more gallant than Voltaire's Gusman. Once or 
 twice, there is unexpected music in Hill 's blank verse : 
 
 " And I have lived to see my father's throne 
 
 O'erturned, and all things changed in earth and heaven." (Ill) 
 " My taste of time is gone; and life to me 
 
 Is but an evening's walk, in rain and darkness." (V) 
 
 The kind regard, which, up to this time, Hill had felt 
 for Voltaire and his work, now suffered a change. Hill, 
 anticipating Mommsen, had what Davies calls "an un- 
 common predilection" for the character of Caesar; 92 it 
 amounted, in fact, to an obsession. He believed that Caesar 
 was wronged in the popular estimation: no error was 
 more general or less excusable than that he was a tyrant; 
 he was the noblest patriot of antiquity, and died a martyr 
 to the public liberty he was accused of violating. 93 When, 
 therefore, Voltaire chose to write a tragedy on Caesar, 
 exalting the character of Brutus, Hill promptly took fire. 
 But Voltaire did much worse — he slandered not only 
 Caesar, but the taste of the English nation. Having found 
 it impossible to translate for the delicate French taste all 
 of Shakespeare's "monstrueux ouvrage" on the subject, he 
 had written La Mort de Cesar "dans le gout anglais," to 
 make France acquainted with the English muse. It was a 
 tragedy without love, without even any female characters ; 
 and it exalted the love o>f liberty above all other passions. 
 In these respects, it displayed "le genie et le caractere des 
 ecrivains anglais, aussi bien que celui du peuple romain. ' ' 94 
 
 92 Life of Garrick, I, ch. 13. 
 
 93 See Hill's pamphlet, The Merit of Assassination (1738). This 
 defense of Caesar — quite readable on the whole — sets forth Hill's 
 interpretation of Caesar's career. 
 
 s* Preface to La Mort de Cesar, 1736. 
 
148 AARON HILL 
 
 Brutus, the stern patriot, learns that he is the son of Caesar, 
 but he allows no small consideration like that to alter his 
 determination to slay the tyrant of his country. Voltaire 
 thus represented, as Hill said, "as an example of national 
 virtue, an inhuman and bloody enthusiast, who, having 
 plotted to assassinate his benefactor, under suspicion or 
 appearance of tyranny, persists in and executes the murder, 
 even after discovering that it is upon the person of his 
 father ! ' ' 95 He must have a mistaken idea that our country 
 likes butchery!' 
 
 To refute these slanders upon England and Caesar, Hill 
 wrote a play of his own in 1737, retaining the tale of 
 Brutus 's parentage, but so contriving the plot that Brutus 
 is led to disbelieve the story. The place which England 
 would never refuse to women in tragedy is taken by 
 Calphurnia and Portia, who interfere in state affairs in a 
 most annoying manner. It is very curious that both Hill 
 and Voltaire were devotedly attached to their plays on 
 Caesar — an attachment shared by no one else. It was not 
 until 1743 that La Mori, de Cesar had a hearing on the 
 Parisian stage, and then it was coldly received ; and as for 
 The Roman Revenge, Hill for ten years importuned friends, 
 managers, and actors in vain in its behalf. The French 
 play has one striking advantage over the English one — it 
 is very much shorter; but I shall not compare them 
 further, for no discussion could escape the infection of 
 their dullness. 96 When they met Caesar, both the in- 
 
 95 Letter to Bolingbroke, June 25, 1738, Works, I, 270. 
 
 ss Hill 's reputation for dullness is perhaps due more than anything 
 else to this play and to the interminable letters that he wrote about it. 
 The following references will furnish material to anyone desirous to 
 see how far into the domain of boredom a fixed idea can lead a man: 
 letters to Pope, July 31, August 29, September 3, November 8, Decem- 
 ber 9, 1738 (Works, I, 291, 295, 301, 308, 320), and January 15, 1739 
 (I, 328) ; to Bolingbroke, June 25 and July 21, 1738 (I, 270, II, 417) ; 
 to Fleetwood, 1739 (II, 13); to Mallet, December 9, 1738 (I, 323); 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 149 
 
 genious Mr. Hill and the brilliant M. Voltaire went down 
 to defeat. 
 
 Hill's resentment of Voltaire's imputations as to the 
 English taste in tragedy was shared by many of his 
 countrymen, who presently began to depreciate Voltaire, 
 and to taunt him with his Shakespearean plagiarisms. 
 Their irritation was greatly increased by some remarks 
 which he prefixed to his Merope, published in 1744. After 
 mentioning the introduction of a love episode into a play 
 on the same subject produced in London in 1731, 97 he goes 
 on: "depuis le regne de Charles II, l'amour s'etait empare 
 du theatre d 'Angleterre ; et il f aut avouer qu 'il n 'y a point 
 de nation au monde qui ait peint si mal cette passion. . . . 
 II semble que la meme cause qui prive les Anglais du genie 
 de la peinture et de la musique, leur ote aussi celui de la 
 tragedie." 88 Here was matter enough for wrath, and it 
 forced more people than Hill into an "abatement of the 
 disposition" they once had felt "to look upon him as a 
 generous thinker." 
 
 Hill commenced reprisals by translating Merope, "upon 
 a plan as near Voltaire's as I could wring it with a safe 
 conscience." "I undertook this piece," he tells Mallet," 
 ' ' upon a motive more malignant than it should have been ; 
 for I but sought to mend with the bad view to mortify 
 
 to Popple, September 15, October 24, 1740 (II, 67, 71) ; to Eieh, 
 November 4, 1742, and two undated letters (II, 3, 43, 49) ; to G-arrick, 
 c. 1749 (II, 154) and June 30, 1746 (II, 244). He begs Garrick to 
 act Caesar — it will show his weight ! ' ' Caesar had more than all the 
 weight of Cato, ' ' — a most true observation. He also wrote to Eichard- 
 son about it— Forster MSS., July 21, 1746. 
 
 97 This was the Merope of George Jeffreys. See Miscellanies in 
 verse and prose, by George Jeffreys, London, 1754. Hill wrote the 
 prologue and epilogue. It is a pretty bad play. 
 
 9 8 Dedication to " M. le Marquis Scipion Maffei, auteur de la Merope 
 Italienne," upon which Voltaire founded his play. 
 
 99 September 29, 1748. Works, II, 345. 
 
150 AARON HILL 
 
 him." The play tells the story of Merope, widow of 
 Cresphontes, king of Messene, murdered years before by the 
 general Polyphontes. When the play opens, this general 
 is trying to force the queen into a marriage with him, to 
 secure his own power more effectively; but she hopes for 
 the coming of the one son who had escaped the general 
 massacre, and had been raised in safety and in ignorance 
 of his birth by a faithful friend. This youth, upon his 
 arrival in Messene, alone and unrecognized, is arrested for 
 the murder of a man who had attacked him upon the road. 
 Merope 's fear that the dead man may have been her son is 
 apparently confirmed by several suspicious circumstances, 
 and she is about to sacrifice her own son in the supposed 
 murderer, when the guardian opportunely arrives and re- 
 veals the truth. There is still danger from Polyphontes, 
 but he is outwitted and slain at the sacrificial altar by the 
 prince. 
 
 Of the changes introduced by Hill, a few may be men- 
 tioned: Voltaire's Polyphontes is the tyrant dictating 
 terms — Hill's Polyphontes talks of love and addresses the 
 Queen as his sister and his soul; Hill introduces some 
 description of the Arcadian simplicity in which the prince 
 was reared; Hill embellishes the account of the prince's 
 prayer in the temple (II, 2) with trembling altars and 
 glories beaming around; and he brings into the scene, 
 where Merope attempts to sacrifice her son, a funeral song 
 and a procession of virgins in white. There are other re- 
 spects in which Hill differs from Voltaire, sometimes for 
 the better, sometimes for the worse. 
 
 His translation was finished in 1745 ; 100 but not until 
 
 ioo Letter to Theo. Cibber, September 27, 1745, WorTcs, II, 307. 
 Gibber was in jail for debt at the time, and Hill offered Merope for 
 his relief. See A serio-comic Apology for part of the Life of Mr. 
 Theophilus Cibber, etc., 97-98 (1748), where Cibber acknowledges 
 Hill 's generosity. Hill 's Insolvent, based on Massinger 's Fatal Dowry 
 
HILL AND THE STAGE 151 
 
 April 15, 1749, after many delays and many letters, did 
 Garrick finally produce it at Drury-Lane. 101 It had nine 
 performances. In the Advertisement to the edition printed 
 in the same year, Hill quoted Voltaire's remarks about the 
 incapacity of the English for tragedy, music, and painting, 
 and then carried the war into France: "he must pardon 
 me, if I am sensible that our unpolished London stage . . . 
 has entertained a nobler taste of dignified simplicity than 
 to deprive dramatic poetry of all that animates its passions, 
 in pursuit of a cold, starved, tame abstinence ; which, from 
 an affectation to shun figure, sinks to flatness ; an elaborate 
 escape from energy into a grovelling, wearisome, bald, 
 barren, unalarming, ehillness of expression, that emascu- 
 lates the mind instead of moving it." This was a kind of 
 "hostile style," as Hill admits, not only towards Voltaire, 
 but towards French tragedy generally; and it illustrates 
 the methods that were coming to be adopted by English 
 writers, who defended Shakespeare by attacking Corneille 
 and Racine. Hill concludes by announcing his intention 
 shortly to publish a comparison between the French and 
 English stages, which will convince Voltaire himself that 
 we have better actors and finer writers. And with this 
 flourish of trumpets, Hill's dramatic activity came to an 
 end. 
 
 From the extent and variety of all these theatrical in- 
 terests that have been related, one might expect to find 
 
 and written at Cibber's request, but not acted, is the subject of some 
 correspondence between them about April, 1746 (Works, II, 312 f.). 
 
 ioi See Forster MS., Hill to Eichardson, January 11, 1749, and 
 Richardson to Hill, January 12; Hill to Garrick, January 20, March 
 29, July 11, and August 28, 1749 (Works, II, 368, 370, 375, 387) ; to 
 Mallet, January 12, 1749 (II, 352) ; to the actor who took the part of 
 Polyphontes, April 7 and 8, 1749 (II, 147 f.). Hill received 148 1. 
 from three nights' benefit of the play (Hill to Mallet, May 5, 1749, 
 Works, II, 361). 
 
152 AARON HILL 
 
 Hill's friends chiefly among actors, managers, and play- 
 wrights. But Hill was more than projector, more than 
 general theatrical expert ; he was also critic, essayist, letter- 
 writer, and poet in many kinds, — epic, pindaric, amatory, 
 satiric. Workers in any field of literary endeavor were 
 likely to meet Mr. Hill there. Those literary connections 
 not already treated will be taken up in the succeeding 
 chapters, approximately in chronological order: first, the 
 friendship with Thomson and a group of minor poets 
 about 1725; then, that with Pope; and finally, that with 
 Richardson. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HILL AND HIS CIECLE ABOUT 1725 
 
 From about 1720 to 1728, Hill was a more prominent 
 figure among contemporary writers than at any subse- 
 quent time. The general situation in the literary world 
 and the state of his private affairs were both favorable. 
 The deaths of Addison, Prior, and Eowe, the absence of 
 Swift from England, the preoccupation of Pope with his 
 work of translation, made it comparatively easy for a minor 
 author to assume a position of some consequence. Then, 
 these were the lean years between generous patronage of 
 men of letters by the State, and their support by the read- 
 ing public. The first two Georges were notoriously in- 
 different to literature ; and "Walpole, who came to power in 
 1721, was so much the "poet's foe," in Swift's phrase, 1 
 that by 1732 or 1733 most of these poets were in the ranks 
 of the Opposition with Bolingbroke, employing every 
 weapon of dramatic and personal satire against Walpole. 
 Only more or less disreputable hack writers, like Henley 
 ("Orator Henley"), Arnall, and Joseph Mitchell, were 
 engaged to support the ministry. In neglect of poets, the 
 nobility, with few exceptions, followed the example of the 
 court. Thomson, in a letter to Mallet of September 20, 
 1729, points out the difficulty of securing subscriptions, 
 inveighs bitterly against ' ' some of our modern Goths ' ' who 
 have agreed among themselves to encourage no subscrip- 
 tions whatever, under a penalty, and ends by damning 
 "their corruption, their low taste, and all their stupid 
 
 i Epistle to Mr. Gay, 1731. 
 
 153 
 
154 AARON HILL 
 
 expense." 2 It was a "fashionable expedient," according 
 to Hill, to return the "dedicator's Gilt Book, with this 
 short apology for not accepting it, — my Lord gives his 
 service, and says he does not understand these matters"; 
 probably they think themselves "under no obligation to 
 pay for compliments which their conscience tells them they 
 have no right to. ' ' 3 
 
 For any writer, himself independent of patronage, there 
 was thus ample opportunity of generous service to less 
 fortunate brothers. Hill was relatively independent, and 
 he was for the moment unoccupied. His projecting fever 
 was temporarily checked by the general discredit that over- 
 took "bubbles" after the South Sea disaster; his latest 
 scheme to run a theatrical company had ended in disap- 
 pointment; the failure of Henry V had made him very 
 pessimistic in regard to the stage; he had not yet caught 
 sight of those Golden Groves that called him from London 
 in 1726 ; and he was probably easier financially than he 
 ever was after the York Buildings Company fiasco. In 
 brief, he had a short interval of comparative leisure for the 
 exercise of his pen and his benevolence. 
 
 The position of influence, thus made possible by the 
 state of literature and of his own affairs, became an ac- 
 complished fact with the success of the Plain Dealer. This 
 periodical, and Savage's Miscellany, which might more ap- 
 propriately have appeared under Hill's name, will serve as 
 convenient foci for the discussion of Hill's literary rela- 
 tionships. An examination of the first will show how it 
 served the interests of struggling writers, and gave Hill a 
 certain status as a wit and a man of influence ; and a discus- 
 sion of the second will bring out further developments of 
 the friendships indicated in the Plain Dealer, and will dis- 
 
 ~ Philobiblon Society Miscellanies, vol. IV. 
 3 Plain Dealer, no. 73. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 155 
 
 play Hill as the leading spirit in the little circle of poets 
 and versifiers who figure in its pages. One poet, James 
 Thomson, who appears in the Plain Dealer, but not in the 
 Miscellany, was as closely identified with the group about 
 Hill as Mallet or Savage ; but as the story of his friendship 
 with Hill is told chiefly in their correspondence, it will be 
 best to consider it separately. Thomson 's genius has, after 
 all, lifted him out of this group of his contemporaries, and 
 given him the right to separate mention. 
 
 Hill's brief connection with the British Apollo in 1708 
 had not been followed up by active interest in any of the 
 periodicals and newspapers that multiplied with bewilder- 
 ing rapidity after the success of the Tatler. The mortality 
 among them was great: some, like Addison's Whig Ex- 
 aminer, did not survive beyond a few numbers, but new 
 ones sprang up immediately in their places. Aside from 
 the papers that confined themselves to news items and 
 advertisements of books and drugs, 4 most of these journals 
 were frankly political. This is not surprising, in view of 
 the stirring events of the years from 1710 to 1725, — the 
 ministry of Harley and Bolingbroke, the treaty with 
 France, the accession of the Hanover line, the impeachment 
 of the fallen ministers, the Jacobite rebellion, the dissen- 
 sions among the Whig leaders, the South Sea panic, and 
 the Atterbury conspiracy. Before 1715, the Examiner, 
 the Review, the Mercator, the Guardian, the Englishman, 
 engaged the talents of Swift, Defoe, Addison, Steele, and 
 other writers of importance. From that time until, in 
 1727, Bolingbroke became identified with the Craftsman, 
 the political papers are dreary reading, — dulness, scandal, 
 invective, indecency, and bigotry, unrelieved by talent. 
 Occasionally, periodicals appeared with other than political 
 aims : Theobald 's Censor, for instance, with some essays of 
 
 * The Post-Boy is an example. 
 
156 AAEON HILL 
 
 interest and merit; the Doctor, offering instruction in 
 manners and morals; the Instructor, which abandoned the 
 attempt to reform mankind after six numbers; the Free- 
 Thinker, edited by Ambrose Phillips and others. Of these 
 only the last can bear comparison with Hill's paper, and it 
 had ceased before the appearance of the first number of the 
 Plain Dealer. In 1724-5, Hill had to himself the field of 
 the periodical of miscellaneous essays after the Spectator 
 pattern, and he produced one of the very few readable col- 
 lections between the Spectator and the Rambler. 
 
 Characteristically, he undertook the Plain Dealer, with 
 William Bond, as a charitable enterprise — "for the ad- 
 vantage of an unhappy gentleman (an old officer in the 
 army)." 5 It came out twice a week, from March 23, 1724, 
 to May 7, 1725, and was designed not only to entertain, but 
 to advance learning, virtue, and politeness. Bond, in 
 dedicating the second edition (1734) to Lord Hervey, his 
 relative, refers mysteriously to the genius concerned with 
 him in the undertaking, whose name he is not at liberty to 
 reveal; and he devotes most of the dedication to extrava- 
 gant praise of the unknown and to nauseous flattery of 
 Hervey. As an essayist, the genius bears comparison with 
 Addison: "He is everywhere remarkable for the same 
 propriety, both as to words and thoughts; he is as refined, 
 polite, easy, and genteel a writer, as graceful and familiar, 
 as sublime and as facetious, as sharp and as sprightly, as 
 smooth and as strong, as pathetic and concise at times, and 
 yet, at times, as copious too and as fluent, as learned and 
 sententious, in fine as full of all kinds of seasonings and 
 ornaments" as the subjects require. He thus combines in 
 himself all the desirable (and contradictory) qualities of 
 all the essayists who ever wrote. 
 
 A eulogy less comprehensive would be more useful as a 
 
 5 Cibber's Lives, V, 264. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 157 
 
 guide to the authorship of the separate papers. According 
 to the traditional witticism ascribed to Savage, Hill and 
 Bond wrote by turns six numbers, and the quality of the 
 production was observed so regularly to rise during Hill's 
 weeks and fall during Bond's that Savage nicknamed them 
 "the contending powers of light and darkness." 6 Un- 
 fortunately, this easy solution of the question of authorship 
 does not stand examination. Perhaps the first twenty-four 
 numbers were enough to inspire Savage's remark: in the 
 first group of six nothing suggests Hill ; in the second, three 
 are in his style ; in the third, none ; in the fourth, at least 
 two are unquestionably his. But from there on, difficulties 
 increase: Nos. 25-30 should be Bond's, but three are cer- 
 tainly Hill's; and so it goes through the rest of the one 
 hundred and seventeen papers. Fairly reliable evidence 
 of authorship lies in autobiographical references; in an 
 exclamatory style full of "bold experiments in language"; 7 
 in sentiments typical of Hill on projects, or the stage, or 
 Caesar ; in quotations from his poems ; and in praise of the 
 work of his friends. By these tests, fully one-half fall to 
 his share. Other collaborators have been suggested, — 
 Savage, in the catalogue of the Hope Collection at the 
 Bodleian, and Young, by his biographer, M. Thomas. 
 Those papers that are undoubtedly Hill's, however, are of 
 so pronounced a quality, compared with many that may or 
 may not be his, that they clearly give to the Plain Dealer 
 such individuality as it has. 
 
 A survey of the contents reveals obvious imitations of 
 the Spectator: for instance, the description of the group of 
 people (Patty Amble, Ned Volatile, Sir Portly Rufus, 
 Major Stedfast, and so on,) who figure in the first and some 
 subsequent papers ; the account of the death of Sir Portly ; 
 
 e Johnson 's Lives, ed. Gr. B. Hill, II, 341, n. 7. 
 7 Ibid., II, 340. 
 
158 AAEON HILL 
 
 a revery in Westminster Abbey; reflections upon witch- 
 craft and petty superstitions. 8 Somewhat in the Spectator 
 style are the discussions on manners and morals, — mas- 
 querades, gambling, short wigs, excessive drinking, stock- 
 jobbing, riding-habits, moustaches, and like matters. 9 There 
 are dissertations, usually illustrated by a story either too 
 obvious to be interesting or too irrelevant to be enlight- 
 ening, 10 on good-breeding and politeness, true and false 
 wit, true and false decency, patriotism, duelling, friend- 
 ship, and party spirit. 11 Sometimes correspondents (prob- 
 ably invented for the occasion) dream dreams and feel 
 unaccountably obliged to tell Mr. Plain Dealer about them ; 
 or ask his advice in their silly love difficulties. 12 There 
 are invectives against narrow and petty notions of trade 
 — there speaks the projector; against unmerited respect 
 paid to mere rank; and against ' ' double-entendre, ? ' — 
 a remonstrance that would be more effective if the Plain 
 Dealer did not himself now and then indulge in a form of 
 wit unpleasantly characteristic of the age. 13 Most of the 
 papers are neither better nor worse than second-rate imita- 
 tions of the Spectator manner; but a few are for some 
 reason or other interesting enough to deserve particular 
 mention. 
 
 No. 12, expressing vigorous disapproval of capital 
 punishment for insignificant crimes, is typical of Hill's 
 humanity. A man, he notes, is infinitely more valuable 
 than his beast or his furniture ; he cannot bear to see the 
 execution of poor wretches who perhaps stole to avoid 
 starvation. That human life is worth more than property 
 
 8 Nos. 8, 13, 19, 117; no. 79; no. 42; no. 93. 
 
 9 Nos. 2, 4, 33, 3&, 41, 112, 113. 
 
 10 For example, nos. 9 and 35. 
 ii Nos. 5, 6, 8, 11, 31, 44. 
 
 12 Nos. 26, 43, 47, 58, 78, 81. 
 
 13 Nos. 30, 85; 38; 7; 64, 76. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 159 
 
 is not yet fully recognized either in or out of the law- 
 courts; but the atrocious penal code, against which he de- 
 claims in the following paragraph, has disappeared : 
 
 " I am convinced that if it were possible to see on some such 
 plain as that of Salisbury, under one assembled prospect, the 
 whole number of men and women who have been executed for 
 theft only, in all the counties of this kingdom, within the memory 
 of any person of but a moderate advance in years, — such a 
 dreadful demonstration of the waste which is made by this sweep 
 of the sword of justice would be a startling inducement to those, 
 whose province it is known to be, to weigh with pity and delib- 
 eration, whether punishments more adequate and more politic, 
 too, than death, might not easily be appropriated to a number 
 of petty crimes, which ever were and ever must be unavoidably 
 frequent in all peopled places; being the necessary consequences 
 either of the wants or the depravity of the lowest part of the 
 human species." 14 
 
 No. 30 gives a lively picture of the opposition to inocula- 
 tion. This prejudice against a manifestly beneficial thing 
 is to Hill merely another instance of a trait of his country- 
 men which he had sad occasion to note only too often, — 
 their fixed aversion to novelty. The arguments against the 
 practice are as amusing as those of the Boyars of Russia, 
 who opposed the Czar's design of a canal betwen the Volga 
 and the Tanais on the ground of its impiety — God had not 
 made the rivers to run together. Hill is prodigal of facts 
 as well as exclamations about the effects of inoculation, and 
 he compliments Lady Mary Wortly Montagu by quoting, 
 with a very fair amount of commendation, his own poem 
 to her. 15 
 
 14 No. 80 is on a similar subject— a remonstrance against exploiting 
 crime by writing up the lives of criminals. 
 
 15 In "George Paston's" Lady Montagu and her Times, 305, this 
 paper is claimed, but without any proof, for Mary Astell; and Hill's 
 poem is assumed to be hers, though it is included in his WorTcs. A 
 mere impression scarcely justifies the ascription. 
 
160 AARON HILL 
 
 No. 69 is a paper on Woman's Rights, conceived as a 
 theme for infinite jest. Even Patty Amble herself was 
 probably amused at her own oratory: "How are we repre- 
 sented, when none of our sex are permitted to sit and vote 
 for us? Is this free government? Is this to be subject 
 to no laws but those we have first given consent to? Either 
 let us as a distinct body have a right to govern ourselves ; 
 or admit an equal number of us to sit where laws are made 
 for us. And I believe I may venture to undertake . . . that 
 we will be modest enough in that case, to content ourselves 
 with a bare negative upon all bills that concern us." It is 
 interesting to see a joke become in a couple of centuries a 
 great political problem; no bare negative will satisfy the 
 Patty Ambles of today. 16 
 
 Several papers upon love must be noticed because of this 
 interesting statement in Bond's dedication: the author 
 whose name he conceals differs from almost all of the 
 greatest wits in his treatment of love; "he writes of love 
 with as much decency as a good divine performs the most 
 solemn ceremony belonging to it, and yet expresses as 
 warmly and as naturally all the true delicacies and re- 
 jouissances of it" as any lover could wish; "every thought 
 and every expression is masterly, moving, but yet in such 
 a way as is most mannerly and modest ; a vestal may read 
 it without a blush," and yet will chastely desire to change 
 her state and feel an "honest commotion." To examine 
 the essays in question, with this frightful commendation in 
 mind, reveals nothing very startling except a comparative 
 absence of indecency in the discussion of the love affairs of 
 correspondents. Several papers are little more than ex- 
 tracts from Hill's poem, The Picture of Love, — a harm- 
 less bit of verse, written of course in an exaggerated vein 
 
 16 Fielding wrote several papers in the Champion (January and 
 May, 1740), in much the same spirit as this of Hill's. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 161 
 
 and expressing what Hill conceived to be rapture. No. 45 
 adds to the poetical rhapsody one in prose : a lover is like a 
 god! "He has the prophet's sacred privilege to be rapped 
 [sic] out of himself. . . . Lovers converse like angels, by a 
 kind of intuition! They hear one another's souls and pre- 
 vent each other's wishes. Like divinities quitting their 
 shrines, they disrobe themselves of their bodies, and inter- 
 mingle their meeting minds, as we see two lights incorporate. 
 Their souls glide out from their eyes, to snatch embraces at 
 a distance, ' ' and so on. This is absurd enough to cause an 
 honest commotion. But thoughts like the following, while 
 not remarkable, are yet rare in a period when cynical jests 
 about love were far more usual than raptures : " I am fond 
 of thinking we might draw from love a proof of the soul's 
 immortality. . . . Why else are the joys of love mixed with 
 melancholy and unsatisfied tremblings? These increase, 
 indeed, and refine the pleasure. But they convince us that 
 there is a union more adapted to our mind's free essence, 
 and which our bodies are not fine enough to permit them 
 the enjoyment of." 
 
 This somewhat lengthy survey of the Plain Dealer is justi- 
 fied, if it has suggested a reason for the paper 's success. That 
 it did win a fair degree of notice and favor is indicated by 
 its republication in 1730 and again in 1734. The editor of 
 a successful periodical could grant or withhold favors, and 
 it was characteristic of Hill to delight in granting them. 
 He encouraged the work of his friends, and he made new 
 friends by his hospitality to hitherto unknown genius. 
 
 Among the friends praised in the Plain Dealer was Ed- 
 ward Young. That Hill had been interested in Young's 
 work as far back as 1719 is proved by his MS. notes in the 
 Bodleian copy of the Paraphrase of a Part of the Book of 
 Job. These observations are not numerous : often merely a 
 star of commendation after such lines as "strikes the dis- 
 12 
 
162 AARON HILL 
 
 tant hills with transient light, ' ' or comments like ' ' absurd, ' ' 
 ' ' frightful anticlimax, " " nonsense, ' ' after such a couplet as 
 
 " The spotted plagues that marked his limbs all o'er 
 So thick with pains, they wanted room for more." 
 
 The criticisms, comparatively trifling as they are, indicate 
 to M. Thomas that Hill had grasped "le veritable interet 
 de cette nouvelle composition de notre auteur, a savoir le 
 progres sensible de la forme et parfois meme la perfection 
 du style." 17 Any testimony by a modern scholar to Hill's 
 acuteness in literary criticism is worth noting. If unac- 
 quainted at this time, the two writers may have met in 1719 
 or 1721, when Young's plays, Busiris and The Revenge, 
 were acted by Hill's friends at Drury-Lane. 
 
 Of Young's movements from 1723 to 1727 few details are 
 known, except that he was in London ; M. Thomas suggests 
 that he wrote for reviews — perhaps even for the Plain 
 Dealer: "C'est la que nous croyons retrouver la trace des 
 meditations, assez sombres desormais, de"notre auteur. En 
 effet, il y parait nombre d 'articles sur des sujets qui lui 
 tenaient a cceur." 18 He instances as probably Young's 
 work no. 32, made up of reflections on death. As the 
 meditations are such as might be inspired in any sensitive 
 mind by the transitoriness of life, and are expressed in 
 terms not beyond any writer with a gift for the obvious, 
 and as they are illustrated by one of Hill's poems, 19 it 
 seems a little unnecessary to ascribe them to Young. To 
 ask "what has become of all those busy bustlers who have 
 lived and died before us?" or to picture the body as a 
 prison for the soul, released finally by death, might occur 
 to Hill as well as to Young. And Hill might even express 
 such ideas rather well, for his style occasionally has literary 
 
 it W. Thomas, Le Poete Edward Young, 327. 
 
 is Ibid., 83. 
 
 i9 To Clelia, Works, IV, 55. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 163 
 
 flavor. This passage — one of the best in the essay — is not 
 beyond him : ' ' When we die, those we leave are a number 
 very small and inconsiderable in comparison with those we 
 go to. The Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the 
 heroic conquerors, the shining poets of antiquity, and the 
 whole assembled congress of long known and glorious char- 
 acters, who have flourished from the world's creation, are 
 to be the company to whose familiar converse Death will 
 introduce us. ' ' 20 
 
 Three other papers that suggest Young to his biographer 
 are still less likely to be his. 21 On the whole, the evidence 
 of Young's collaboration on the Plain Dealer is of the 
 slenderest sort. On the other hand, whether or not Hill 
 was returning a favor, as M. Thomas suggests, he devotes 
 
 20 M. Thomas gives as a parallel passage Alonzo 's soliloquy at the 
 beginning of the last scene of Act IV of his 'Revenge: "It is death 
 joins us to the great majority," etc. The parallelisms in phrase are 
 not striking. 
 
 2i No. 87 : a letter discussing the place of passion in poetry, and 
 the value of the Bible as a source of inspiration, furnishes a text for 
 the editor's comments, illustrated by long quotations from Dennis; 
 Hill was in the habit of quoting Dennis in matters of criticism; the 
 paper concludes with Hill's metrical version of Habalckuk; only the 
 letter, then, could be the work of Young. No. Ill (misprinted 116 in 
 M. Thomas's book) : most of this exhortation to consider the sun and 
 the stars and the wonder of them, and reflect whether or not they prove 
 the contrivance of an infinite architect, is quoted from the ' ' author of 
 the excellent discourse The Religion of Nature Delineated," — Dr. 
 Wollaston, who died in 1724 (8th ed., 1759, 142 f.) ; and certain 
 ' ' beaux vers sur le systeme de Newton ' ' are stanzas II and XVIII of 
 Hill's Judgment Bay. No. 67: this contains a eulogy of the Duke of 
 Chandos, "avee lequel Young aura des relations plus tard"; it is a 
 paper in Hill's most projecting spirit, showing the Royal African 
 Company how much more they would gain by using their negroes to 
 cultivate the land in Africa, instead of transporting them ; there is no 
 impossibility in this design, except to "narrow and confined under- 
 standings and spirits of a heavy fabric"; as the Duke of Chandos 
 was connected with the company, the eulogy was pertinent. 
 
164 AARON HILL 
 
 two numbers to Young's First and Second Satires, quoting 
 from them, and praising one as the work of some consider- 
 able genius, and the other as full of the liveliest energy. 22 
 Young must have appreciated such friendly advertising. 23 
 
 Dennis, also, who figures prominently in the Plain 
 Dealer, must have been an acquaintance of long standing, 
 though in no intimate sense. Hill often showed, both by 
 word and by deed, his high estimate of Dennis's criticism. 
 It was to Dennis and Gildon that in 1716 he dedicated his 
 Fatal Vision; precisely because they were severe and watch- 
 ful critics, they best deserved the labor of the Muses. 
 Dedications to men of letters were almost unknown at the 
 time ; this of Hill 's was not epoch-making, as was Pope 's to 
 Congreve a little later, simply because the Fatal Vision was 
 not epoch-making. But it was an interesting departure 
 from prevailing custom. 
 
 To the influence of Dennis's ideas may perhaps be 
 ascribed Hill's fondness for Scriptural paraphrase; it has 
 been pointed out that he versified nearly all of Dennis's 
 favorite passages in the Old Testament. 24 Dennis was 
 known for his insistence on emotion as the basis of poetry, 
 
 22 Nos. 92 and 110. From the First Satire, 11. 129-142, 255-264 are 
 quoted; from the Second, 11. 213 f. 
 
 23 Pleasant relations with Hill continued for a time at least, for it 
 was at Young's house that Pope and Hill first met, perhaps about 
 1730-31 (Pope to Hill, October 29, 1731. Col. of 1751) ; but they prob- 
 ably ceased after Young's settlement at Welwyn. Hill referred to the 
 Night Thoughts in a rather discriminating criticism (Hill to Eichard- 
 son, July 24, 1744. Corres., I, 102) : "As to Dr. Young, I know and 
 love the merit of his moral meanings; but am sorry that he over- 
 flows his banks, and will not remind himself (when he has said enough 
 upon his subject), that it is then high time to stop. He has beauties 
 scattered up and down in his Complaints that, had he not so separated 
 them by lengths of cooling interval, had been capable of carrying 
 into future ages such a fire as few past ones ever equalled. What a 
 pity want should be derived from superfluity ! ' ' 
 
 24 H. G. Paul, John Dennis, 204, n. 24. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 165 
 
 and on the Bible rather than the classics as a source of in- 
 spiration; he stood "as an advocate of the exaltation and 
 inspiration of the poet, that so ill accorded with the pre- 
 vailing spirit of the times that he was derisively dubbed 
 Sir Longinus." 25 Hill undoubtedly agreed with these 
 views, for he preached rapture and enthusiasm in his 
 critical remarks as diligently as he tried to display them in 
 his poetry.- 6 One illustration of his paraphrases, for which 
 he employed chiefly Pindaric verse, will be sufficient. 
 Plain Dealer no. 74 makes some disparaging comments on 
 the paraphrases sung in churches, and commends the poet, 
 whose version of the 104th psalm is about to be quoted, for 
 keeping his eye on the ' ' sense and dignity of the original. ' ' 
 "Nothing can be more unlike the thoughts of David than 
 what we sing as his in most of our churches." Surely 
 nothing can be more unlike the thoughts of David than 
 this: 
 
 " Lightnings in millions sweep his fiery way, 
 And round his paths in blue meanders play ; " 
 or this: 
 
 " But the proud mountains which ambitious grow, 
 And viewing heaven disdain the world below, 
 Nor will to humble brooks refreshment owe, 
 Sip the moist clouds and cool their heads in snow." 27 
 
 25 Paul's Dennis, 134. 
 
 26 The list of his poems inspired by the Scriptures includes the 
 Creation, the Judgment Day, paraphrases of the 104th, 107th, 114th, 
 and part of the 55th psalms, a portion of Habakkuk, chapters 5, 6, 
 and 7 of Matthew, part of II Kings, part of ch. 16 in Exodus, and the 
 Lord's Prayer. The first two were published separately in 1720 and 
 1721; several of the others first appeared in the Plain Dealer, and 
 Savage's Miscellany; they were all reprinted in Hill's Works, vols. 
 Ill and IV. 
 
 27 Thomson's version of the same psalm is at least as bad as Hill's, 
 though less rapturous: 
 
 ' ' That man may be sustained beneath the toil 
 Of manuring the ill-producing soil." (Aldine ed., II, 142). 
 
166 AAEON HILL 
 
 Hill also undertook, perhaps about 1716, an epic on Gideon 
 — in twelve books of irregular Pindaric verse. It was com- 
 plete in MS. in 1724, 28 but only three books, apparently, 
 were ever published, and these not until 1749. It was pro- 
 vided with all the proper epic material, — descriptions, 
 similes, episodes, 29 single combats, battles, visions, debates, 
 and miracles; and adorned by Hill's "inimitable style," — 
 a style characterized by an astonishing collection of ad- 
 jectives in -y, -ive, -ful: speary, beamy, curvy, sheltry, 
 grovy, druggy, embry, nashful, scopeful, feastful, retortive, 
 revertive. 30 Still, even in Hill's version, the interest of the 
 narrative is not quite lost. One wonders whether Dennis 
 was among the few enemies or the many admirers of 
 Gideon. 31 
 
 Several Plain Dealers merely honor Dennis by quotation 
 from his works, 32 but two numbers mingle their praise with 
 practical appeals in his behalf. In connection with the 
 proposals for Dennis's Miscellaneous Tracts, 33 Hill observes 
 (no. 54) that the length of the subscription list to Pope's 
 Homer is no proof of the age 's partiality to poets, for Pope 
 has so many friends that to be out of the list is to be out of 
 
 28 In a letter to "Clio" of April 9, 1724 (Works, I, 24), he prom- 
 ises to have the twelve books "writ fair." 
 
 29 Sareph and Eamar, Works, IV, 243 ; Oreo and Joash, Prompter 
 No. 59 ; Burning of the Bridge, from book VIII, Prompter No. 76. 
 
 so Thomson, of course, employs many such adjectives, but less gener- 
 ously than Hill; and Savage is guilty of heapy, chippy, foodful, and 
 so on in his Excursion. Dyer bears away the palm, when he speaks 
 of the "abstersive" gums of sheep (in his Fleece, I), and of rubbing 
 their mouths with ' ' detersive bay salt. ' ' 
 
 si Cibber's Lives, V, 261: "Gideon had its enemies, but many more 
 admirers. ' ' 
 
 32 No. 57 (from the Observations on Paradise Lost) ; No. 87 (from 
 his "noble dress" of the 18th psalm) ; Nos. 60 and 96 (from private 
 letters) . 
 
 ss The Proposals first appeared in 1721 ; the Tracts were published 
 in 1727. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 167 
 
 fashion. "But let me see these shining names to Mr. 
 Dennis's Miscellaneous Tracts, which he is now publishing 
 by a subscription scarce the sixth part so chargeable, and 
 I will afterwards suppose that they can read as well as 
 purchase." 34 A few months later, Dennis's circumstances 
 were such that Rich offered him a benefit at Lincoln 's-Inn- 
 Fields, and the Plain Dealer (no. 82) comes out strongly in 
 support of the plan. Prejudice and stupidity alone, Hill 
 declares, are responsible for the general insensibility to 
 Dennis's merits. Young writers, in terror of his austerity, 
 think him ill-natured when he is only impartial ; an enemy 
 to wit and learning when he is an enemy only to the pro- 
 faners of them. They should recognize that where there 
 is art, there must be criticism. He makes a final plea to 
 the brave and beautiful to appear in the cause of wisdom 
 at the benefit performance. 35 
 
 Hill's interest in Dennis seems to have been due to 
 sincere admiration of his qualifications as a critic, and to 
 sincere sympathy for him in his distress ; and not to strong 
 personal feeling, or to gratitude for any reciprocal atten- 
 tions. After Dennis's death, a short poem (unsigned, but 
 later included in Hill's Works)™ appeared in the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine ; 37 and was afterwards chosen by the 
 author of the Life of Mr. John Dennis to adorn his hearse 
 in a "fragrant manner." This elegy, "wiredrawn in less 
 
 34 In this paper Hill goes on to speak of the value of criticism, using 
 Dennis's comments on Blackmore as an illustration, and praising his 
 Te Deum at the expense of Blackmore 's hymn, Hail, King Supreme. 
 Had Blackmore buoyed himself up by criticism, "he could never have 
 sunk so soon and so shamefully as to tell us in the fourth verse that 
 he who is supreme in power is controlled by no superior. ' ' This, and 
 several other examples of the art of sinking, read like an anticipation 
 of the Treatise on the Bathos. 
 
 35 The Old Bachelor, given for Dennis's benefit, January 4, 1725. 
 
 36 1754 ed., Ill, 421. 
 3" January, 1732. 
 
168 AARON HILL 
 
 than a fortnight's time," according to this author, "from 
 the brain of the very pink of courtesy and poesy," apos- 
 trophizes Dennis as "unsocial excellence," and goes on: 
 
 " Want, the grim recompense of truth like thine, 
 Shall now no longer dim thy destined shine. 
 Th'hnpatient envy, the disdainful air, 
 The front malignant, and the captious stare, 
 The furious petulance, the jealous start, 
 The mist of frailties that obscured thy heart, 
 Veiled in thy grave, shall unremembered lie, 
 For these were parts of Dennis born to die ! " 
 
 But his nobler qualities will ' ' engage the slow gratitude of 
 time." 38 
 
 These lines prove that Hill by no means overlooked the 
 faults of Dennis's character; though he did not suffer 
 personally from his attacks, he recognized that they were 
 often unjustified, as in the case of Steele. 39 And when 
 Pope, in the course of one of the defenses of his own 
 perfectly disinterested character which he was in the habit 
 of making to Hill, complains of the unkind construction 
 Mr. Dennis is putting upon his efforts to work up a sub- 
 scription for him, Hill's reply is at once a fair estimate of 
 Dennis, and a delicate rebuke of Pope: "Where a man's 
 passions are too strong for his virtues, his suspicion will be 
 too hard for his prudence. He has often been weak enough 
 to treat you in a manner that moves too much indignation 
 against himself not to leave it unnecessary for you also to 
 punish him. Neither of us would choose him for a friend ; 
 but none of the frailties of his temper, any more than the 
 heavy formalities of his style, can prevent your acknowl- 
 
 38 The ' ' pink of courtesy ' ' appreciated neither the compliment nor 
 the biography, which he called (Prompter no. 48) a "silly and mali- 
 cious pamphlet. ' ' 
 
 39 Hill to Victor, February 21, 1723 (Victor's Hist, of the Theatres, 
 II, 172). 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 169 
 
 edging there is often weight in his arguments, and matter 
 that deserves encouragement to be met with in his 
 writings. ' ' 40 
 
 Neither Young nor Dennis, though both were praised in 
 the Plain Dealer, and both were friends of its author, were 
 in the more intimate circle. They were older than Hill — 
 Dennis considerably so — and already well-known. It was 
 in assisting the younger, still obscure writers, that Hill had 
 the best chance to display his judgment and good-nature. 
 The most creditable of his deeds was his encouragement of 
 Thomson's first efforts to gain a hearing in London; but 
 before that, he had played fairy godmother to two of 
 Thomson's fellow-countrymen. 
 
 It was from Scotchmen that poetry received, just at this 
 time, a fresh impulse. The publication of the Seasons 
 signified a virtual rediscovery of nature; as a theme for 
 poetry, its possibilities had been almost entirely overlooked 
 for thirty or forty years. Then, interest in the literature 
 of the past — another neglected source of inspiration — was 
 fostered by a Scotchman, Allan Ramsay, whose selections 
 from early Scotch verse showed his own appreciation and 
 stimulated others. 41 In view of these facts, it would be 
 pleasant to find in Hill's prompt welcome of Mallet and 
 Thomson a proof of unusual critical discernment ; and much 
 might be cited in support of this notion. Unfortunately, 
 his welcome of Joseph Mitchell, which was just as enthusi- 
 astic, prompts the reflection that it was the needy poet, 
 rather than the new impulse, that he saw coming from 
 Scotland. Hill did realize, however, that interest in litera- 
 ture had awakened in Edinburgh, and he called the at- 
 tention of his readers to a club among the students of the 
 
 40 Pope to Hill, February 5, and Hill to Pope, February 10, 1731, 
 Col of 1751. 
 
 4i Eamsay published Christ's Kirk on the Green in 1716; bis Ever- 
 green (1724) gave examples of Scotch poems before 1600. 
 
170 AARON HILL 
 
 University, — the Grotesque Club, founded to encourage, in 
 the words of one of its own members, "friendship that 
 knows no strife, but that of a generous emulation to excel 
 in virtue, learning, and politeness." This is only one of 
 the indications that the Muses and Graces have visibly 
 fixed themselves in the learned seminaries of the North. 42 
 Among the members of the club were Mallet, Thomson — 
 "that dull fellow whom Malcolm calls the jest of our 
 club" 43 — and perhaps the Joseph Mitchell for whom Hill 
 wrote his Fatal Extravagance. 
 
 About the life of Mitchell, the first of the Scotch group 
 to come to London, little definite is known, and that not 
 much to his credit. His friends are said not to have been 
 solicitous to preserve the circumstances of his career; he 
 was "a slave to his pleasures," and extravagant to an 
 extent that forced him to be "perpetually skulking" to 
 elude his numerous creditors. 44 At least as early as Oc- 
 tober, 1720, he was in London. 45 In 1721, his Ode on the 
 Power of Music was advertised in the second edition of 
 Hill's "Judgment Day, and he himself singled out in the 
 preface as the "young gentleman of Edinburgh" at whose 
 request the poem was written. This reference puts the 
 beginning of his acquaintance with Hill back some months 
 at least before March, 1721, the date of the preface. Hill 
 is certain that his "late admirable attempts in poetry make 
 it needless to tell the world what they are to hope from 
 his great genius." 
 
 Mitchell himself, fearful lest the world may not share 
 Hill 's opinion, consoles himself, in the Advertisement to his 
 Ode, with the reflection: "In company with the incompa- 
 
 42 Plain Dealer, no. 46. 
 
 43 Mallet to Ker, July 31, 1727. 
 
 44 Cibber's Lives, IV, 347 f. 
 
 45 Mallet to Ker, October 5, 1720,— "Mitchell, author of Luguores 
 Cantus, now in London." European Mag., XXIII. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 171 
 
 rable Mr. Hill (whose unrivalled Muse he [the author] fol- 
 lows at a distance, and to whom he professes himself singu- 
 larly obliged) he is prepared to suffer the worst treatment 
 this age can give, with a pleasure that he could not enjoy 
 in the bubble of popular applause." Not a very tactful 
 remark; for however stoically Mr. Hill might endure the 
 worst treatment from the public, he by no means expected 
 to receive it. In the poem itself is a tribute to Hill by the 
 name he bore among his admirers : 
 
 " Music religious thoughts inspires, 
 And kindles bright poetic fires; 
 
 Fires! such as great Hillarius raise (Aaron Hill, Esq.) 
 Triumphant in their blaze! 
 
 Amid the vulgar versifying throng 
 His genius with distinction show, 
 
 And o'er our popular metre lift his song, 
 High as the Heavens are arched o'er Orbs below." 
 
 Hillarius raised by fire to so exalted a station, and ill- 
 treated by his age, is surely placed by his Scotch friend 
 in a most uncomfortable position. Mitchell cannot speak 
 of him except in flaming terms : 46 he is " sublimely fired ' ' ; 
 he sets burning worlds before our eyes; his interior worth 
 blazes in his breast; and his heat first melted Mitchell's 
 "cogenial frost." 47 What frost could withstand it? No 
 eulogy of the man who had relieved his distress, by letting 
 him claim the authorship as well as the proceeds of a suc- 
 cessful play, could be too fervent. 48 
 
 46 Hill perhaps deserved them. He notes (preface to Judgment 
 Day) that in the Creation he had confined himself to the Mosaic ac- 
 count; but he needed the whole Planetary System for the Conflagra- 
 tion. 
 
 47 See The Muse 's Original, published in 1729, but probably written 
 about 1721, as it is said in Cibber's Lives to have been among the 
 first of his poems. 
 
 48 The Fatal Extravagance was performed April 21, 1721. 
 
172 AAEON HILL 
 
 Hill did not fail to put in a word for Mitchell in the 
 Plain Dealer: he quotes from the Ode to Music, and he 
 devotes an entire number to exclamatory commendation of 
 the "North British Muse," whose poems, to Lady Somer- 
 ville and on the death of the Countess of Grantham, are 
 quoted. 49 They appear in Mitchell's Poems on Several 
 Occasions (1729), in company with further expressions of 
 gratitude to Hill; one poem thanks him for "brassing his 
 Muse 's brow. ' ' Perhaps the state of the brow of Mitchell 's 
 muse is illustrated by his requests to Walpole in several 
 of these poems : a modest suggestion that he would like the 
 governorship of Duck Island in St. James's Park is fol- 
 lowed up by a demand, first to be made poet-laureate, and 
 then secretary of state for Scotland. 
 
 The presence of both the Hills, together with Dyer and 
 Victor, among the subscribers to the 1729 volume, indicates 
 the continuance of an acquaintance intimate enough to 
 include tea-parties with Clio and Miranda (Mrs. Hill). 
 But even at the time of these amicable tea-drinkings (about 
 1726, or earlier), 50 Mitchell was not acceptable to some of 
 the group; to Thomson, he was "that planet-blasted fool," 51 
 and there is a well-known exchange of courtesies between 
 the two poets over the merits of Winter. 52 Later on, when 
 he had earned his title of "Sir Robert Walpole's poet," he 
 must have been still less popular among his former friends 
 
 49Nos. 36 and 71. 
 
 so A poem in the volume refers to them ; Hill was in Scotland much 
 of the time between 1726 and 1729. 
 
 si Philobiblon Society Miscellanies, IV, 27. Thomson to Mallet. 
 52 Mitchell sent back the MS. of the poem with these lines: 
 "Beauties and faults so thick lie scattered here, 
 Those I could read, if these were not so near." 
 Thomson replied with equal politeness: 
 
 "Why not all faults, injurious Mitchell! why 
 Appears one beauty to thy blasted eye?" etc. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 173 
 
 in the Opposition. There is nothing to show how Hill him- 
 self regarded the career of his promising North Briton 
 after 1729. 
 
 It was to David Mallet that Thomson confided his un- 
 flattering opinion of Mitchell, and perhaps Mallet then 
 shared it. But a few years before, while still in Scotland, 
 Mallet had watched Mitchell's proceedings in London with 
 great interest. He noted the success of his tragedy; he 
 read "with a great deal of pleasure" one canto of his 
 heroi-comical poem, The Cudgell; and he heard that he was 
 "ina very fair character at London, . . . valued by several 
 of the greatest wits, as Mr. Pope, Mr. Watts, Mr. Hill, etc." 
 Not until he secured an appointment as tutor in the Mont- 
 rose family, however, did Mallet himself come to London; 
 he was a more canny person than Mitchell or Thomson, 
 and seems never to have been in uncomfortable straits. He 
 always played his cards well, if not always quite scrupu- 
 lously. But though he had provided for his subsistence, 
 he had his literary reputation yet to make. 
 
 He brought with him, when he came to London about 
 August, 1723, a ballad which he had already shown to 
 Allan Ramsay, for Ramsay's poem — To David Malloch on 
 his Departure from Scotland 53 — refers to him as 
 
 " He that could in tender strains 
 Raise Margaret's plaining shade, 
 And paint distress that chills the veins, 
 While William's crimes are red." 
 
 The discovery, in 1871 54 and 1878, of two broadsides, the 
 latter bearing a revenue stamp of the year 1711, has proved 
 that some unknown earlier poet had raised Margaret's 
 shade and painted her distress in terms Mallet paid him the 
 compliment of adopting almost verbatim. The broadside, 
 
 53 Published in 1723. 
 
 s* This copy is in the British Museum, Col. 1876, folio 107. 
 
174 AARON HILL 
 
 probably itself based on an older version known at least as 
 far back as the time of Beaumont and Fletcher, is entitled 
 William and Margaret, an Old Ballad. It has been sug- 
 gested that Mallet secured a copy from one of the travelling 
 chapmen in Scotland ; it must have been unfamiliar, except 
 to the class reached by the chapmen, to enable Mallet to 
 impose it on his contemporaries as his own. The precise 
 way in which he went about it is not clear. He may have 
 sent the ballad anonymously to the Plain Dealer; he may 
 have arranged with the editor to have it published anony- 
 mously; or it may have come into Hill's hands through one 
 of the scattered broadsides, and been first printed without 
 Mallet's knowledge. 
 
 In the 36th number of the Plain Dealer, Hill announces 
 his intention of unveiling obscure merit, and after a fling 
 or two at the poor judgment displayed by men of quality 
 and at the present low state of wit, he eulogizes the muse 
 of our ancestors in the following picturesque terms : ' ' The 
 slender shape of the modern Muse is made for becoming the 
 hoop-petticoat; but there was a charming majestic naked- 
 ness in that nervous simplicity and plain soundness of 
 pathetic nature which went to the hearts of our forefathers, 
 without stopping at their fancy, or winding itself into their 
 understanding through a maze of mystical prettinesses." 
 All this is prefatory to praise of the old ballads, and par- 
 ticularly of William and Margaret. This and another 
 ballad he found on the torn leaf of one of the halfpenny 
 miscellanies known as "garlands," which he picked up on 
 Primrose Hill. Who the author of "this melancholy piece 
 of finished poetry" is he does not know, but it has a touch 
 of Homer 's sublimity. In fact, ' ' such ballads were the rev- 
 erend fragments of disjointed Homer, when they were sung 
 about the streets of the Grecian cities, before Lycurgus [sic] 
 caused the limbs to be assembled into union ; and so pieced, 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 175 
 
 redeemed, and consecrated them to the end of time." He 
 pleases himself with the idea that Shakespeare might have 
 written it — it has his ' ' peculiar, solemn power to touch this 
 churchyard terror, very visible in the ghost of this ballad. ' ' 
 He discusses the poem in detail : the description of the lady 
 "judiciously detains" the reader and allows the picture to 
 sink in, so that when she opens her speech with the sharp 
 summons ' ' Awake ! " we are prepared to know and pity 
 her; "nothing was ever juster, or more strikingly imagined, 
 than this comparison of the ghost's face to an April sky 
 (which is at best but faintly shining, and is here made 
 fainter still by a scattering cloud which dims it), — to the 
 shadow, as it were, ... of a light not visible. ' ' Altogether, 
 "it is a plain and noble masterpiece of the natural way 
 of writing. ' ' 
 
 Were Primrose Hill and the halfpenny garland a literary 
 device, or did the ballad really come to Hill in some such 
 way as he describes? The fact that he took the liberty of 
 altering "an obsolete low phrase here and there" — thus 
 doing his little best to destroy that simplicity he so much 
 admired 55 — lends some support to his account: he would be 
 less likely to tamper with the work of a living (even if 
 
 55 The different versions of the first lines of the ballad are interest- 
 ing: in The Knight of the Burning Pestle — 
 
 ' ' When it was grown to dark midnight, 
 And all were fast asleep" — 
 in the broadside — 
 
 ' ' When all was wrapt in dark midnight, 
 And all were fast asleep" — 
 in the Plain Dealer — 
 
 "When Hope lay hushed in silent night, 
 And Woe was wrapt in sleep" — 
 in Mallet's later versions— 
 
 ' ' 'Twas in the silent solemn hour. 
 When night and morning meet." 
 
176 AARON HILL 
 
 anonymous) author than with a ballad he believed ancient. 
 But whether Mallet had planned the publication or not, 
 he found the moment propitious to write to the Plain 
 Dealer and claim the poem so glowingly advertised. In the 
 46th number, Hill, overjoyed to find it the work of a young 
 North Briton, congratulates Scotland on the possession of 
 a rising genius, whose fine qualities include, if not uncon- 
 sciousness of his own merit, at least sincere modesty con- 
 cerning it. He then quotes the letter sent by the modest 
 young genius, who, after expressing surprise and pleasure 
 that a "simple tale of his writing" should merit the ap- 
 probation of the Plain Dealer, relates the unhappy accident 
 on which he declares he based the story, — the betrayal and 
 death of a young lady whose lover refused to marry her. 56 
 The verse quoted by Merrythought in The Knight of the 
 Burning Pestle suggested to him a ballad treatment of the 
 tragedy : 
 
 " These lines, naked of ornament, and simple as they are, 
 struck my fancy. I closed the book, and bethought myself that 
 the unhappy adventure I have mentioned above, which then came 
 fresh into my mind, might naturally raise a tale upon the appear- 
 ance of this ghost. It was then midnight. All around me was 
 still and quiet. These concurring circumstances worked my soul 
 to a powerful melancholy. I could not sleep; and at that time I 
 finished my little poem, such as you see it here." 
 
 Mallet complained that his letter was printed "without 
 his privacy" and "altered in some places for the worst." 57 
 This sounds disingenuous — he could scarcely have had any 
 other motive in sending it except that of having it pub- 
 lished, and the injury it suffered through alteration was 
 probably a trifle compared with the substantial benefit of 
 the advertisement. So artistic and circumstantial a nar- 
 
 ss The lover and the lady were both identified by later critics. 
 « Mallet to Ker, October 17, 1724. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 177 
 
 rative no doubt delighted Hill beyond measure, and in- 
 creased his enthusiasm for poem and author. The ballad, 
 introduced under such favorable auspices, became popular, 
 and was reprinted in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, 5 * in 
 the Hive 59 and in other collections, with variations that 
 have furnished a pleasant little problem for later critics. 60 
 Mallet's reputation was made. 61 
 
 Had Mallet been persecuted as well as talented, Hill's 
 support would have been even more enthusiastic than it 
 was. Richard Savage was both: he not only wrote a 
 tragedy, but claimed to be the unhappy hero of one; and 
 the story he told was one to call forth the most heart-felt 
 sympathy from a man like Hill, and even from the far 
 more strong-minded Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Just when Hill and Savage first became acquainted is 
 
 58 Vol. II (1724). 
 
 59 Vol. I (2d eel., 1724). 
 
 eo For details of the discussion of the ballad and of Mallet 's author- 
 ship see the following: Notes and Queries, 7th S., II, 4, 132, 410, 490; 
 The Roxburgh Ballads, III, 667 f.; The Antiquary, I, 8, 95, 140 
 (March, 1880) ; Art. on Mallet in the Diet, of Nat. Biography. 
 
 si His talent and skill were sufficient to maintain this reputation 
 during his lifetime. From the success of Eurydice (1731), Mustapha 
 (1739), and Alfred (1740), to his marriage with the wealthy Miss 
 Elstob and his appointment as under-secretary to the Prince of 
 Wales (1742), his rise was steady. After the production of Eurydice, 
 Hill took occasion, in the course of some gratuitous advice to Walpole 
 (March 12, 1731, Works, I, 51), to recommend Mallet to his favor; 
 but Walpole did not respond, and it was with the Opposition that 
 Mallet found his profit. When the Prince commanded the perform- 
 ance of Mustapha and ignored the claims of Caesar, Hill bore the 
 shock cheerfully, — pleased, in fact, that it fell at a time when the 
 disordered state of his affairs made "the little benefit in view from 
 the coming on of a play of some pleasure and use in the prospect" 
 (Hill to Mallet, January 25, 1739, Works, I, 330). They remained 
 on excellent terms until Hill's death; one or two later incidents of 
 their friendship have a place in the account of Hill's relations with 
 Eichardson. 
 13 
 
178 AARON HILL 
 
 not known. The Life of Savage, published in 1727, speak- 
 ing of his loss of a pension from the actress Mrs. Oldfield 
 after the Bubble disasters, adds, "He would have been 
 reduced to as great extremities as ever, if his merit had 
 not recommended him to the ornament of English poesy, 
 Aaron Hill, Esq. ; miserable as he was in every other part 
 of his life, his intimacy and friendship with this gentleman 
 was a happiness he has been much envied for." And 
 Johnson states that for some time before 1723, Savage had 
 been distinguished by Hill with "very particular kind- 
 ness. ' ,ea The kindness must have been ill repaid : " I have 
 been so angry with Mr. Savage of late," wrote Hill to 
 Victor in February, 1723, "that I believed he could never 
 have pleased me again ; but as he came to me in your letter, 
 he was so pleasantly dressed, that I was forced to receive 
 him smiling, in spite of spleen and resentment." 63 
 Savage's situation at the time — he was then writing Sir 
 Thomas Overbury — might well have disarmed Hill's anger. 
 He was often without lodging or meat, with no conveni- 
 ences for study except the fields and the streets; "there 
 he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step 
 into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and 
 ink, and write down what he had composed, upon paper 
 which he had picked up by accident." 64 
 
 Had Savage's distress failed to touch him, Hill was 
 not the man to resist the delicate flattery of the verses 
 Savage sent, with a request that Hill correct his tragedy : 65 
 
 " Thy touch brings the wished stone to pass, 
 So sought, so long foretold; 
 It turns polluted lead or brass, 
 At once to purest gold." 
 
 62 Johnson 's Lives, ed. G. B. Hill, II, 339. 
 
 63 February 21. Victor's Hist, of the Theatres, II, 171. 
 e* Johnson's Lives, II, 338-339. 
 
 es Savage, Works, 1791. The stanza quoted is the last. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 179 
 
 Though, when the corrections came back, Savage was not 
 entirely delighted with the golden touch, and even rejected 
 several passages, Hill did not resent the neglect of his 
 alterations, and furnished the prologue and epilogue. 66 
 Savage thanked him profusely in the advertisement to the 
 published tragedy: 67 "My gratitude prompts me to declare 
 the obligations I have to my best and dearest friend, Mr. 
 Aaron Hill, for his many judicious corrections in this 
 tragedy. On that worthy gentleman (whose mind is en- 
 riched with every noble science, and in whose breast all the 
 virtues of humanity are comprised), it will be my pride to 
 offer my sentiments in a more distinguishing manner here- 
 after." Possibly to this period may be referred the ad- 
 monitions mentioned in The Friend, later addressed to Hill : 
 
 " Oft when you saw my youth wild error know, 
 Reproof, soft-hinted, taught the blush to glow. 
 Young and unformed, you first my genius raised, 
 Just smiled, when faulty, and when moderate, praised." 68 
 
 If Hill taught Savage to blush, it was an accomplishment 
 he soon forgot. 
 
 Without the publicity afforded by the Plain Dealer, it is 
 unlikely that Savage's account of his birth and his mis- 
 fortunes would have obtained the wide credence and 
 aroused the sympathy it did. The steps in the gradual 
 elaboration of this story are interesting. When he pub- 
 lished his comedy, Love in a Veil, in 1718, he made his first 
 public appearance as ' ' Richard Savage, son of the late Earl 
 Rivers." In Curll's Poetical Register (1719), he is de- 
 scribed as Earl Rivers 's son, and a few details are added, — 
 details that are meagre compared with the artistic complete- 
 ness of the account in the Plain Dealer. The 15th number 
 
 66 Johnson 's Lives, II, 340. 
 
 67 Edition of 1724. 
 
 68 Savage's Miscellany, and Savage's Works, 1791, I, 165. 
 
180 AARON HILL 
 
 printed a poem of Savage's, 69 with a few remarks on the 
 merit of the author and the uncommon cruelty of his 
 mother; and then, in the 28th number, appeared a letter 
 from "Amintas." Was this letter really written by some 
 unknown Amintas, or by Hill, or by Savage himself ? It is 
 impossible to say ; for the device of an anonymous letter is 
 so common that it proves nothing. But Savage's testi- 
 mony in The Friend points to Hill as the author : 
 
 " Me shunned, me ruined, such a mother's rage ! 
 You sung, till Pity wept o'er every page. 
 You called my lays and wrongs to early fame." 
 
 And in the preface to the Miscellany he states that the 
 author of the Plain Dealer pointed out his unhappy story 
 to the world with a touching humanity. 
 
 The story, whether written by Hill, or Savage, or 
 Amintas, is indeed touchingly told. The narrator, after 
 recounting several instances of the mother's cruelty, goes 
 on as follows : 
 
 "I forbear to be too particular on any of these heads, 
 because I know it would give him pain, for whose sake only 
 I remember them. For while Nature acts so weakly on the 
 humanity of the parent, she seems, on the son's side, to 
 have doubled her usual influence. Even the most shocking 
 personal repulses, and a series of contempt and injuries 
 received at her hands, through the whole course of his life, 
 have not been able to erase from his heart the impressions 
 of his filial duty; nor, which is much more strange! of his 
 affection. I have known him walk three or four times, in a 
 dark evening, through the street this mother lives in, only 
 for the melancholy pleasure of looking up at her windows, 
 in hopes to catch a moment's sight of her, as she might 
 cross the room by candle-light." If she but knew how 
 tenderly he thought of her, she would surely relent. Then 
 69 To Dyer, in praise of Clio's picture (Savage's Worlcs, I, 159). 
 
HILL AND HIS CIKCLE ABOUT 1725 181 
 
 follow verses, written, says "Amintas," at a time "when I 
 know not which was most to be wondered at: that he 
 should be serene enough for poetry, under the extremity of 
 ill-fortune ! Or that his subject should be the praise of 
 her, to whom he owed a life of misery!" The lines appear 
 in Hill's Works, as "made for Mr. S-v-ge, and sent to my 
 Lady M-ls-d, his mother." 70 If they were written by Hill, 
 the cause for Amintas 's wonder vanishes. They picture 
 Alexis, friendless and alone, thrown in wild disorder on his 
 cold bed, and sighing over his fate, neglected by the mother 
 who had cast him on the world's bleak wild. He calls her, 
 nevertheless, "the sweet neglecter of his woes," whose soul 
 melts at every misfortune but his. Both letter and poem 
 conclude in somewhat the same strain • perhaps the mother 
 needs merely to be touched into a sense of her mistake to 
 atone for it. Rather oddly, the Plain Dealer, in the course 
 of his editorial comments on this letter, advises silence 
 about our miseries. 
 
 In no. 73, Savage writes under his own name in regard 
 to the proposal of a Miscellany. He expresses himself as 
 most grateful for the kind reflections made on his un- 
 fortunate case by the Plain Dealer, and encloses "convinc- 
 ing original letters ' ' to prove that less had been said of his 
 wrongs and sufferings "than the unhappy truth could have 
 justified." These papers furnish one of the puzzles of the 
 story, — a puzzle that W. Moy Thomas, in several articles 
 published in 1858, solved very much to Savage's disad- 
 vantage. 71 He noted the inconsistencies in the different ac- 
 counts of the finding of the papers; the curious fact that 
 they were never published, though, if authentic, they would 
 have established the story beyond doubt; and the other 
 curious fact that they disappeared after convincing Aaron 
 
 70 IV, 51. Savage probably refers to them in the lines quoted above, 
 'i Notes and Queries, 2d S., VI, 361, 385, 425, 445. 
 
182 AARON HILL 
 
 Hill that Savage was indeed an injured nobleman. 72 
 Savage's latest biographer, though convinced that he was 
 no deliberate impostor, and cannot be held responsible for 
 inconsistencies in accounts not certainly written by him, 
 has no solution for the puzzle. 73 Possibly the papers were 
 convincing enough to stand the scrutiny of those whose 
 sympathies were already enlisted in his behalf, but not 
 convincing enough to be tested by impartial or hostile 
 examination. "W. Moy Thomas called Hill foolish and 
 good-natured for believing in Savage, and Professor Louns- 
 bury speaks of his abounding generosity and correspond- 
 ing lack of sense ; 74 but it is certainly no reproach to be 
 foolish and kind with Dr. Johnson and Pope. 
 
 The Plain Dealer articles had so good an effect that 
 "many persons of quality, of all ranks and of both sexes/' 
 without waiting to be applied to, sent in their subscrip- 
 tions; 75 and Savage, going a few days after to Button's 
 Coffee House (where, to save his modesty, he had asked 
 that subscribers' names be sent), found there seventy 
 guineas, "which had been sent him in consequence of the 
 compassion excited by Mr. Hill's pathetic representa- 
 tion." 76 
 
 Representations on Savage's behalf were continually re- 
 quired of his friends. At the time of his conviction for 
 murder (December, 1727), Hill was undoubtedly among 
 those who solicited his pardon, whether or not his plea 
 actually drew tears from the Queen ; 77 and he was probably 
 
 72 Plain Dealer, no. 73. 
 
 73 S. V. Makower: Richard Savage, a Mystery in Biography, 1909. 
 
 74 T. R. Lounsbury, The Text of Shakespeare, 372. 
 
 75 Preface to the Miscellany; nos. 28 and 73 of the Plain Dealer 
 were reprinted there. 
 
 76 Johnson 's Lives, II, 342-343. 
 
 77 As "I. K. " states in the life prefixed to Hill's Dramatic Works. 
 "I. K. " cannot be trusted not to exaggerate the achievements of his 
 subject; the two poems (The Bastard and The Volunteer Laureate) 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 183 
 
 the author of a letter, printed in the Life of Savage pub- 
 lished during the trial, ' ' supposed to be wrote by one of the 
 gentlemen before-mentioned for having publicly expressed 
 his compassion for Mr. Savage's sufferings." The only 
 "gentlemen before-mentioned" are Steele, Wilks, and Hill, 
 and the only one of the three who expressed his compassion 
 in a conspicuously public manner was Hill. The letter is 
 addressed to "a noble Lord, in behalf of Mr. Savage and 
 Mr. Gregory"; as to the former's character, the writer 
 says: "I have known and conversed with [him] several 
 years, and can therefore more fully speak him : I have dis- 
 covered in him a mind incapable of evil ; I have beheld him 
 sigh for the distressed, when more distressed himself; I 
 have seen him give that relief to others, which not long 
 before he has in some degree wanted. He is so far from a 
 litigious man, that he was always more ready to stifle the 
 remembrance of an injury than to resent it." 
 
 Whether Hill wrote this or not, it accurately represents 
 his attitude towards Savage — an attitude that remained 
 unchanged until Savage's death, though their relations 
 were much less intimate after 1730. 78 When Lord Tyrcon- 
 nel took Savage under his protection, Hill congratulated 
 him on this deed of humanity to an unfortunate kinsman ; 79 
 and later, having heard vague reports of a quarrel, he tried 
 to persuade Savage to make it up. 80 The few letters that 
 
 he declares to be the work of Hill are not among his collected poems, 
 and show no special characteristics of his style; they are probably 
 rightly ascribed to Savage. 
 
 78 Savage's Wanderer (1729) mentions Hill, — "to virtue and the 
 muse forever dear." Hill refers to "poor unhappy Savage" in a 
 letter to Eichardson, April 4, 1745. Eichardson advised him not to 
 read Johnson's Life, because of its references to his peculiar style. 
 
 79 Hill to Tyrconnel, March 10, 1731. Works, I, 49. 
 
 so Hill to Savage, June 23, 1736 (Works, I, 337) : "I am sure your 
 just sense of what he once was will prevail over any less agreeable 
 remembrance of what he may have since seemed or been." 
 
184 AARON HILL 
 
 passed between them are pleasant but not very significant. 
 Hill may have done Savage some further service about 
 1736, in connection with a law-suit which he offered to use 
 his influence in settling; and in the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for November, 1736, The Friend, with its tribute to Hill, 
 was reprinted. 81 In the same year Hill wrote to Thomson : 
 "Some of his friends make complaints of certain little 
 effects of a spleen in his temper, which he is no more able 
 to help and should, therefore, no more be accountable for, 
 than the misfortunes to which . . . his constitution may 
 have owed it originally " ; a pension from the king should 
 place him above those mortifications in life which "must 
 have soured his disposition, and given the unreflecting part 
 of his acquaintance occasion to complain, now and then, of 
 his behaviour. " 8 - 
 
 Such charity would have done Hill credit even if Savage 
 had been uniformly grateful. But that was not his way. 
 His esteem was no very certain possession, as Johnson said ; 
 "he would lampoon at one time those whom he had praised 
 at another." 83 And Hill did not escape. There is a hint 
 in one of Thomson's letters of "barbarous provocation": 
 "Nothing is to me a stronger instance of the unimprovable 
 nature of that unhappy creature [Savage] of whom you 
 speak so compassionately, notwithstanding of the barbarous 
 provocation he has given you, than his remaining bleak and 
 withered under the influences of your conversation — a cer- 
 tain sign of a field that the Lord has cursed." 84 Yet Hill 
 evidently forgave this provocation, whatever it was, as he 
 had the injury of three or four years before. 
 
 si Thomson writes to Hill, May 11, 1736, Col. of 1751; "Poor Mr. 
 Savage would be happy to pass an evening with you; his heart burns 
 towards you with the eternal fire of gratitude; but how to find him 
 requires more intelligence than is allotted to mortals." 
 
 82 May 20, 1736, Works, I, 237. 
 
 S3 Johnson's Lives, II, 359. 
 
 84 Thomson to Hill, April 27, 1726. Col, of 1751. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 185 
 
 The friendship of Hill with Savage, and of both with 
 Mallet, Clio, Dyer, and Thomson, was most intimate while 
 the Miscellany was in process of publication ; and the poems 
 in that collection give us a glimpse of the little mutual 
 admiration society over which Hill presided. Of the 
 ninety-two poems, more than one-third — and among these 
 the longest selections — are. Hill's; they include several 
 already published, several apparently new. 85 The Picture 
 of Love is printed entire ; there is a long passage from the 
 seventh book of Gideon, some Scriptural paraphrases, a few 
 translations from the Lusiads, The Happy Maw, 86 letters on 
 riches and poverty by Mr. Marshall Smith and Hill, various 
 epitaphs, serious and jocose, and complimentary lines to 
 Mrs. Howard and several unidentified but charming ladies. 
 Of the other contributors, Savage himself comes next with 
 fourteen poems; then Clio with nine; William Popple, 
 John Dyer, and "Miranda, consort of Aaron Hill," have 
 six apiece; Mallet, Mrs. Haywood, Concanen, and Thomas 
 Cooke, one or more. The depression inspired by most of 
 this verse is lightened a little by two pieces of real merit, — 
 Dyer's Country Walk and Grongar Hill (in its Pindaric 
 form). Most noticeably frequent are the compliments in- 
 terchanged among the authors themselves. All the flattery 
 usually at the service of noble patrons is here poured out 
 on one another. Two duties were incumbent on members 
 of the circle: they must vow devotion to Clio, and they 
 must praise Hillarius and all his works. 
 
 For this name Hill was indebted to Mrs. Eliza Haywood, 
 for whose Fair Captive he wrote the epilogue in 1721. s7 
 
 85 All but a few were republished in his Works. 
 se This has a couplet that has invited scornful quotation : 
 ' ' Lengths of wild garden his near views adorn, 
 And far-seen fields wave with domestic corn." 
 (Johnson's Lives, II, 342, n. 4). 
 87 The epilogue is upon the hardships of a Turkish wife, the play 
 
186 AARON HILL 
 
 His christening perhaps took place soon after, for in an 
 Irregular Ode, published in 1724, Mrs. Haywood defends 
 the name against the objections of Mr. Walter Bowman, 
 professor of Mathematics: it is "far beneath the mighty 
 wearer's worth," but to describe his charms in a name is a 
 perplexing problem: 
 
 " A name it must be which implies 
 At once the wonders of his soul and eyes; 
 Cherubial sweetness! godlike majesty! 
 Numberless myriads of divinities 
 Which sparkling in his looks, his words, his works we see ! " 
 
 " Soft as his voice ! but lofty as his mien. 
 Each thrilling syllable pleased awe impart, 
 Which through the ear may strike the heart." 
 
 Should this task prove too much for mortal wit, the poetess 
 suggests a pilgrimage to the heavenly throne, where Moses, 
 Gideon, and David, shining more glorious by reason of his 
 lays, will hail your approach; angels will second your re- 
 quest ("angels are his admirers too!"), and the Almighty, 
 with a pleased regard, will reward your devotion with the 
 gift of an adequate name. Until that happy moment, 
 Eliza's choice shall live: 
 
 " Through every orb Hillarius shall be heard, 
 And altars to his shining virtues reared." 88 
 
 The poems of Hillarius had a very disturbing effect on 
 Mrs. Haywood; even through the disguise of anonymity, 
 assumed by the muse of Hill on one occasion, her soul 
 acknowledged the magnetic call, and cried in transport — 
 ' ' 'tis Hillarius ! " To a thoughtless inquiry how she liked 
 a poem of his, she replied that every sense was lost in 
 
 having a Turkish setting, and is precisely as decent and witty as one 
 would expect on such a subject in an epilogue of that period. 
 
 88 Poems on Several Occasions (1724) in vol. II. of Mrs. Hay- 
 wood's Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems, 1725. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 187 
 
 amazement, "transport-shook Reason quit its tottering 
 seat," and she lay ' ' o 'erwhelmed in seas of ecstasy." 
 Once, Eliza was awed by a vision of the throne of wit, with 
 all the sons of poetry about it; but a voice directed her to 
 return to the world below if she wished to find all the 
 beauties of past poets united in one person, with a new 
 charm added. This convinced her that she never could be 
 calm again, till she grew less "sensible," or Hill less 
 glorious. 89 Hill, too, had a nattering vision of Eliza, and 
 addressed to her a few other short poems ; one line expresses 
 the effect she had on him : ' ' Her looks alarm ! but when she 
 writes, she kills." 90 On the whole, however, Mrs. Hay- 
 wood must be acknowledged the greater proficient in the 
 gentle art of flattery — Hillarius never ascended the highest 
 heaven of invention, where her muse moved freely among 
 the patriarchs and the angels, under the pleased regard of 
 the Almighty. 
 
 Nor did any other of Hill's admirers rise quite to her 
 heights, though several of them did rather well. In Henry 
 V, for instance, Clio sees "Hillarian fire refining Shake- 
 speare's gold"; and Concanen, varying the metaphor, de- 
 clares that Hill found Shakespeare's play copper and left 
 it gold. 91 In the case of Gideon, Dyer and Savage seem 
 helpless to do much more than quote long extracts with 
 despairing admiration ; they have no hope of rivalling some 
 
 89 Mrs. Haywood edited the Tea Table. In no. 26, May 18, 1724, in 
 a discussion of the present state of poetry, is a reference to Aaron 
 Hill, who excels in epic and dramatic poetry both; and to the un- 
 fortunate son of the late Earl Elvers, renowned in tragedy and 
 occasional verse. 
 
 90 To Elisa (Miscellany, 90); Eliza's Designed Voyage to Spain 
 (Works, III, 363). The Vision (Miscellany, 71) becomes in Works, 
 III, 55, The Reconciliation, and Eliza becomes Cleora. 
 
 9i All these poems are in the Miscellany. 
 
188 AARON HILL 
 
 of its ' ' surprising pictures. ' ' 92 Savage does enter the lists 
 with Mrs. Haywood in a passage describing how Hillarius 's 
 song flies with Pindaric fire : 
 
 "Wafted in charniful music through the air (Gideon) 
 Unstopped by clouds, it reaches to the skies, 
 And joins with angels' hallelujahs there, 
 Flows mixed and sweetly strikes the Almighty's ear." 
 
 Savage and Mrs. Haywood were friends, and no doubt 
 she had other friends in the group. But their Aspasia was 
 "Clio," or, more prosaically, Martha Fowke, who married 
 a Mr. Sansome, and died in 1736, at about the age of forty- 
 six. The Poetical Register (1719) noticed her as an ac- 
 complished young lady, who usually published under the 
 name of Clio. Steele "often expressed in several com- 
 panies the singular value and esteem" he had for her 
 "extraordinary wit." 93 To Clio herself it was a hated 
 
 92 Of the surprising pictures in Gideon, take for example this from 
 Book III (it is not quoted by Dyer) — a description of the lion: 
 "High o'er his back his tail turned upward waved; 
 
 Eed were his eyes and sparkled on the plain." 
 But the picture of a ram in Dyer 's Fleece is as surprising as anything 
 in Gideon: 
 
 "Long swings his slender tail; his front is fenced 
 
 With horns Ammonian, circulating twice 
 
 Around each open ear, like those fair scrolls 
 
 That grace the columns of the Ionic dome." 
 And Thomson's pillar (in Liberty) can stand up with the lion and 
 the ram: 
 
 ' ' First unadorned 
 
 And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; 
 
 The Ionic then, with decent matron grace, 
 
 Her airy pillar heaved. ' ; 
 os Dedication of her Epistles of Clio and Streplion, 1720. A 2d and 
 3d edition of these Epistles — conventional couplets expressing the con- 
 ventional fears and hopes of lovers — were published in 1729 and 1732. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 189 
 
 thought that she was born a woman, "for household cares 
 and empty trifles meant," and she aspired to stretch her 
 mind beyond her sex, — an ill-advised attempt in that age 
 and likely to cause scandal. 94 Enough notoriety finally 
 attached to the name of Clio to induce Mallet to rechristen 
 her "Mira." 05 Among her friends she counted Dyer. 
 Mallet, Savage, Thomson, Bond, Victor, Mitchell, and Hill. 
 Dyer painted her portrait, on which Hill and Savage wrote 
 verses, compact about equally of flattery of the artist's 
 skill and the lady's charms. Dyer's Country Walk is filled 
 with longing for Clio; and as a shepherd (in the Inquiry) 
 he asks his sheep if they have met with his love on moun- 
 tain or in valley. Clio encourages him to write on, and 
 praises his portrait of her as much as modesty will permit. 
 She and Savage condole with each other on their mis- 
 fortunes — her's including a murdered father and innumer- 
 able lost friends, torn from her by death or absence. And 
 she extends an invitation to Savage to come down from the 
 stars and visit her in the humble vale where she communes 
 with Nature. Mallet suffers torments in her absence, and 
 describes her in terms that quite ravished Thomson, re- 
 cently admitted into her circle. 
 
 But her most accomplished and Platonic lover was Hill. 
 
 Bond was Strephon. (See London Evening Post, Dec. 5, 1728.) Mrs. 
 Haywood (Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of 
 Utopia, 1725) tells of the intrigue of the Countess of Macclesfield and 
 Earl Rivers, and of Savage 's birth, in the History of Masonia, Count 
 Marville and Count Biverius (p. 157 f .) . Mrs. Haywood praises Savage 
 generously, but expresses unmitigated contempt for a certain "vile 
 woman, ' ' a pretender to the art of poetry, who has betrayed Savage 
 by her wiles. Mr. George Whicher, of the University of Illinois, who 
 is engaged on a study of Mrs. Haywood, thinks this siren may be 
 "Clio." I am indebted to Mr. Whicher for this reference. 
 
 94 See a poem to Dyer, in the Miscellany. 
 
 95 According to an attack on Savage in the British Journal, Septem- 
 ber 24, 1726, quoted in Philobiblon Soc. Miscellanies, IV, 12. 
 
190 AARON HILL 
 
 Scenes such as "we read in our youthful days, in Sir 
 Philip Sidney's Pastoral Romance," came to Victor's mind, 
 when he recalled twenty years later the hours he had spent 
 with Hill, "that elegant lover," and his "charming Clio." 96 
 No attempt to reconstruct this Arcadia can hope to be suc- 
 cessful; Hill's letters and poems to Clio merely afford a 
 few glimpses. One letter attributes the laziness she com- 
 plains of feeling to a temporary absence of her soul, which 
 is abroad, inspiring his and "inflaming it with a thousand 
 ideas" of her loveliness. 97 Another encloses verses, written 
 after seeing her at a performance of Julius Caesar; he 
 found himself sorely perplexed to choose between the at- 
 tractions of the bloody stage and of this vision of Clio : 
 
 " Round her pleased mouth impatient Cupids throng, 
 To snatch th'inspiring music from her tongue; 
 Thick, through her sparkling eyes, break unconfined, 
 The winged ideas of her crowded mind; 
 A mind! that burning with inferior glow, 
 Does her whole form with lustre overflow." 98 
 
 His perplexity is not surprising. Other letters indicate an 
 interchange of verses and of invitations to call. The 
 Miscellany contained the poem, To Mr. Dyer, on his at- 
 tempting Clio's Picture. If the task is possible to anyone, 
 it is to Dyer ; but it is rather difficult for a painter 
 
 " Strong to your burning circle to confine 
 That awe-mixed sweetness and that air divine! 
 That sparkling soul which lightens from within! 
 And breaks in unspoke meanings through her skin." 
 
 Of other poems, undoubtedly written about this time, one 
 is on her birthday; 99 another tells how, before he met her, 
 
 96 Victor's Letters, II, 66 (letter to Dyer). 
 "Hill's Works, II, 180. Dated 1721 in the 1754 ed. 
 os Dramatic Works, II, 389. 
 99 Works, III, 41. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 191 
 
 his imagination, now confined to one theme, flew restlessly 
 about the universe, knowing every moment some fresh 
 labor ; if he could only live till the death of Clio 's fame, he 
 could hope to display all the unborn deeds within him ; 
 
 " But, as it is, our fleeting sands so fast 
 Ebb to their end and lead us to decay, 
 That ere we learn to see, our daylight's past, 
 And like a melting mist, life shrinks away." 10 ° 
 
 Other love songs perhaps refer to Clio, without specifically 
 mentioning her. 101 
 
 After her death, Hill wrote to Savage : ' ' Poor C - - - o ! 
 It is long since I met with an affliction more sensible than 
 the information you sent me concerning her ! If half what 
 her enemies have said of her is true, she was a proof that 
 vanity overcomes nature in women, which it could never yet 
 do in men: for desire of glory wants power to expel the 
 pusillanimity natural to some ambitious princes and gen- 
 erals; while in that amiable pursuer of conquests it pre- 
 vailed, not only against the finest reflection, but impelled an 
 assumed lightness over every constitutional modesty." 102 
 The tone of the comment suggests that Hill had seen little 
 of her for some years. Probably his restless imagination 
 could not long be confined to the one theme of a Platonic 
 
 100 WorTcs, III, 6. 
 
 ioi Miranda, ' ' the consort of A. Hill, ' ' whose poems, according to 
 Savage, exhibit the combined charms of Clio 's and Lady M. W. Mon- 
 tagu 's, joined her husband in praising Clio. Miranda writes on sleep, 
 and Clio responds; Miranda replies to that— surely in inspiring a 
 poem by Clio, "never Muse so profitably slept" as hers. But both 
 here and in a poem to "Aurelia, " whom she advises to be content 
 with meeting Hillarius only in his poems, Miranda proclaims unequiv- 
 ocally her right to Hillarius: "If on earth there can perfection be, 
 Heaven, which bestowed Hillarius, gave it me." She accepted Clio, 
 but refused to admit any of the Aurelias and Evandras who figure in 
 the Miscellany. 
 
 102 June 23, 1736. WorTcs, I, 338. 
 
192 AARON HILL 
 
 friendship, though it was quite in accord with his elaborate- 
 ness to work up such a theme for a time with great zest — 
 after whatever flourish you will. 
 
 The flourishes are astonishing, — those of the others in 
 praise of Hill, as well as Hill's in praise of Clio and all the 
 rest. Still, flattery of Hill was at least based on sincere 
 gratitude for what he had done, and on appreciation of his 
 generous nature. Its absurd exaggeration is to be ex- 
 plained partly by the fact that Hill, with his genius for 
 extravagant expression, set the pace in praise of his friends ; 
 and they, younger and less known, could not risk the dis- 
 courtesy of falling behind. This reasonable suggestion was 
 made in apology for the tone of exaggeration in Thomson's 
 letters to Hill. 103 But it must be remembered, too, that 
 Thomson first saw Hill through the eyes of Savage and 
 Mallet, when both were very grateful for Hill's encourage- 
 ment, and the sight could not have been other than 
 impressive. 104 
 
 It is natural that Mallet should have introduced his 
 fellow-countryman to Hill ; natural, too, that a young poet, 
 coming to London in search of fame, should seek to know 
 the critic who had publicly proclaimed him, on the strength 
 of an early poem, "a prodigious young man." This notice 
 of Thomson, inspired by his "masterly" Fragment of a 
 Poem on the Works and Wonders of Almighty Power, had 
 appeared in the same number of the Plain Dealer that pub- 
 lished Mallet's modest confession of the authorship of the 
 ballad. 105 The ' ' prodigious young man ' ' arrived in London 
 
 !03 G. C. Maeaulay: Tlwmson, 19. 
 
 104 Thomson knew Savage by July, 1725, as lie mentions him in 
 writing to Mallet. 
 
 los No. 46, August 28, 1724. The poem was reprinted, as given by 
 Thomson to Hill, by Allan Cunningham (see Aldine ed. of Thomson's 
 works, II, 161). M. Morel does not mention the Plain Dealer notice 
 in his biography of Thomson. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 193 
 
 some six months later (February, 1725), and through 
 Mallet and Duncan Forbes was probably introduced to 
 various literary people even before his Winter was pub- 
 lished in March, 1726. The interest centres, of course, 
 about the fortunes of the poem. Victor states that both he 
 and his agreeable friend, Mr. Hill, saw and admired it in 
 MS., and adds, ' ' I remember Mr. Malloeh . . . and I walked 
 one November day to all the booksellers in the Strand and 
 Fleet Street to sell the copy of this poem, and at last could 
 only fix with Mr. Millar, who then lived in a little shop in 
 Fleet Street." 106 This account, inaccurate as it has been 
 proved in several details (Victor was writing after the lapse 
 of some years), 107 is no doubt substantially true. Mallet 
 would be likely to show the poem to Hill as well as to 
 Victor. Various people have been mentioned as noticing 
 the poem while it lay neglected at the bookseller's; 108 but 
 the one person who certainly took up the cause of Thomson 
 with ardor, and the only one for whose championship we 
 have Thomson's testimony, was Hill. 
 
 Hill wrote enthusiastically to Mallet about the poem; 
 Thomson saw the letter; and thereupon, according to Dr. 
 Johnson, "courted Hill with every expression of servile 
 adulation." 109 *The phrase is unkind, though such flights 
 as these might suggest it : 110 ' ' Though I cannot boast the 
 honor and happiness of your acquaintance, and ought with 
 the utmost deference and veneration to approach so 
 supreme a genius, yet my full heart is not to be repressed 
 by formalities. ... I will not affect a moderate joy at your 
 
 106 Original Letters, III, 27. 
 
 107 Such as the name of the bookseller — Millan, not Millar. 
 
 los Shiels names Whately; Johnson, Whatly; Warton, Spence; Good- 
 hugh, Andrew Mitchell; Dalloway, Bundle. 
 
 109 Lives, III, 284. 
 
 no Thomson to Hill, April 5, 1726. All the earlier letters of 
 Thomson to Hill were published in the Collection of 1751. 
 14 
 
194 AARON HILL 
 
 approbation, your praise ; it pleases, it delights, it ravishes 
 me ! . . . That great mind, and transcendent humanity, that 
 appear in the testimony you have been pleased to give my 
 first attempt, would have utterly confounded me, if I had 
 not been prepared for such an entertainment by your well- 
 known character; which the voice of fame and your own 
 masterly writings loudly proclaim. ... If I wrote all that 
 admiration of your perfections and my gratitude dictate, I 
 should never have done; but, lest I tire you, I'll for the 
 present rather put a violence on myself." 111 
 
 Hill's reply evidently overflowed with an expansive 
 benevolence that led Thomson in his next letter to discourse 
 on "social love" as contrasted with self-love, Hill being a 
 shining example of the former: "Your writings, while they 
 glow with innumerable instances of strong thinking and 
 sublime imagination, are peculiarly marked with this beau- 
 tiful benevolence of mind. ... I am ravished with the hope 
 you give me of your nearer acquaintance." 112 This hope 
 was gratified on April 26, and after reflecting over night 
 on the delights of the visit, Thomson wrote on the "down- 
 right inspiration" of Hill's society: "There is, in your 
 conversation, such a beauty, truth, force, and elegance of 
 thought and expression; such animated fine sense, and 
 chastised fancy; so much dignity and condescension, sub- 
 
 111 Thomson's praise of Mallet is quite as excessive as Hill's of 
 Thomson or Thomson's of Hill. In a letter to Mallet of August 11, 
 1726, he declares two lines of the Excursion equal to any Shakespeare 
 ever wrote on the subject; and in September he was convinced that 
 Mallet must converse with the sages and heroes of antiquity: "You 
 think like them too, your bosom swells with the same divine ambition, 
 and would if in the same circumstances display the same heroic 
 virtues, that lie all glowing at your heart." Perhaps it was because 
 Mallet was never placed in those favoring circumstances that he dis- 
 played such unheroie meanness in the treatment of the memory of 
 his friend Pope. 
 
 112 Letter of April 18. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 195 
 
 lirnity, and sweetness ; in a word, such a variety of entertain- 
 ment and instruction, as is beyond all admiration." 
 Clearly Hill the conversationalist almost equalled in varied 
 accomplishment Hill the essayist. ' ' To descend from your 
 company," he goes on, "and mingle with the herd of man- 
 kind, is like Nebuchadnezzar's descending from a throne to 
 graze with the beasts of the field." Rather than join 
 Nebuchadnezzar in the fields, Thomson feasts on the 
 memory of the rich entertainment; "that little seraph, the 
 young Urania," especially charmed him, — "her elegant 
 turn of mind : her innocence and goodness in the choice of 
 her subjects; her fancy, judgment, and ambition, above her 
 years . . . are most agreeably surprising. ' ' The little seraph 
 must have already begun to compose — a habit that clung to 
 her all her life. 
 
 The dedication of Winter to Sir Spencer Compton, 
 Speaker of the House of Commons, had brought no response 
 to prove his possession of the "fine discernment" attributed 
 to him, along with all other noble qualities, by Mallet, the 
 author of the eulogy. This neglect excited Hill to attack 
 patrons in a poem, which he sent to Thomson and also to 
 several newspapers. 113 Shun patrons, he advises Thomson, 
 and stand alone ; very few peers are judges of poetic merit j 
 
 " On verse like yours no smiles from power expect, 
 Born with a worth that doomed you to neglect." 
 
 He who 
 
 " stoops safe beneath a patron's shade, 
 Shines like the moon, but by a borrowed aid. 
 Truth should, unbiassed, free and open steer." 
 
 Thomson expressed delight at the praise and wonder at the 
 fineness of the satire, — "marked with exalted sentiment and 
 generous contempt. ' ' 114 The hitherto undiscerning Speaker 
 
 us Johnson 's Lives, III, 285. 
 H4 May 24, 1726. 
 
196 AARON HILL 
 
 was also moved, partly by the publicity, partly by the grow- 
 ing popularity of Winter, the first edition of which was 
 now exhausted; and he kindly expressed a willingness to 
 see the poet. "He received me," wrote Thomson to Hill, 
 ' ' in what they commonly call a civil manner, asked me some 
 commonplace questions, and made me a present of twenty 
 guineas." 115 
 
 In the same letter that recorded the Speaker's generosity, 
 Thomson enclosed, for Hill's correction, some verses by 
 Mallet, to be published in the second edition of Winter; in 
 his opinion, ' ' their only glorious fault, if they have any, is 
 an excess of that beautiful benevolence of mind, which, 
 among a thousand things, make you and him so greatly 
 amiable." It was pertinent to enlarge on the benevolence 
 and amiability of his friends — he needed their help to 
 extricate himself from an awkward situation. He had 
 planned to print in the new edition Hill's poem as well as 
 Mallet's, with their fine satire on negligent patrons and 
 their fervent praise of himself. But the patron had just 
 signified his tardy pleasure. How persuade the two friends 
 to tone down the satire, of which they were especially 
 proud? Would their benevolence overcome their literary 
 vanity ? How avoid offense, either to the friends who had 
 championed him when the patron neglected him, or to the 
 patron who had repented and paid? 
 
 He first tried tactful hints with Hill : ' ' One of your in- 
 finite delicacy will be the best judge, whether it will be 
 proper to print these two inimitable copies of verses I have 
 from you and Mr. Mallet, without such little alterations as 
 shall clear Sir Spencer of the best satire I ever read. . . . 
 Only this let me add, should you find that the case required 
 some small alterations, and yet not indulge me with them, 
 
 us June 7, 1726. The interview with the Speaker took place on 
 June 4. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 197 
 
 I shall reckon what my patron gave me a fatal present. 
 Tis a thought too shocking to be borne — to lose the ap- 
 plause of the great genius of the age, my charter of fame ! 
 for — I will not name it. But you are too good to plague 
 me so severely. I expect this favor from Mr. Mallet next 
 post." 116 Mallet's favor did not come by the next post. 
 Mallet and Hill each held back to see what the other would 
 do; and poor Thomson, in letters of mingled entreaty and 
 compliment, tried to play them off one against the other. 
 Finally Mallet, declaring it out of his power to alter his 
 verses, proposed suppressing the whole poem. A most un- 
 pleasant notion! Thomson had expected their names to 
 live together; were twenty guineas — "twenty curses on 
 them !" — to be the price of his fame ? Could he not satirize 
 something besides patrons, — the avarice, littleness, stupidity 
 of men of fortune, or the barbarous contempt of poetry, for 
 instance? "You might make a glorious apostrophe to the 
 drooping genius of Britain — have Shakespeare and Milton 
 in your eye, and invite to the pursuit of genuine poetry." 
 Let him have anything in his eye but the Speaker. And 
 yet, in a letter to Hill a few days later, Thomson expresses 
 himself as still confident of receiving verses from Mallet by 
 the next post ; surely Mr. Hill 's wondrous generosity is not 
 going to fail in this crisis? 117 
 
 The upshot of the little comedy was that the poems were 
 printed, with their scorn practically unmodified. Hill, it is 
 true, made a few trivial alterations; 118 Mallet, probably 
 none, for his allusions to patrons are very pointed. Thom- 
 son had preferred a possible charge of ingratitude to the 
 
 us June 7. 
 
 n7 See letters of Thomson to Hill of June 7, 11, and 17; and to 
 Mallet, June 13 (Philobiblon Society Miscellanies, IV, 9 f.). 
 
 us The lines quoted by Thomson in the letter are slightly different 
 from those in the 2d ed. of Winter. The poem was reprinted in the 
 Works, III, 77. 
 
198 AARON HILL 
 
 omission of the "chalereux eloges" of his friends. 119 The 
 second edition contained, besides the poems of Hill, Mallet, 
 and "Mira," a grateful acknowledgment of Hill's assist- 
 ance and a warm tribute to his character, which may be 
 regarded as closing this chapter of their relations. 120 The 
 tone of the later letters changes : Thomson, with his reputa- 
 tion established, is still prodigal of compliments, but less 
 obsequious ; he is addressing a friend, not a deity. 
 
 Hill's absences in Scotland and Thomson's trip abroad 
 (1730-31) interrupted the correspondence until November, 
 1733, when Hill sent Zara to Thomson, with a request to 
 make it known to Bubb Dodington and other influential 
 friends. Thomson's reply is very cordial both to Zara and 
 its author, but has the assured tone of a man who possesses 
 some influence with the Dodingtons of the day. Not all 
 his influence, however, with Hill's added, could overcome 
 the public indifference to Liberty, which began to appear 
 in December, 1734. In acknowledging the present of Part 
 I, even Hill hints at a little dissatisfaction with the style: 
 "How happens it that you should change a grace almost 
 peculiar to yourself, in favor of transposition and ob- 
 scurity, by endeavoring after beauties which, I am sure, are 
 unnecessary to your poem, and (I fear) unnatural to our 
 idiom?" Still, the poem is "all soul." 121 In the 28th 
 number of the Prompter,' 1 " Hill quotes a passage from 
 Part II, with hearty praise of its harmony and sentiment. 
 But the much-needed puff apparently had little effect on a 
 
 us L. Morel: Thomson, 61. 
 
 120 < ' His favors are the very smiles of humanity, graceful and easy, 
 flowing from and to the heart. This agreeable train of thought 
 awakens naturally in my mind all the other parts of his great and 
 amiable character, which I know not well how to quit, and yet dare 
 not here pursue. ' ' 
 
 i2i January 17, 1735. Works, I, 210. 
 
 122 February 14, 1735. 
 
HILL AND HIS CIRCLE ABOUT 1725 199 
 
 sale that proceeded more and more slowly as each new part 
 appeared, — so slowly, in fact, that in May of the follow- 
 ing year Thomson thought of annulling the bargain with 
 his bookseller, who would else be a considerable loser, and 
 getting out a new edition later. 1 - 3 
 
 Naturally, the neglect of his work intensified his gloomy 
 views as to the general corruption of the age. He expects 
 to see "all poetry reduced to magazine miscellanies, all 
 plays to mummery entertainments, and, in short, all learning 
 absorbed into the sink of purely scurrilous newspapers. ' n2i 
 A wrong use of the gifts of commerce turns wealth to 
 private jobs, not public works; to profitable, not fine arts; 
 to gain, not glory. 1 - 5 Stage affairs are quite hopeless — he 
 never expects to see at the head of the theatres any gentle- 
 man of equal judgment, genius, taste, and generosity to the 
 author of the Prompters. 128 To Hill this was not at the 
 time a purely visionary prospect: both Zara and the 
 Prompter had achieved more success than Liberty, and he 
 had in September a scheme for getting the Prince in- 
 terested in a new theatre. So he cannot quite agree with 
 Thomson that the root of the stage evil is too deep to be 
 plucked up. In regard to affairs in general, however, he 
 is entirely in accord with him : commerce and wealth have 
 corrupted the English; one cannot find a people long "re- 
 taining public virtue and extended commerce." Liberty 
 is to Hill "the dying effort of despairing and indignant 
 virtue. ' ' 127 Thomson has some hope in a copyright to pro- 
 tect arts and learning ; Hill is afraid that would do no good 
 
 123 Thomson to Hill, May 11, 1736. Col. of 1751. 
 
 124 Thomson to Hill, August 23, 1735. 
 
 125 May 11, 1736. 
 
 126 August 23, 1735. 
 
 i2T Hill to Thomson, February 17, 1736. Worlcs, I, 221. 
 
200 AARON HILL 
 
 unless the public is first educated. 1 - 8 And so they end, 
 gloomily shaking their heads. 
 
 Hill's last letter to Thomson again hints at some degree 
 of obscurity in Liberty, arising from the difficulty of "re- 
 ducing infinity into distinction"; and he even criticizes cer- 
 tain lines. But Thomson had asked for criticism, and it is 
 not likely that he took offense. Though they did not again 
 correspond, they exchanged occasional kind messages 
 through their friends ; in July, 1744, Hill begs Richardson 
 to return thanks to the author of the Seasons for remember- 
 ing an old friend, "who, though he had still been for- 
 gotten, would . . . have yearly traced him around with new 
 delight, from spring quite down to winter." 1 - 9 
 
 That the record of so many friendships should include no 
 quarrels is a remarkable testimony to Hill's amiability. 
 Possibly amenities so undiversified form monotonous read- 
 ing; but the reproach of that kind of monotony was taken 
 from Hill's life by Pope. 
 
 128 Hill to Thomson, May 20, 1736, and Thomson to Hill, May 11, 
 1736. 
 
 129 Richardson 's Correspondence, ed. Mrs. Barbauld, I, 103. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HILL'S BELATIONS WITH POPE 
 
 Bernard Lintot the publisher was responsible for the 
 misunderstanding that inaugurated the checkered friend- 
 ship of Pope and Hill. In 1718, Hill wrote The Northern 
 Star, to celebrate the achievements of Peter the Great. To 
 select a foreign prince for panegyric, rather than a possibly- 
 grateful dignitary near at hand, was so quixotic, that the 
 poet feels called upon to explain at length that his duty is 
 to search out and exalt virtue wherever he finds it — even 
 if it be outside his own nation: 
 
 " Perish that narrow pride, from custom grown, 
 That makes men blind to merits not their own. 
 Briton and Russian differ but in name." * 
 
 He then pictures in glowing terms the Czar's devotion to 
 both the "martial laurel and the peaceful bays": he has 
 civilized his own people, made the Dane, the Swede, and 
 the Turk tremble, and the lords of China shrink behind 
 their famous wall ; and his piercing eye may even discover 
 the secrets of the Northeast passage. At this farthest 
 North, the poet stops the flight of his unbridled muse, and, 
 in lines that dimly suggest the last chorus in Shelley's 
 Hellas, prophesies the final overthrow of Turkey by the 
 Czar: 
 
 " Shall then at last, beneath propitious skies, 
 
 The Cross triumphant o'er the Crescent rise? 
 
 Shall we behold earth's long-sustained disgrace 
 
 Revenged in arms on Osman's haughty race? 
 
 Shall Christian Greece shake off a captive's shame, 
 1 1st ed v 11. 85-87. 
 
 201 
 
202 AAEON HILL 
 
 And look unblushing at her pagan fame? 
 'Twill be. — Prophetic Delphos claims her own; 
 Hails her new Caesars on the Russian throne. 
 Athens shall teach once more ! once more aspire ! 
 And Spartan breasts reglow with martial fire! 
 Still, still, Byzantium's brightening domes shall shine, 
 And rear the ruined name of Constantine." 2 
 
 Much as the poet would like to continue gazing at the star 
 of the North, his eyes begin to ache, and he invites the muse 
 to descend. The poem closes with a modest comparison of 
 the Czar's sudden burst into glory to the appearance, at 
 the Almighty fiat, of order out of chaos. 
 
 Such is the offering consecrated to the Czar, — one that 
 would have been less unworthy, wrote Hill later, "had my 
 genius allowed me fire but in proportion to my inflamed 
 intention." 3 However unworthy of the Czar, the poem 
 was probably not, in its author's opinion, unworthy of 
 Aaron Hill. But before publishing it, he decided to submit 
 it to the judgment of Pope, possibly hoping in this way 
 to make his acquaintance. Lintot, whom he deputed to 
 take it to Pope, brought back a report that filled Hill with 
 amazement: "Mr. Lintot lisped out that Mr. Pope said 
 there were several good things in The Northern Star, 
 but it would be taken for an insult on the government, for, 
 though the Czar is King George's ally, yet we are likely to 
 quarrel with Sweden; and Muscovy, whispered Bernard, 
 lies, he says, in the north." 4 Mr. Courthope terms this a 
 nonsensical speech 5 — though it may be worth noting that 
 George I and Peter were really far from being on friendly 
 
 2 Works, 1753, III, 195-6. 
 s Preface to 3d ed. 
 
 4 Preface to 1st ed. 
 
 5 Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, X, 2, note. See Lecky 's Eighteenth 
 Century, ch. II, on the situation between England and Kussia. About 
 1715-16, Charles of Sweden and Peter formed an alliance, and there 
 was danger that they might take up the cause of the Pretender. 
 
hill's relations with pope 203 
 
 terms. But however nonsensical, it scarcely justified the 
 passion into which Hill fell, and which informs the 
 "Preface to Mr. Pope" that appeared with the first edition 
 of The Northern Star. 
 
 After quoting "honest Bernard's" statement, Hill goes 
 on to attack Pope chiefly by the scornful application to him 
 of lines in his own Essay on Criticism. ' ' Tis possible that 
 under this disguise of opinion, your excess of good-breeding 
 may have concealed your dislike of the performance"; yet 
 why not avow the dislike? "Be niggard of advice on no 
 pretence." The lines really applicable to the case may be: 
 
 " All seems infected that th'inf ected spy, 
 As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye." 
 
 And Hill declares, "My esteem for your genius as a poet 
 is so very considerable that it is hardly exceeded by my 
 contempt of your vanity." Then leaving Pope for the 
 moment, he passes to characteristic reflections — arising, of 
 course, out of the supposed criticism of his subject — upon a 
 narrow and restricted view of human affairs. Suppose the 
 Czar were our enemy; "are his merits less shining? Does 
 his glory depend on his friendship for Britain? Con- 
 temptible meanness of thought ! . . . Next to deserving well 
 ourselves, it is the noblest perfection of Nature to admire 
 and applaud those who do so." This narrowness of mind 
 he attributes in large measure to the flatteries of poets, 
 "who generally writing for a precarious subsistence can 
 no way so easily succeed as by falling in with the weakness 
 and bias of men's natures. ... A mere poet, that is to say, 
 a wretch who has nothing but the jingle in his brains to 
 ring chimes to his vanity, and whose whole trade is rhyme- 
 jobbing, — such a creature is certainly the most worthless 
 incumbrance of his country." General as this is, it was 
 undoubtedly levelled at Pope, to whom the preface returns 
 for a final petulant fling: "If, after all, it was not the 
 
204 AARON HILL 
 
 subject, but the poem, that found no favor in his eyes, I 
 will take upon me to assure him, it sues not for the bless- 
 ing ; let him take it as ill as he pleases, I dare at least under- 
 take, it shall easily defend itself against any attack of his 
 making; which pray, Sir, inform him, since you are his 
 greatest admirer." 
 
 Of this outburst Pope took no notice, and Hill must have 
 grown somewhat ashamed of it; for in 1720 he sent Pope 
 another poem — The Creation — accompanied by an apology. 6 
 Pope, in his acknowledgment, 7 declares himself pleased at 
 the opportunity the gift offers of assuring Hill that he 
 neither did, nor intended doing, him the least injury; he 
 had been in so great a hurry at the time Lintot showed him 
 the poem that he postponed a careful reading for a day or 
 two; but the parts he did glance over he liked, and told 
 Lintot so. "I think it incumbent on any well-meaning man 
 to acquit himself of an illgrounded suspicion in another, 
 who perhaps means equally well, and is only too credulous. 
 I am sincerely so far from resenting this mistake that I am 
 more displeased at your thinking it necessary to treat me 
 so much in a style of compliment as you do in your letter." 
 With commendable caution, he refrains from comment on 
 the new poem, except to say, "I am sure the person who is 
 capable of writing it can need no man to judge it," — a re- 
 mark susceptible of various interpretations. 
 
 So far, Pope clearly had the advantage. On no provoca- 
 tion but a reported remark, too absurd on its face to be 
 authentic, he had been attacked publicly and intemper- 
 ately, and had kept silent, until his enemy calmed down 
 and made overtures, to which he responded pleasantly. It 
 was wise treatment for a man of Hill's temperament, — 
 placated as easily as he was aroused, and quick to appre- 
 
 6 Quoted in part in Elwin and Courthope's Pope, X, 3. 
 
 7 Pope to Hill, March 2 (1720). Misdated 1731, in the Col. of 1751. 
 
hill's relations with pope 205 
 
 ciate even the appearance of sincerity. He now replied 
 fervently : 8 he is under the greatest confusion at realizing 
 the crime he has been guilty of ; he might have known from 
 Pope's writings the extent of his soul; to call his guilt 
 credulity is too generous — "it was a passionate and most 
 unjustifiable levity"; it was indeed little less than a miracle 
 that he attempted to offend one whose mind at least had 
 been his ' ' intimate acquaintance, and regarded with a kind 
 of partial tenderness"; Pope has punished his injustice 
 with double sharpness by his manner of receiving it. Not 
 content with writing this humble apology, Hill made it 
 public by printing it in another preface to Pope, in The 
 Creation; and he added certain compliments: "I look up 
 to you with extraordinary comfort, as to a new constella- 
 tion breaking out upon our world with equal heat and 
 brightness, and cross-spangling, as it were, the whole 
 heaven of wit with your Milky Way of genius. ' ' 9 
 
 An incident growing out of the publication of The 
 Northern Star forms the subject of the next letter, from 
 Pope, six years later. A second edition of the poem ap- 
 peared in 1724, with a Latin translation by Hill's brother 
 Gilbert; and through this Latin version, the poem "with- 
 out any design or application of the author . . . reached 
 the hands of that truly great and imperial foreign sovereign 
 in whose praise it was composed." 10 The death of the 
 Czar in March, 1725, was the signal for a third edition, 
 previously announced in the Plain Dealer, 11 where several 
 
 s Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, X, 3. 
 
 9 Dr. George Sewell, M.D., who favored Hill with some criticism of 
 the poem (Hill's Works, II, 406 f.), objected to a constellation as 
 large as the Milky Way; but Hill defends the phrase vehemently — 
 he can make a new constellation of his own as large as he chooses 
 (Works, I, y 1). 
 
 io Plain Dealer, preface to 1734 ed. Bond there says that he sug- 
 gested the translation. 
 
 ii No. 106. 
 
206 AARON HILL 
 
 papers had recently appeared, defending the Czar's treat- 
 ment of his son and discussing the possible danger of a war 
 with Russia. 12 Shortly after, Hill was "surprised by the 
 condescension of a compliment from the Empress, his relict 
 and immediate successor," in the form of a gold medal, 13 
 sent by the Czar's order. 14 Papers relating to him were 
 also promised to Hill, to serve as the basis of a biography ; 
 and some of them actually arrived: "I have," he wrote to 
 Pope years later, 15 "papers in my hands, which throw the 
 noblest and most beautiful colors on a circumstance which 
 the malice of some great courts in Europe has taken pains 
 to misrepresent and to blacken. The shortened reign of the 
 lady deprived me of great part of a treasure, which I see, 
 by what came to my hands, had been vast and invaluable." 
 To these papers, which he evidently supposed were in 
 Hill's hands, Pope refers in the letter of 1726 : 16 "What a 
 satisfaction to behold that perfect likeness, without art, 
 affectation, or even the gloss of coloring, with a noble 
 neglect of all that finishing and smoothing, which any other 
 
 12N0S. 20, 24, 75. 
 
 13 Preface to 5th ed. of Northern Star, 1739. 
 
 14 A Dr. J. Blinman brought the medal, as he reminds Hill in a 
 letter of May 21, 1736 (Col. of 1751), expressing a desire to renew 
 their acquaintance. 
 
 is January 15, 1739, Works, I, 327 f. Hill wished Pope to omit a 
 couplet, relating to the Czar's marriage, in one of his satires. 
 
 is In the Col. of 1751, where most of the letters from Pope to Hill 
 were first published. In Elwin and Courthope's Pope, where all but 
 two of the letters are reprinted, half a dozen are incorrectly stated to 
 have appeared originally in 1753. Several are wrongly dated in the 
 1751 pamphlet, and the dates corrected by Elwin and Courthope ; one, 
 of September 29, 1731, is not corrected — it belongs to the year 1738, 
 as the references to forthcoming tragedies by Thomson and Mallet 
 clearly prove; the play returned to Hill is Caesar, not Athelwold. The 
 two letters from Pope, not in Elwin and Courthope's edition, are 
 printed in the Life prefixed to Hill's Dramatic Works; they are dated 
 July 15 [1738], and January 22 [1739]. 
 
hill's relations with pope 207 
 
 hand would have been obliged to bestow on so principal a 
 figure ! I write this to a man whose judgment I am certain 
 of. . . . There will be no danger of your dressing this Mars 
 too finely, whose armor is not gold but adamant, and whose 
 style in all probability is much more strong than it is 
 polished." The tone of the entire letter suggests only the 
 most friendly relations between Hill and Pope. They had 
 exchanged poems; Hill had evidently defended Pope 
 against some of the "silly attacks" arising out of the sur- 
 reptitious publication of the letters to Cromwell. "Nor am 
 I ashamed," declares Pope, "of those weaknesses of mine 
 which they have exposed in print . . . since you have found 
 a way to turn those weaknesses into virtue, by your partial 
 regard of them. ... I can make you no better return for 
 your great compliment upon me . . . but by telling you, that 
 it is honor enough to reward all my studies, to find my 
 character and reputation is part of the care of that person 
 to whom the fame and glory of Peter Alexiowitz was 
 committed. ' ' 
 
 There is certainly nothing here to indicate that Pope 
 resented the references to him in the Plain Dealer that Mr. 
 Courthope calls uncomplimentary. 17 Praise of Dennis 
 could scarcely be construed as an attack upon Pope, unless 
 to say of Dennis that he had the soul to know how far 
 popularity was from being a mark of living merit is tanta- 
 mount to a statement that Pope's popularity proves lack 
 of merit. 18 Though no. 116 complains of the omission of 
 Shakespeare's poems from Pope's six- volume edition, no. 
 16 and no. 68 contain praise enough of his genius to satisfy 
 the vanity of any poet. One of the most moderate passages 
 declares, "The praise of Mr. Pope will be a theme for wit 
 and learning when all the dukes, his patrons, shall be lost 
 in the dust that covers them." 
 
 iTElwin and Courthope 's Pope, V, 224-226. 
 is Nos. 54 and 82. 
 
208 AARON HILL 
 
 Yet, in spite of the absence of provocation in Hill 's paper 
 and the great cordiality of the 1726 letter, "A. H." ap- 
 peared in chapter VI of the Bathos (published in March, 
 1727-8), among the Flying Fish — "writers who now and 
 then rise upon their fins, and fly out of the profund, but 
 their wings are soon dry, and they drop down to the 
 bottom." Possibly Pope had been biding his time to get 
 even for the Northern Star preface ; possibly he was so im- 
 pressed with the absurdity of some passages in Hill 's works 
 that the critic in him could not refrain from putting Hill 
 where he belonged; 19 possibly Hill's preoccupation with 
 his York Buildings scheme pointed him out as a compara- 
 tively safe plaything. But he was not so absorbed in 
 Scotch timber that his sensitive eye failed to light upon 
 his initials. Of course he was quite wrong to think them 
 his: Pope informed him later that the letters were "set at 
 random, to occasion what they did occasion, the suspicion 
 of bad and jealous writers, of which number I could never 
 reckon Mr. Hill, and most of whose names I did not 
 know."- Unfortunately, this ingenuous explanation did 
 not accompany the initials, and Hill, taking fire promptly, 
 retaliated with a copy of verses on Pope and an epigram 
 on Swift, published in the Daily Journal of April 16. 
 
 When the Dunciad appeared the next month, H--- was 
 present at the diving-match, striving with the dark and 
 dirty party-writers to see who best loved dirt and could 
 fling filth about: 
 
 " H tried the next, but hardly snatched from sight, 
 
 Instant buoys up, and rises into light; 
 He bears no token of the sable streams, 
 And mounts far off among the swans of Thames." 21 
 
 is Joseph Warton thought the Bathos would have been much en- 
 riched by Hill's verse (Essay on Pope, II, 251). 
 20 January 26, 1731. Col of 1751. 
 2i Book II, 273 f. 
 
hill's relations with pope 209 
 
 In the next edition (1729), two asterisks replaced the 
 " H - - -, " and the following note was added : 22 ' ' This is an 
 instance of the tenderness of our author. The person here 
 intended writ an angry preface against him, founded on a 
 mistake, which he afterwards honorably acknowledged in 
 another printed preface. Since when he fell under a 
 second mistake, and abused both him and his friend. He 
 is a writer of genius and spirit, though in his youth he 
 was guilty of some pieces bordering upon bombast. Our 
 poet here gives him a panegyric instead of a satire, being 
 edified beyond measure by the only instance he ever met 
 with in his life of one who was much a poet confessing 
 himself in an error; and has suppressed his name as think- 
 ing him capable of a second repentance."- 3 
 
 Hill was not much impressed with the tenderness of the 
 reference, — the briefest connection with the filth of that 
 diving-match he regarded, quite rightly, as an insult; and 
 he burst again into poetry. In 1730 appeared "The 
 Progress of Wit: a Caveat. For the use of an eminent 
 writer. By a fellow of All-Souls. To which is prefixed 
 an explanatory discourse to the reader. By Gamaliel Gun- 
 son. ' ' The discourse, imitated from the introduction to the 
 Key to the Rape of the Lock, makes some pretence at 
 anonymity, and jokes heavily about the dark allusions in 
 the work. In the poem itself, Pope is satirized under the 
 name of "tuneful Alexis, the ladies' plaything and the 
 muses' pride," who 
 
 22 Book II, 285. 
 
 23 In the edition of 1735 the line appears, "Then P- - essayed"; in 
 the 1736 edition, the two asterisks are replaced, and the note on the 
 line reads: "A gentleman of genius and spirit, who was secretly dipt 
 in some papers of this kind, on whom our poet bestows a panegyric 
 instead of a satire, as deserving to be better employed than in party 
 quarrels and personal invective. ' ' 
 
 15 
 
210 AARON HILL 
 
 " Desiring and deserving others' praise, 
 Poorly accepts a fame he ne'er repays; 
 Unborn to cherish, sneakingly approves, 
 And wants the soul to spread the worth he loves." 
 
 Defamed by his irritated fellow-poets, and finally de- 
 posed from the top of Pindus, "far-fallen Alexis" sleeps, 
 and sees in a dream the river of life: the current on the 
 left side — full of quicksands concealed by bright, treacher- 
 ous water, where gnats, wasps, and flies, "tinged with the 
 rainbow's everchanging dyes," people the sunshine — leads 
 to oblivion; that on the right — broad, deep, and serene, 
 dotted with green islands and peopled only by swans — leads 
 to fame, the home of joy and peace, "glory unenvied and 
 unslandered gain." Of the voyagers on the river, some 
 seek the silent side — slowly and with difficulty; others, in 
 their light galleys, shoot swiftly to the shallows and dance 
 away through the "shoaly sunshine," until caught by 
 whirlpool or rock. Among the glittering boats Alexis sees 
 appear that of a youth "saddened by sickness and o'ercast 
 by spleen, ' ' but with a living light beaming from his eyes, 
 
 "And from his voice (for as he sailed he sung) 
 Such magic sounds of melting music sprung, 
 That the hushed heaven all downward seemed to bend." 
 
 The Muses are his oarswomen, the Graces trim his sails, 
 green-eyed Envy in the bottom of the boat serves merely 
 as ballast, Fancy spreads a starry mantle over him, and 
 Pleasure, Praise, and Beauty dance the moments away on 
 the deck. Thus guided, he reaches the green islands. But 
 the swans seeming tame company after the joyous throng 
 in the shallow water, the youth steers his boat back, and 
 starts a disdainful war against wasps and flies, while the 
 drones acclaim him the prince of fly-catchers. The dream- 
 ing Alexis, much concerned to see the youth sweeping to 
 destruction, beseeches Fancy (the stage-manager of the 
 
hill's relations with pope 211 
 
 vision) to call him by name and stop him. Fancy is 
 amused that Alexis does not himself know the name : 
 
 "His is a name that dwells on ev'ry mind, 
 Tunes every tongue, and sails with ev'ry wind " — 
 
 And Alexis hears pronounced his own name — Pope.- 4 
 
 There is unquestionably far more praise than cavilling 
 in this production. 25 The criticism that Pope was mis- 
 directing his gifts in waging a war against petty dunces 
 still holds its own. The preface to the Caveat speaks to 
 the same purpose with more directness : the author, it 
 states, confines his satire to the poet's folly, not allowing it 
 to attack his wit, "which is not weaker, though less lovely, 
 when it stains itself upon a dirty subject, than when it 
 ornaments beauty itself. . . . What pity that the warmest 
 of a certain gentleman's admirers are lately forced to con- 
 fess, there are grossnesses in some of his sallies, obscene 
 enough to blot out any wit but their author's; insults low 
 enough to become the most vulgar-spirited among his 
 enemies; and malice animated enough to be beautiful in 
 any of his friends but himself." In his work are to be 
 found, "among virtues we despair of equalling, errors we 
 disdain to imitate." 
 
 Until he had fired this shot, Hill did not complain of 
 his inclusion in the Dunciad. But now he wrote a guile- 
 less letter to Pope, sending him the Plain Dealers and a 
 poem written by the promising Urania at the age of eleven, 
 under the inspiration of Pope; and after noting how 
 natural it is for his family to love and admire him, he ob- 
 served casually: "If, after this, I should inform you that I 
 
 24 Southey (Specimens, II, 141, 1807) thinks the character of Pope 
 in this poem ' ' particularly just, elegant, and severe. ' ' 
 
 25 "By the frequency of an advertisement which I have remarked 
 in the daily papers, The Progress of Wit seems too slow to be boasted 
 of." Fog's Journal, January 2, 1731. 
 
212 AARON HILL 
 
 have a gentle complaint to make to and against you, con- 
 cerning a paragraph in the notes of a late edition of the 
 Dunciad, I fear you would think your crime too little to 
 deserve the punishment of so long a letter as you are 
 doomed to on that subject." 26 
 
 Pope made haste to get his excuses in ahead of the 
 threatened complaint. 27 Without denying that Hill was 
 aimed at in the note, he declares the note itself to be a com- 
 pliment — "so it has been thought by many, who have asked 
 to whom that passage made that oblique panegyric." And 
 anyway, why complain to him? "As to the notes, I am 
 weary of telling a great truth, which is, that I am not the 
 author of them." Mr. Courthope's comment on this last 
 statement is pertinent: "It is, however, plain that Pope 
 alone could have written a note stating what nobody else 
 could know, — that he had praised Hill in the text because 
 he was the solitary instance of a poet confessing himself in 
 error, and had suppressed his name because he believed him 
 capable of a second repentance." 28 After this typical 
 evasion, Pope assumes the offensive. Has he not good 
 reason to complain of the Caveat? It hurts him to be 
 represented as wanting the worth to cherish and befriend 
 men of merit. "I am sorry," he goes on with an admirable 
 assumption of injured innocence, "the author of that re- 
 flection knew me no better, and happened to be unknown 
 to those who could have better informed him; for I have 
 the charity to think he was misled only by his ignorance 
 of me, and the benevolence to forgive the worst thing that 
 ever in my opinion was said of me, on that supposition." 
 Although he appreciates Hill's praise of him as a writer, 
 "I only wish you knew as well as I do, how much I prefer 
 
 20 January 18, 1731, WorTcs, 1753, I, 26 f. 
 
 27 Pope to Hill, January 26, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 
 28 Elwin and Courthope's Pope, X, 9, note 3. 
 
hill's eelations with pope 213 
 
 qualities of the heart to those of the head. I vow to God, 
 I never thought any great matters of my poetical capacity ; 
 I only thought it a little better, comparatively, than that of 
 some very mean writers, who are too proud. But I do 
 know certainly, my moral life is superior to that of most of 
 the wits of these days. This is a silly letter, but it will 
 show you my mind honestly." 
 
 Hill 's reply — a letter better known and more commended 
 than anything else he ever wrote- 9 — showed him more con- 
 vinced of the truth of the first part of this last statement 
 than of the second: 
 
 " Your answer regarding no part of mine but the conclusion, 
 you must pardon my compliment to the close of yours, in return ; 
 if I agree with you that your letter is weaker than one would 
 have expected. You assure me that I did not know you so well 
 as I might, had I happened to be known to others, who could 
 have instructed my ignorance; and I begin to find, indeed, that 
 I was less acquainted with you than I imagined. But your last 
 letter has enlightened me, and I can never be in danger of mis- 
 taking you for the future. 
 
 " Your enemies have often told me that your spleen was at 
 least as distinguishable as your genius; and it will be kinder, 
 I think, to believe them than impute to rudeness or ill manners 
 the return you were pleased to make for the civility, with which 
 I addressed you. I will, therefore, suppose you to have been 
 peevish or in pain, while you were writing me this letter; and upon 
 that supposition sball endeavor to undeceive you. If I did not 
 love you as a good man, while I esteem you as a good writer, I 
 should read you without reflection. And it were doing too much 
 honor to your friends, and too little to my own discernment, to go 
 to them for a character of your mind, which I was able enough to 
 extract from your writings. 
 
 29 January 28, 1731 (Col. of 1751). "Hill is always considered to 
 have got a victory over Pope in this excellent letter." (Elwin and 
 Courthope's Pope, X, 11, n. 1). The remonstrance is "both gentle- 
 manly and reasonable" (G. C. Macaulay: Thomson, 18). 
 
214 AARON HILL 
 
 " But to imitate your love of truth, with the frankness you 
 have taught me, I wish the great qualities of your heart were as 
 strong in you as the good ones. You would then have been 
 above that emotion and bitterness, wherewith you remember 
 things which want weight to deserve your anguish. 
 
 " Since you were not the writer of the notes to the Dunciad, 
 it would be impertinent to trouble you with the complaint I 
 intended. I will only observe, that the author was in the right 
 to believe me capable of a second repentance; but I hope I was 
 incapable of that second sin, which should have been previous 
 to his supposition. If the initial letters ' A. H.' were not meant 
 to stand for my name, yet they were everywhere read so, as you 
 might have seen in Mist's Journal and other public papers; and 
 I had shown Mr. Pope an example how reasonable I thought it 
 to clear a mistake, publicly, which had been publicly propagated. 
 One note, among so many, would have done me this justice; and 
 the generosity of such a proceeding could have left no room for 
 that offensive ' sneakingly,' which, though perhaps too harsh a 
 word, was the properest a man would choose, who was satirizing 
 an approbation that he had never observed warm enough to declare 
 itself to the world, but in defence of the great or the popular. 
 
 " Again, if the author of the notes knew that ' A. H.' related 
 not to me, what reason had he to allude to that character as 
 mine, by observing that I had published pieces bordering upon 
 bombast — a circumstance so independent of any other purpose 
 of the note, that I should forget to whom I am writing, if I 
 thought it wanted explanation. 
 
 " As to your oblique panegyric, I am not under so blind an 
 attachment to the Goddess I was devoted to in the Dunciad, but 
 that I knew it was a commendation, though a dirtier one than 
 I wished for; who am neither fond of some of the company in 
 which I was listed, the nobler reward for which I was to become 
 a diver, the allegoric muddiness in which I was to try my skill, 
 nor the institutor of the games you were so kind to allow me a 
 share in. Since, however, you could see so clearly that I ought 
 to be satisfied with the praise, and forgive the dirt it was mixed 
 with, I am sorry, it seemed not as reasonable that you should 
 
hill's relations with pope 215 
 
 pardon me for returning 1 your compliment, with more and 
 opener praise, mixed with less of that dirtiness, which we have, 
 both of us, the good taste to complain of. 
 
 " The Caveat, Sir, was mine. It would have been ridiculous 
 to suppose you ignorant of it; I cannot think you need be told 
 that it meant you no harm; and it had scorned to appear under 
 the borrowed name it carries, but that the whimsical turn of the 
 preface would have made my own a contradiction. I promise 
 you, however, that for the future I will publish nothing without 
 my name that concerns you, or your writings. I have now 
 almost finished an Essay on Propriety and Impropriety, in 
 Design, Thought, and Expression, illustrated by Examples in 
 both Kinds from the Writings of Mr. Pope; and, to convince 
 you how much more pleasure it gives me to distinguish your 
 lights than your shades, and that I am as willing as I ought to 
 be to see and acknowledge my faults, I am ready, with all my 
 heart, to let it run thus, if it would otherwise create the least 
 pain in you : An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety, etc., 
 illustrated by Examples, of the first, from the Writings of 
 Mr. Pope, and of the last, from those of the Author. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you say you never thought any great 
 matters of your poetry. It is, in my opinion, the characteristic 
 you are to hope your distinction from. To be honest is the duty 
 of every plain man ! Nor, since the soul of poetry is sentiment, 
 can a great poet want morality. But your honesty you possess 
 in common with a million who will never be remembered ; whereas 
 your poetry is a peculiar, that will make it impossible you should 
 be forgotten. If you had not been in the spleen when you wrote 
 me this letter, I persuade myself you would not, immediately 
 after censuring the pride of writers, have asserted that you 
 certainly know your moral life above that of most of the wits 
 of these days; at any other time, you would have remembered 
 that humility is a moral virtue. It was a bold declaration; and 
 the certainty with which you know it stands in need of a better 
 acquaintance, than you seem to have had with the tribe; since 
 you tell me, in the same letter, that many of their names were 
 unknown to you. 
 
216 AAKON HILL 
 
 " Neither would it appear to your own reason, at a cooler 
 juncture, overconsistent with the morality you are so sure of, to 
 scatter the letters of the whole alphabet annexed at random to 
 characters of a light and ridiculous cast, confusedly, with intent 
 to provoke jealous writers into resentment, that you might take 
 occasion, from that resentment, to expose and depreciate their 
 characters. . . . Upon the whole, Sir, I find I am so sincerely 
 your friend that it is not in your power to make me your enemy ; 
 else, that unnecessary air of neglect and superiority, which is so 
 remarkable in the turn of your letter, would have nettled me to 
 the quick; and I must triumph, in my turn, at the strength of 
 my own heart, who can, after it, still find and profess myself, 
 most affectionately and sincerely, your humble servant." 
 
 The "manliness and spirit" 30 of this letter is in striking 
 contrast to the evasiveness of Pope's. Pope's answer 31 is 
 humble — a proof that he recognized his adversary's ad- 
 vantage — but it is not frank; in Dr. Johnson's words, "he 
 was reduced to sneak and shuffle, sometimes to deny, and 
 sometimes to apologize ; he first endeavors to wound, and is 
 then afraid to own that he meant a blow." 3 - He begins by 
 proposing mutual forgiveness : he has been guilty of weak- 
 ness; Hill, of too much warmth. If the letter was silly, 
 so much the more evident was his trust in Hill's good 
 feeling towards him. He meant to show no incivility or 
 neglect, but merely a frank plainness. Towards the other 
 writers who attacked him, "God knows, I never felt any 
 emotions but what bad writers raise in all men, those gentle 
 ones of laughter or pity ; that I was so open, concerned, and 
 serious with respect to you only, is sure a proof of regard, 
 not neglect. For in truth, nothing ever vexed me till I saw 
 your epigram against Dr. S. and me come out in their 
 papers ; and this indeed did vex me, to see one swan among 
 
 so Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, V, 225. 
 si February 5, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 32 Lives, ed. G. B. Hill, III, 151. 
 
hill's relations with pope 217 
 
 the geese. That the letters 'A. H' were applied to you in 
 the papers I did not know (for I seldom read them). I 
 heard it only from Mr. Savage, as from yourself, and sent 
 my assurances to the contrary. But I don't see how the 
 annotator on the D--- could have rectified that mistake 
 publicly, without particularizing your name, in a book 
 where I thought it too good to be inserted. No doubt he 
 has applied that passage in the D - - - to you, by the story 
 he tells; but his mention of bombast only in some of your 
 juvenile pieces, I think, was meant to show, that passage 
 hinted only at that allegorical muddiness, and not at any 
 worse sort of dirt with which some other writers were 
 charged. I hate to say what will not be believed : yet when 
 I told you, many asked me to whom that oblique praise 
 was meant, I did not tell you I answered, it was you. Has 
 it escaped your observation that the name is a syllable too 
 long? Or (if you will have it a Christian name) is there 
 any other in the whole book? Is there no author of two 
 syllables whom it will better fit, not only as getting out 
 of the allegorical muddiness, but as having been dipt in the 
 dirt of party-writing, and recovering from it betimes? I 
 know such a man, who would take it for a compliment, and 
 so would his patrons too. But I ask you not to believe this, 
 except you are vastly inclined to it. [Hill would have 
 been vastly credulous if he had done so.] I will come 
 closer to the point: would you have the note left out? it 
 shall. Would you have it expressly said, you were not 
 meant? it shall, if I have any influence on the editors. I 
 believe the note was meant only as a gentle rebuke and 
 friendly ; I understood very well the Caveat on your part 
 to be the same, and complained (you see) of nothing but 
 two or three lines reflecting on my behaviour and temper 
 to other writers; because I knew they were not true, and 
 you could not know they were." If Hill chooses, he may 
 
218 AARON HILL 
 
 confine his examples of impropriety to Pope's works; and 
 he will try to amend them. "It is my morality only that 
 must make me beloved or happy. . . . Therefore it is, Sir, 
 that I much more resent any attempt against my moral 
 character (which I know to be unjust) than any to lessen 
 my poetical one (which, for all I know, may be very just)." 
 With the letter came a peace-offering of the Odyssey for 
 Miss Urania. 
 
 Pope's equivocation is indeed remarkable, as Mr. Court- 
 hope says, — as remarkable as the "daring with which he 
 laid himself open to a crushing reply." 33 His defense 
 consists of two mutually destructive parts: he meant Hill 
 a compliment, and he did not mean Hill at all. Hill was 
 certainly not too stupid to perceive the opening offered by 
 Pope's shuffling evasions, but he generously declared him- 
 self quite willing to forget "the appearance of everything 
 that has been distasteful to either." The objectionable 
 lines in the Caveat were added as an afterthought by way 
 of introducing the allegory less abruptly; "but," he adds, 
 "I confess it was unreasonable in me to cover your praise, 
 which I delighted in, under the veil of an allegory, and 
 explain my censure too openly, in which I could take no 
 pleasure." As to the offer to omit the Dunciad note, it is 
 kind; "but t am satisfied. It is over, and deserves no 
 more of your application." Then in the last paragraph 
 he makes casual mention of that Essay on Propriety, 
 promising to send it to Pope before publication. He also 
 promises the manuscript of a new poem, and requests that 
 Pope star any passage concerning himself of which he does 
 not approve. 34 
 
 The new poem was Advice to the Poets. — To ivhich is pre- 
 fixed an Epistle dedicatory to the few great spirits of Great 
 
 33 Pope, X, 17, n. 1. 
 
 34 February 10, 1731. Col. of 1751 (there wrongly dated 1731- 
 1732). 
 
hill's relations with pope 219 
 
 Britain. These few great spirits are the patrons capable 
 of distinguishing between poets and pretenders, and of 
 encouraging the former. Hill calls upon Pope to hear the 
 Muse he invokes : 
 
 " she sounds th'inspired decree, 
 Thou great archangel of wit's heaven, for thee." 
 
 Half-souled poets may fall foul of one another : 
 
 " But let no muse pre-eminent as thine, 
 Of voice melodious and of force divine, 
 Stung, by wit's wasps, all rights of rank forego, 
 And turn to snarl and bite at every foe." 
 
 A few lines refer to the late quarrel : 
 
 " Should even hot rashness erring javelins throw, 
 And strike our friendly breast, supposed a foe, 
 How nobler still to undeceive than blame! 
 And chasten insult with the blush of shame." 
 
 The rest of the poem is chiefly concerned with such advice 
 to poets as to praise merit, strike at oppression, kindle 
 patriotism, and the like. In conclusion, the poet, declar- 
 ing his preference for obscurity, describes himself as hug- 
 ging his rest, — an amusing picture of Hill, who could do 
 everything but rest. 
 
 Pope evidently starred a few lines, and said of the poem, 
 "The satisfaction it gave me is proportioned to the regard 
 I have for you," — one of his eminently safe statements. 35 
 He again suggests leaving out the Dunciad note, — that is, 
 he thinks the "two lords and one gentleman, who really 
 took and printed that edition, ' ' can be persuaded. 36 In his 
 next letter, he expresses himself as pleased with the dedica- 
 tion ' ' equally with the poem, ' ' — safe again ! ' ' Our hearts 
 beat just together, in regard to men of power and quality ; 
 
 35 February 15, 1731. Col of 1751. 
 
 ss For comment on this see Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, general 
 introduction to the Dunciad, vol. IV. 
 
220 AARON HILL 
 
 but a series of infirmities, for my whole life has been but 
 one long disease, had hindered me from following your 
 advice." 37 
 
 The Dunciad quarrel may now be regarded as practically 
 closed, and the victory awarded to Hill. He had inspired 
 his antagonist with respect by pushing him to the wall, and 
 with gratitude by forbearing to take an ungenerous ad- 
 vantage. It must have appeared to Pope better to be a 
 little bored by flattery, better even to return the flattery 
 from time to time, than run the risk of any public exposure 
 as cutting as this private one had been. Whatever were 
 his secret feelings after this, however tiresome or ridiculous 
 he may have thought Hill's works, he avoided open provo- 
 cation. Hill understood the value of Pope's protestations of 
 sincerity, and Pope knew that he did. Mr. Courthope likes 
 to think of all the subsequent civilities of Pope — his cor- 
 respondence with Hill, his efforts in behalf of Hill's plays, 
 his reading of Hill's MSS. — as one long penance per- 
 formed in the consciousness of having injured a worthy 
 man — who knew how to retaliate. 38 Indeed, it could 
 scarcely be called anything else, when it involved the read- 
 ing and re-reading even to the sixth time of a Caesar. 
 But there was only one Caesar, and there were compensa- 
 tions in Hill's friendship: he had attractive personal quali- 
 ties — for that there is ample testimony; 39 and he might 
 prove useful as an ally. 
 
 The rather brisk correspondence for the rest of the year 
 1731 — there are thirteen letters, three only of them Hill's, 
 from September to November 13 alone — is chiefly concerned 
 
 37 March 14, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 
 as Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, III, 386, n. 1. 
 
 sa Daviea (Life of Garrick, 1, eh. 13) describes him in later life: 
 "his figure, air, and manner were gracefully venerable; with a warm 
 and benevolent mind, he had the delicate address and polite manners 
 of the complete gentleman." 
 
hill's relations with pope 221 
 
 with Athelwold, and is devoid of any special interest. 
 "With "great timorousness " Pope suggested a few changes 
 in the play, indicated in the margin with his black pencil, — 
 "half afraid to be legible." 40 And that the fear was 
 justified is evident from the very polite and elaborate ex- 
 planation Hill gave of his reasons for not adopting some 
 of the emendations; 41 he was not offended, but he took 
 criticism with a deadly seriousness that must have been 
 extremely disconcerting. The death of Hill's wife on June 
 25, 1731, brought a letter of condolence from Pope 42 with 
 a more sincere note than usual; Hill appreciated it: "It 
 will never be in my power to forget how compassionate 
 you have been, in calling and sending so often. It is plain, 
 you have none of the fashionable want of feeling for the 
 calamities of others." He asks Pope's advice about a 
 monument to be placed in the Abbey cloisters; "the low 
 and unmeaning lumpishness" in the vulgar style of monu- 
 ments disgusts him, and he encloses a rough sketch of an 
 idea of his own. 43 Pope apparently managed to avoid giv- 
 ing advice on this delicate matter. Two of his letters of 
 this month 44 refer to his mother's illness and contain 
 invitations to visit Twickenham: "I could wish, if Miss 
 Hill, under a father's authority, might venture, she saw 
 me before I am quite decayed, I mean all of me that is yet 
 half flourishing — my garden." This visit finally took 
 place about October 20. 45 Once he mentions the quarrel: 46 
 
 40 Pope to Hill, June 5, 1731. Col. of 1751 (misprinted "Jan."). 
 
 4i October 29, 1731, WorTcs, 1753, I, 92. These corrections derive a 
 certain importance from the fact that the handwriting forms part of 
 the evidence used in deciding whether Pope was the author of the 
 emendations in Thomson's Seasons. See Notes and Queries, 8th S., 
 XII, 389, article by D. C. Tovey. 
 
 42 September 1, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 
 43 September 17, 1731, WorTcs, I, 65 f. 
 
 44 September 3 and 25, 1731. Col. of 1751. 
 4- Hill to Wilks, October 23, WorTcs, I, 88. 
 
 •46 Pope to Hill, October 9, 1731, Col. of 1751. 
 
222 AARON HILL 
 
 "I have been as ill as when I writ you that peevish image 
 of my soul, a letter some time since, which had the good 
 effect of making us know one another," — and which was 
 now, he might have added, forcing him to make interest 
 for Hill's play with Lady Suffolk and even the king and 
 queen. 47 
 
 The failure of Athelwold closed that chapter in their 
 correspondence, and the publication (December, 1731) of 
 Pope's Epistle to the Earl of Burlington — Of False Taste, 
 a title adopted in the third edition on Hill's suggestion, 48 
 opened a new but very brief one, closed after three or four 
 letters. In the storm of criticism aroused by the popular 
 identification of "Timon" in the Epistle with the Duke of 
 Chandos, Pope turned to Hill for help. ' ' If there be truth 
 in the world," he writes, 49 "I declare to you, I never 
 imagined the least application of what I said of Timon 
 could be made to the Duke of Chandos, (than whom there is 
 scarce a more blameless, worthy, and generous, beneficent 
 character among all our nobility. ... I am certain, if you 
 calmly read every particular of that description, you will 
 find almost all of them point blank the reverse of that 
 person's villa." 50 Noting how awkward it is to fight in 
 defense of one's own work, he adds insinuatingly, "It 
 would have been a pleasure to me, to have found some 
 friend saying a word in my justification, against a most 
 malicious falsehood. . . . Believe me, I would rather never 
 have written a verse in my life, than that any of them 
 should trouble a truly good man. It was once my case 
 before, but happily reconciled ; and among generous minds 
 nothing so endears friends as the having offended one 
 
 47 See letters from Pope to Hill, October 9 and 29, Col. of 1751. 
 
 48 Pope to Hill, February 5, 1732, Col. of 1751. 
 
 49 December 22, 1731, Col. of 1751. 
 
 so The truth of this statement is discussed in the introduction to 
 Moral Essay IV. Elwin and Courthope 's Pope. 
 
hill's relations with pope 223 
 
 another. I lament the malice of the age, that studies to 
 see its own likeness in everything; I lament the dulness of 
 it, that cannot see an excellence; the first is my unhappi- 
 ness, the second yours. I look upon the fate of your piece 
 like that of a great treasure, which is buried as soon as 
 brought to light ; but is sure to be dug up the next age, and 
 enrich posterity." He refers in closing to his fear of 
 losing his mother — dearer to him than anything, except his 
 morals. 
 
 It seemed impossible for Pope to avoid talking to Hill 
 of his morals. And it annoyed Hill. After Pope's death, 
 he wrote to Richardson: 51 "One of his worst mistakes was 
 that unnecessary noise he used to make in boast of his 
 morality. It seemed to me almost a call upon suspicion, 
 that a man should rate the duties of plain honesty as if 
 they had been qualities extraordinary. And, in fact, I saw 
 on some occasions that he found those duties too severe for 
 practise; and but prized himself upon the character, in 
 proportion to the pains it cost him to support it." This 
 may have been one of the occasions Hill had in mind; and 
 perhaps the flattery in the letter was too obviously due to 
 interested motives. At all events, instead of rushing into 
 print in defense of his friend, Hill confesses to having fallen 
 "at the first and second reading . . . into the general con- 
 struction that had been put upon the character of Timon." 
 Then, however, he noticed those points of difference already 
 set forth in the newspapers. No doubt, "that unguarded 
 absence of caution, which is a mark by which one may be 
 sure a purpose was either angry or generous" prevented 
 Pope's realizing the occasion for slander in the name of 
 Timon, in view of the Duke of Chandos's recent reverse of 
 fortune. He points out a few details that are not "point 
 
 51 September 10 ; 1744, in Kichardson's Correspondence, ed. Mrs. 
 Barbauld, I, 106. 
 
224 AARON HILL 
 
 blank the reverse" of the Duke's villa; "as to the many 
 unresembling particulars, they are drowned, like the mis- 
 taken predictions of eleven months in an almanac, where 
 the events of the twelfth come by chance to be accom- 
 plished." The next paragraph must have annoyed Pope: 
 "But that it is a rule with me to consider the letters I re- 
 ceive from my friends as their own property still, though 
 trusted to my possession, I could more effectually convince 
 him [the Duke] how he ought to think, by letting him see 
 how you think on this subject, in an easy, undesigning, 
 natural indignation, expressed in a private letter, than by 
 all the most labored endeavors of yourself or your friends 
 in public. ' ' 52 There is a suggestion of quiet malice here. 
 
 When Pope wrote again, 53 it was merely to tell Hill how 
 strongly the Duke had assured him of the ' ' rectitude of his 
 opinion" and his resentment at the report, — an interpreta- 
 tion of the Duke's attitude much more favorable to himself 
 than the Duke's letter warranted. 54 And then there is a 
 break in the correspondence of nearly a year. Perhaps it 
 is sufficiently accounted for by Hill's failure to take up 
 arms for Pope in this exigency. Or it is barely possible 
 that he may have connected Pope with a fling at Athelwold 
 in the Grub Street Journal of this month (no. 112) : "A 
 play may be called theatrical that is written by any person 
 belonging to the theatre, or that is given to the theatre. 
 ... Of this sort was Athelwold, which, as I am informed, 
 was given to the house; but I don't find that its being 
 theatrical could prevent its dying a natural death soon 
 after its birth." Of course Pope's connection with the 
 paper was not avowed, and may not have been suspected 
 
 52 Hill to Pope, December 23, 1731, Works, I, 106 f. 
 
 53 February 5, 1732 (misdated 1730-1 in the Col. of 1751). 
 
 s* Johnson (Lives, ed. G. B. Hill, III, 153) says that Pope's letter 
 to the Duke "was answered with great magnanimity, as by a man 
 who accepted his excuse without believing his professions." 
 
hill's relations with pope 225 
 
 by Hill at this time. Or without seeking any more definite 
 explanation, we may assume mere incompatibility of 
 temper. Their intercourse was probably ruffled more than 
 once by little encounters like the following, related by Hill 
 to Richardson some years later: 55 
 
 "There was a verse which Mr. Pope . . . was very fond 
 of : ' For fools admire, but men of sense approve. ' I used to 
 tell him I abhorred the sentiment, both from its arrogance, 
 and want of truth in nature. We had many contests of 
 this kind ; but there are arguers whom heaven, as this same 
 gentleman expresses it extremely well, 'has cursed with 
 hearts unknowing how to yield.' And so our battles were 
 usually drawn ones. ... In the last debate we had upon 
 this subject, I desired to know if he was still . . . convinced 
 Longinus's remark on the sublime was right? — That the 
 most certain way of knowing it is from the power in some 
 idea touched enthusiastically to move the blood and spirits 
 into transport by a thrilling kind of joy. ... He owned 
 it was the strongest definition of the true sublime that 
 could be possibly imagined; but was sure only men of 
 genius could conceive it. Whereupon I asked him whether 
 joy and transport and enthusiasm and a thrill of blood 
 could possibly consist with want of admiration? He per- 
 ceived the use I made of his concession, and said nothing, 
 till I added this new question : Whether only fools admire, 
 if only men of genius are susceptible of a sublimity of 
 admiration? In some perplexity to find a better answer, 
 he was forced to satisfy himself with saying that Longi- 
 nus's remark was truth; but like certain truths of more 
 importance, it required assent from faith, without the evi- 
 dence of demonstration." Hill then said he had seen it 
 demonstrated, at a play-reading at Lord Tyrconnel's: in 
 the course of a discussion about the difficulty of delicate 
 
 r,s October 13, 1746. Eichardson's Correspondence, I, 112. 
 16 
 
226 AAKON HILL 
 
 and manly praise, a gentleman of rank and genius had 
 repeated Pope's lines to Oxford, declaring that he never 
 could read them without rapture, and looking his rapture 
 as he spoke. Pope, of course, asked who the gentleman 
 was, and Hill named the Speaker of the House of Commons. 
 Pope's manner of receiving the compliment — "with a 
 strained supercilious smile," and the comment, "the Speaker 
 is a man remarkable for heat and passion, and such trans- 
 ports will be common to such tempers," — disgusted Hill 
 to such an extent that he never afterwards recovered the 
 opinion he then lost of "that (too loud) pretension to high 
 morals" Pope liked to make on all occasions. Such con- 
 temptuous disregard of praise was in too marked contrast 
 to his earlier sedulous seeking after it. 56 
 
 It was Pope who renewed their intercourse by sending 
 Hill his Epistle of the Use of Riches. Hill, glad to know 
 that Pope has "good-nature enough to remember one who 
 must have seemed not to have deserved the distinction," 
 refers to other favors from Pope, not acknowledged sooner 
 because he has a plan of doing it shortly. 57 He may have 
 had in mind a defense of Pope such as he intended for the 
 Weekly Miscellany, though it was not printed there, and 
 perhaps never sent; it is in the Forster MS. and undated. 
 After quoting from Pope's "late imitation of Horace," 58 
 he declares its beauties ought to "exempt him from being 
 accountable, like other men, for the transports of spleen 
 or anguish." Hill's next letter, 50 four months later, dis- 
 
 56 The play-reading referred to was that of Athelwold at Lord 
 Tyrconnel 's>, December, 1731, when Speaker Onslow was present and 
 spoke of Pope with esteem. See Hill's letter to Onslow, December 
 16, Worlcs, I, 344. The conversation with Pope may not have taken 
 place until some months later. 
 
 57 Hill to Pope, January 16, 1733, Worts, I, 126. 
 53 Published February 14, 1733. 
 
 59 May 16, 1733, Worlcs, I ) 128. 
 
hill's relations with pope 227 
 
 poses of the necessary business of flattery briefly, by thank- 
 ing Pope for the Imitation and enclosing in return some 
 lines he had sent from Newcastle five or six years before, 
 brushed up for this occasion ; 60 his real object is an inquiry 
 about the stage patent. Pope is delighted at the partiality 
 Hill displays for him as man and poet; as to the verses, it 
 would be wronging sense and poetry not to say they were 
 fine ones, and "such as I could not forget, having once 
 seen them." 61 The latter statement might be made of 
 much of Hill's poetry. 
 
 During the rest of the year, they continued on a basis of 
 courteous invitation and polite inquiry, with occasional 
 excursions into the realms of gardening and the stage. 62 
 Pope admired a little obelisk of Jersey shells in Hill's 
 garden — his house was in Petty France, overlooking St. 
 James's Park, where Pope sometimes came to wait upon 
 him, — and Hill promptly sent a package of the shells to 
 embellish the marine temple at Twickenham. For the 
 obelisk Pope designs to build there, Hill offers shells, ma- 
 terial, and workmanship. Pope thanks him for the pretty 
 shells, the more agreeable letter, and the most excellent 
 translation of Voltaire ; and after a little talk of Dennis 's 
 distress and Thomson's new poem, the letters cease. 
 
 To account for the silence of nearly five years that 
 follows, it has been conjectured that Hill wore out Pope's 
 patience with importunate requests for criticism upon his 
 
 60 Perhaps the lines to Pope, Works, III, 9. 
 
 si May 22, 1733, Col. of 1751. 
 
 62 See letters of Hill to Pope, September 20 {Works, II, 178), 
 November 10 (I, 343), November 7 (I, 177); and of Pope to Hill, 
 November 13 {Col. of 1751). Lady Walpole also admired the rock- 
 work in Hill's garden, and inquired after the compositions he used; 
 he tells her, and also describes for her a Temple of Happiness, with 
 grottos of Power, Eiches, and so on, and innumerable statues. 
 (Hill to Lady Walpole, May and June, 1734, Works, I, 190 and 199). 
 
228 AARON HILL 
 
 work. 63 The correspondence so far discussed does not in- 
 dicate this; one might read Athelwold and Zara several 
 times without distress. If Hill solicited assistance in 
 securing audiences, Pope in his turn sought defense against 
 public attack. A more likely explanation is to be found 
 in a lively controversy that took place between the 
 Prompter and the Grub Street Journal. 
 
 Hill started the Prompter in November, 1734, about a 
 year after the last letter quoted. A few months later, dis- 
 cussion of Matthew Tindal, the famous freethinker, who 
 had died in 1733, began to occupy the newspapers. 64 
 Eustace BudgelPs paper, the Bee, published among other 
 things his will — the will Budgell is accused of forging — 
 and a prayer. Over this philosopher's prayer, the Grub 
 Street Journal, 65 as the champion of Christianity, began to 
 wage a fierce war with the Bee, and for months the battle 
 raged. In the 98th number of October 17, the Prompter 
 (probably Popple, as the signature is "P") rashly entered 
 the lists by remarking upon the meanness of mind of those 
 who take every occasion to manifest a dislike ; the Bee, for 
 instance, has incurred the hostility of a set of obscure 
 writers by its defense of a prayer. 66 And it is a very good 
 prayer, too, — a decent and modest declaration, justified as 
 philosophy or reason, with which faith and revelation have 
 nothing to do. Grub Street turned with zest to its new 
 antagonist, and printed a dialogue between Prompterus 
 and Puff eras Secundus (the Bee) : 67 
 
 63 Elwin and Courthope's Pope, X, 53, n. 1. 
 
 64 No. 265 of the Grub Street Journal, January 21, 1735, printed an 
 attack upon his character. 
 
 65 No. 296, August 28, 1735. 
 
 66 Hill was on good terms with the Bee: in February 1733, the Bee 
 printed Hill's verses on DTyden's monument; in May 1733, a scene 
 from Zara; and in June 1733, the Address from the Statues of Stowe 
 to Lord Cobham. 
 
 67 No. 304, October 23. 
 
hill's relations with pope 229 
 
 Prompt. I've advertised and puffed this thing of mine 
 In vain, though got to No. 99. 
 
 Puff. Write 'gainst the Grubs. 'Twill give it a new motion, 
 
 If you'll defend my prayer's profound devotion. 
 
 Prompt. 'Twould fill, to answer all their damned reflections, 
 Three Prompters. 
 
 Puff. Snap at two or three objections. 
 
 This still has been my way. In puffs I'll bully, 
 And tell the world that you have answered fully. 
 
 The Prompter™ retaliated by quoting another prayer, with 
 the supposed critical emendations of Bavius of Grub 
 Street. 69 The only drawback to the effectiveness of the 
 retort is that the emendations, meant to ridicule Grub 
 Street criticism, strike one as rather better than the prayer. 
 Grub Street, 70 in a counter attack of more serious nature, 
 accused the author of the Prompter of deism and infidelity. 
 Puffs of the Prompter in recent numbers of the Daily 
 Journal inspire an epigram : 
 
 " These twins of different name, 
 Prompter and Daily Journal, are the same." 
 
 At this point, "B," probably Hill himself, takes a 
 hand: 71 his remarks on intemperance and scurrility in 
 argument are directed against Grub Street's attempt to re- 
 strain free thinking; his epigrams are levelled not only 
 against the paper, but against Pope. The first merely 
 
 6S Nos. 101 and 102. 
 
 es The headquarters of the Knights of the Bathos were at the Sign 
 of the Pegasus in Grub Street; the pretended secretary of the society 
 was called Bavius. A man named Kussel, a non-juring clergyman, 
 ran the paper, but Pope was the power behind the management, from 
 1730 to about 1735. See in Thomas E. Lounsbury's Text of Shakes- 
 peare (1906), ch. XIX on the Grub Street Journal. 
 
 ™ No. 307. 
 
 7i No. 107, November 18. 
 
230 AARON HILL 
 
 notes how sad it would be, if a paper, called Grub Street in 
 jest, should really live up to the name. The second hits 
 at Pope's well-known use of the journal for attacks and 
 defenses in his own behalf : 
 
 "P--e, who oft overflows both with wit and with spleen, 
 Felt the want of a dung-cart to keep himself clean; 
 So he furnished a priest with a carriage, ding-dong, 
 And made him his drayman to drive it along." 
 
 Henceforth the Prompter always characterizes the Grub 
 Street Journal as Pope's drayman. In no. 308, Grub Street 
 varies the attack by scornful comments on the false quanti- 
 ties in a Latin epigram published in no. 105 of the 
 Prompter. And then the latter prints an adverse criticism 
 of Pope as a satirist, ostensibly by a correspondent. 72 
 Back came an epigram: 73 
 
 "In quiet let TindaPs adopted inherit; 
 Complain of great men and his own slighted merit; 
 Let him rail, let him rail, be eternally railing 
 At priests and the Christian religion's prevailing. 
 Let the Prompter, his second, too take up the cudgel, 
 And weakly and formally vindicate Budgell; 
 If the Gospel e'er suffer from two such infectors, 
 The world must be crazy, or Beech-Oil projectors." 
 
 And so it went on. "P" and the reverend drayman 
 quarrel over faith, reason, Socrates, Christianity, and a 
 state religion; make elaborate reductio-ad-absurdums of 
 each other's arguments; and comment acrimoniously on 
 the philosophic temper exhibited in each other's epigrams. 
 Before the end of December, they are disputing over the 
 proper use of a Latin word, and calling each other snails 
 and toads. 74 As a welcome variation, there is some ridicule 
 
 "Nos. 108 and 111. 
 
 73 No. 310. 
 
 74 Grub Street Journal, nos. 311-315. Prompter, nos. 112 and 119. 
 
hill's relations with pope 231 
 
 of the "mystical verbology " of the Prompter's, English 
 style: what can possibly be meant by an "actor general, 
 plastic, and unspecificate ? " 75 The reader may well echo 
 the question. The death of the drayman, in a mock battle 
 with Horace, Livy, and others, 76 is reported in no. 128 ; but 
 for all that, his ghost continues to hover over his cart. 
 More trouble, enlivened by charges of plagiarism, arose 
 over Popple's play, The Double Deceit, and The Man of 
 Taste, supported by the Grub Street Journal. 
 
 An interesting fact connected with this unedifying dis- 
 pute is that both Pope and Hill disclaimed any share in 
 it, — a denial that was certainly disingenuous in one case, 
 and probably so in the other. Pope denied 77 that he had 
 ever had "the least hand, direction, or supervisal, or the 
 least knowledge" of the author of the paper; yet it has 
 been proved beyond all doubt that he was a contributor. 
 And Hill wrote to Richardson 78 about "the angry and 
 unjust personalities" appearing against him in the Grub 
 Street Journal, misrepresenting him as the defender of the 
 prayer and the assailant of The Man of Taste; "as you 
 know," he adds, "that I have nothing to answer for on 
 either of these two heads, having never seen any of those 
 papers, till I read them in the published Prompters, I 
 should take it as a favor, if you would immediately find 
 means to undeceive the gentlemen concerned." He de- 
 clares that he knows neither the author nor the publisher 
 of the paper, and does not wish to defend himself publicly, 
 because he hates personal bickerings among writers. It 
 seems incredible that Hill did not connect Pope with the 
 
 75 Grub Street Journal, no. 320, February 12, 1736. 
 
 76 The battle is described in no. 123. The reverend militant who 
 succeeded Eussel was Miller, another of Pope's partisans. 
 
 77 In a note on line 378 1 of his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. See 
 Elwin and Courthope 's Pope, III, 270, n. 2. 
 
 78 March 6, 1735-6, Forster MS. 
 
232 AARON HILL 
 
 attacks, when his collaborator Popple did. In spite of all 
 denials, it remains true that two papers, one connected with 
 Hill, the other with Pope, were for months calling each 
 other names in a most offensive manner, over the deceased 
 Dr. Tindal's very uninteresting prayer. It was not the 
 way to cement friendly relations between them. Pope, it 
 is true, inquired kindly after Hill through Thomson, but 
 Hill's acknowledgment shows resentment: he is glad Pope 
 remembers him, but adds, "I am made sure, by some 
 reasons I have to be convinced we think differently of each 
 other, that my esteem for him is the effect of his excel- 
 lencies, because it could have no ground to grow in, if it 
 were the return of partiality." 79 When the Memoirs of 
 the Society of Grub Street was published in 1737, the 
 preface contained a condescending reference to "our late 
 unsuccessful brother the Prompter," which could scarcely 
 have been palatable to Hill. And so at last the whole affair 
 ended, having amounted to nothing but bickering, stupid 
 at best, indecent at worst. 
 
 It must have been to Pope something of a shock to receive 
 in May, 1738, 80 an eighteen-page letter from his former 
 correspondent, once more threatening the publication of 
 the Essay on Propriety, — perhaps to even up things after 
 the Grub Street episode. The sight of some of Pope's 
 "vegetable children" in Lady Peterborough's garden had 
 reminded Hill of Pope, and the prospect of leisure re- 
 minded him of the essay. 81 As he finds, in looking over it, 
 that many examples reflect upon Pope, he wishes to submit 
 
 79 Hill to Thomson, May 20, 1736, Works, I, 236. 
 
 so WorJcs, I, 248 f . 
 
 si ' ' After having vainly aspired to be active to some good ends and 
 good offices, which I am not allowed the prosperity that was necessary 
 for effectually reaching, all I now find remaining as a task for my 
 future solitude is to learn to be lazy without spleen, and submit to 
 be useless with temper." 
 
hill's relations with pope 233 
 
 them to his final decision. Part of the essay deals with 
 propriety of expression — too often violated. For instance, 
 just as "shagged" in one of Pope's lines could have no 
 other word substituted for it without loss, so ' ' scour ' ' in the 
 lines on Camilla is unfortunate — it checks the speed of the 
 idea he has been trying to convey, and suggests pressure, 
 attrition, adherence. Other examples follow, though of 
 course improprieties in Pope are few indeed ! He then 
 turns to the Bathos. He scarcely expects to trouble the 
 public with his reflections on that, but urges Pope to assure 
 himself of the justice of his censures; for if they are un- 
 just, the disgrace attached to the victim will be transferred 
 to the censurer. The criticism of Theobald is one he thinks 
 unwarranted in some respects. He closes with the ac- 
 knowledgment that he could go on in this way much longer, 
 though his letter is already of an "unmerciful length," 
 — as it was. 
 
 Pope's reply, with its protestations of sincerity and its 
 attempt to shift responsibility, is almost an echo of earlier 
 letters. 82 As to Theobald, he never supposed the play con- 
 taining the lines in question was Theobald's; Theobald him- 
 self said it was Shakespeare's; and besides, it was Dr. 
 Arbuthnot who collected many of the passages censured in 
 the Bathos. If Mr. Hill only knew Pope the man! The 
 trouble was that Mr. Hill did. ' ' You can hardly conceive 
 how little either pique or contempt I bear to any creature, 
 unless for immoral or dirty actions." Criticize me as a 
 poet to your heart's content, but spare my character as an 
 honest man. 
 
 The "civil reproach" Hill detected in the letter made 
 him question whether Pope was not displeased at his 
 freedom; rather than displease him, he will burn the 
 
 82 June 9, 1738. Col. of 1751. 
 
234 AARON HILL 
 
 essay. 83 To prove the general neglect of propriety, he 
 needed examples from the living chief of poets: to select 
 from dead authors only seemed a meanness, and to cite 
 from his own, "though full enough, God knows, of ab- 
 surdities," would have looked assuming and silly. He is 
 glad to hear that Arbuthnot made the collection; yet it 
 was published under Pope's name, and "whatever a man 
 sets his hand to, he ought first to examine the truth of." 
 With a provoking air of friendly sincerity, he goes on : "I 
 am charmed while I hear you disclaim that propensity to 
 pique and contempt, which, to speak with the soul of a 
 friend, seems to me the only spot on your character. We 
 are all of us, in some lights or other, the dupes of our 
 natural frailties ; and when Mr. Pope, with the warmth that 
 becomes a great mind, tells me how far he is from despising 
 defects in men's genius — never feeling any contempt but 
 for the dirt of their actions, — I am sure he says nothing 
 but what he firmly believes to be true. ... In the mean- 
 time, 'tis pity that a thinker so humane and benevolent 
 should indulge an ambiguity in the turn of his expression, 
 that scatters gall which his heart never licensed." He 
 admits his own too great quickness in apprehending indig- 
 nities, and proclaims the desirability of free reproof between 
 friends. Renewed assurances 84 of Pope's good-will con- 
 vinced him that they must have been born to be lovers; 
 "we are so often and so unaccountably mistaking one 
 another into reserves and resentments. ... In plain truth 
 and English, I always did and I still do most affectionately 
 esteem you, both as man and as poet. And if now and 
 
 ss Hill to Pope, June 17, 1738, Works, II, 398. Hill actually did 
 burn the essay, in 1739, during a "long and melancholy illness," 
 sacrificing it " to a suspicion which I apprehended I had grounds for, 
 that my design . . . would disoblige where it intended service." 
 Works, II, 217. 
 
 s* June 20, 1738, Col. of 1751. 
 
hill's relations with pope 235 
 
 then, for a start, I have been put out of humor with either, 
 I would fain have you think it was no less your own fault 
 than mine." He suggests that they rest the debate, and 
 "either resolve to let fall an unconfiding and cold cor- 
 respondence, or much rather agree (if you please) to 
 understand one another better for the future." As a proof 
 of his respect, he sends the play of Caesar for Pope's 
 criticism. 85 
 
 Caesar takes up the greater part of the remaining cor- 
 respondence, and makes it intolerably tedious. Boling- 
 broke, who came back to England about July of this year 
 and stayed at Twickenham, was honored no less than Pope 
 with the disquisitions upon Caesar. And they really read 
 the play and the essay — their comments prove it. 86 No 
 doubt, they had a little quiet fun at Hill's expense, but 
 they did not buy it easily. There is a certain satisfaction in 
 the thought of Pope and Bolingbroke toiling over the play 
 and the letters. When one says the sentiments of the 
 tragedy are ' ' noble, beyond the power of words ' ' ; 87 or when 
 the other declares he never met with "more striking sen- 
 tences"; 88 or when Mr. Pope and his noble friend doubt 
 "whether, in some few instances, the utmost effort of 
 language has not obscured the beauty and force of 
 thought," one lingers thoughtfully over the compliments. 
 All three are adepts in flattery — Hill perhaps the greatest. 
 References by Hill 89 to the involved state of his affairs 
 bring forth regrets from the other two at their inability to 
 raise his fortune, but since that is impossible, they beg the 
 privilege of reading Caesar once or twice more. 90 
 
 ss June 25, 1738, Col. of 1751. 
 
 se See letter of Pope to Hill, September 12, 1738. Col. of 1751. 
 
 87 Bolingbroke to Hill, July 21, 1738. Works, II, 417. 
 
 ss Pope to Hill, July 21, 1738. Col. of 1751. 
 
 so Hill to Pope, August 29, 1738. Works, I, 295. 
 
 so This was at least the fifth reading, for Hill, about to send back 
 
236 AARON HILL 
 
 Among the last letters, chiefly on the theatrical situation 
 and the conflicting claims of the plays of Mallet, Thomson, 
 and Hill, is one that suggests why the correspondence 
 presently came to an end. Pope could read and criticize 
 Hill's plays and listen to all he had to say about them; he 
 could bear with Hill's criticism of himself; but to receive 
 from him a nine-page analysis of Thomson's Agamemnon. 
 to be communicated to Thomson by word of mouth, must 
 have warned him of new and unexpected dangers in the 
 correspondence. 91 He promised to carry out the commis- 
 sion, 92 but it was not long before the letters ceased. 
 Perhaps they had proved too ' ' unconfiding and cold." 
 Shortly after, Hill had a serious illness that lasted many 
 months and would in any case have cut short his letter- 
 writing. 
 
 Through their common friend, Mallet, they exchanged 
 from time to time polite assurances of affection 93 — an 
 affection on Hill's part merely polite. In the soothing 
 atmosphere of Richardson's sympathy, his smouldering 
 resentment against Pope at last found vent. Richardson 
 opened the way for discussion by some rather ill-natured 
 remarks on Pope's abuse of his talent in personal satire. 94 
 Charmed by these generous truths, Hill added a few others : 
 ' ' His genius is not native or inventive ; it is a verbal flexi- 
 bility of expressiveness that now and then throws such 
 light on his couplets. He can add a door or a window to 
 another man's house, but he would build very badly on a 
 new plan ... of his own. ... As to his Essay on Man . . . 
 
 the corrected MS., mercifully remembers that Pope has already read 
 it four times (Hill to Pope, August 29, 1738. Works, I, 295). 
 si November 8, 1738. Works, I, 308. 
 
 92 Pope to Hill, December 8, 1738. 
 
 93 Hill to Mallet, March 17 and August 12, 1742 (MS. quoted in 
 Elwin and Courthope's Pope, X, 78). 
 
 94 January 19, 1744. Forster MS. 
 
hill's relations with pope 237 
 
 you are very kind to his genius, when you consider that 
 as a proof of it, when the versification, I am afraid, is his 
 whole, and the matter and design my lord Bolingbroke 's. 
 And yet, there is always here and there, in whatever he 
 writes, something so expressed to bewitch us, that I cannot, 
 for my soul, help admiring him. ' ' 95 This unwilling admis- 
 sion is worth all the rest. After Pope's death, Hill turned 
 prophet: 96 "Mr. Pope, as you with equal keenness and 
 propriety express it, is gone out. I told a friend of his, 
 who sent me the first news of it, that I was sorry for his 
 death, because I doubted whether he would live to recover 
 the accident." 
 
 Presently he began to plan the publication of Pope's 
 letters — "writ in controversial clashes between him and 
 me on three distinct occasions, which, but that he begged 
 me not to let the public see, would do him hurt, beyond all 
 possible belief of those who took him for a general genius. ' ' 
 Richardson told Hill to go ahead, and Hill agreed that 
 Pope deserved no delicacy; "neither was I under absolute 
 promise; tho' he begged me to conceal his letters, after 
 being stung into sense of the gross openings he had left 
 in 'em against himself by some not over tender uses I drew 
 thence to punish a too negligent vanity." 97 
 
 Quite surprisingly, the famous Essay on Propriety, 
 burned in 1739, reappears once more to threaten Pope's 
 fame — Hill's memory apparently served him as well as a 
 manuscript. The tract will show that Pope knew nothing 
 as to plan or thought that merited the name of genius, 
 though "in Figure and Expression ... he had Beauties 
 equal to the Best. ' ' But to give a resistless demonstration, 
 he has taken pains to go through the whole Essay on Man, 
 
 95 Hill to Richardson, 1744. Richardson's Correspondence, I, 108. 
 se Hill to Richardson, September 10, 1744, ibid., I, 104. 
 97 See letters from Hill to Richardson, July 10 and 21, 1746; and 
 from Richardson to Hill, July, 1746. Forster MS. 
 
238 AARON HILL 
 
 "and without changing any Thought, or medling with his 
 general Design or Mode of executing it, only expressed his 
 meanings, as he aimed, himself, to have expressed 'em." 
 His own description of the Essay after this audacious at- 
 tempt is delightfully appropriate: "Shall I, by way of 
 curiosity only, send you his so mortified Essay on Man?" 9S 
 Richardson was inexpressibly obliged ;" and though, he had 
 time to read only six pages, he was amazed at the ' ' obvious- 
 ness as well as justness of the corrections. ' ' He passed the 
 Essay on to Speaker Onslow, who tactfully observed that 
 Hill undervalued his genius by giving anything of his not 
 wholly his. 100 
 
 The mortified Essay on Man never saw the light. The 
 letters appeared after Hill's death; and though they have 
 done no appreciable hurt to Pope's literary fame, they 
 have scarcely strengthened his claim to honesty. 
 
 98 Hill to Richardson, July 29, 1746. Forster MSS. 
 
 99 Kichardson to Hill, August 5, 1746. Ibid. 
 ioo Kichardson to Hill, November 7, 1748. Ibid. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HILL AND EICHAKDSON 
 
 In 1738, Pope had been annoyed by an attack in the 
 Gazetteer, then printed by Richardson; and Hill, in the 
 letter that closes his correspondence with Pope, attempts to 
 absolve Richardson from responsibility: "I did not recol- 
 lect, till you told it me, that the Gazetteers were printed 
 by Mr. Richardson. I am acquainted with none of their 
 authors; . . . and, as to Mr. Richardson himself (among 
 whose virtues I place it that he knows and considers you 
 rightly), there should be nothing imputed to the printer, 
 which is imposed for, not by him, on his papers, but was 
 never impressed on his mind. I am very much mistaken in 
 his character, or he is a plain-hearted, sensible, and good- 
 natured honest man. I believe, when there is anything put 
 into his presses with a view to such infamous slander, . . . 
 he himself is the only man wounded: for I think there is 
 an openness in his spirit that would even repel the profits 
 of his business, when they were to be the consequence of 
 making war upon excellence." 1 
 
 With Richardson, whom he thus defends so ingeniously, 
 Hill had been corresponding at intervals for over two years. 
 The close of his friendship with the great poet of the 
 age thus coincides with the early stages of that with the 
 novelist soon to become famous. The two friendships offer 
 interesting contrasts. Pope and Hill loved each other with 
 certain reservations : they were always on their guard after 
 that Dunciad episode, — Hill doubtful of Pope's sincerity 
 and, in spite of himself, jealous of his popularity; Pope 
 
 i February 21, 1739. Works, I, 334. 
 239 
 
240 AARON HILL 
 
 quite justly uneasy about his moral character, and never 
 certain at what moment Hill would exhibit unexpected 
 acuteness. The relations of Hill and Richardson were of 
 quite a different sort: there was no room for jealousy — 
 they were competing for public favor in different fields ; 
 they needed each other — Hill's circumstances required 
 sympathy and help, and Richardson, distrustful of his 
 own powers, needed the stimulus of constant flattery and 
 encouragement; their tastes were similar — they liked to 
 write long letters about their works and their nerves and 
 their medicines, they both had a horror of Milton's prose, 2 
 and neither had sense of humor enough to disturb the 
 other. In its interchange of elaborate compliment and 
 enthusiastic commendation, the correspondence recalls the 
 Clio days, with" the relative importance and influence of 
 the writers reversed. It is the most important so far dis- 
 cussed : that with Pope merely adds further confirmation to 
 facts about him accessible elsewhere ; that with Richardson 
 is essential for the story of his life during the crucial years 
 when Pamela and Clarissa were written. From March, 
 1736, to August, 1749, there are more than one hundred 
 and fifty letters, preserved partly in Hill's Works, partly 
 in the first volume of Richardson's Correspondence, but 
 chiefly in the MS. folios of the Forster Collection at South 
 Kensington. 3 These letters have already been drawn upon 
 in the discussion of Hill's projects and his relations with 
 Pope ; what remains to be considered are the great events of 
 Pamela and Clarissa, with a background of Richardson's 
 nervous tremors, Hill's family misfortunes, and his undy- 
 ing literary aspirations. 
 
 The acquaintance perhaps began in business dealings, for 
 
 2 Hill to Richardson, May 29, 1738. Worls, I, 267. 
 
 s When not otherwise stated, the references are to letters in the 
 Forster Collection. Austin Dobson, in his Fielding, 1883, was the 
 first to make use of the Hill letters in the Forster MSS. 
 
HILL AND RICHAKDSON 241 
 
 the letters of 1736, aside from the usual amenities, are 
 mainly concerned with printing arrangements for Alzira. 
 The next year Hill was involved in financial difficulties 
 that placed him in the spring "under an unexpected obliga- 
 tion to retire abroad." 4 In April he was in Southampton, 
 where the memory of a visit twenty years before with his 
 wife inspired him to verse. 5 In May he was in Guernsey 
 and in Jersey, visiting on friendly terms with General 
 Fielding and Governor Grahame; 6 and in June, in Edin- 
 burgh. 7 Less than a year later, he wrote from Buxton 
 Wells in Derbyshire that during his solitary ramble of 
 many months he had visited some of "our own and neigh- 
 boring sea-coasts. ' ' 8 A letter of July 5, 1738, from Gilbert 
 Hill, an accomplished beggar, to Sir Hans Sloane, declares 
 (in Latin) that the absence of his brother from London 
 for more than a year, "suis rebus domesticis se bene non 
 habentibus," has increased his own troubles. 9 Hill's affairs 
 must have straightened themselves out to some extent 
 shortly afterwards, for at the end of July he was planning 
 to settle outside of London, after selling the best part of a 
 too little fortune; 10 and at the end of the year he went 
 with his daughters to live at Plaistow, in Essex, east of 
 London. Plaistow was at the time a "pleasant rural vil- 
 lage," though flat and marshy, " 'with roomy old houses 
 and large gardens, famous like Banstead Down for its 
 mutton. ' ' ni Hill expected to make it famous for its vine- 
 yards. From 1739, Richardson spent much of his time at 
 
 4 Hill to Eichardson, October, 1737. Eichardson 's Correspondence, 
 I, 11. 
 
 s Alone in an Inn at Southampton, Works, III, 331. 
 
 6 Works, 1754 ed., I, 336-333. ' 
 
 7 Hill to Urania Hill, Ju^e 23, 1737. Works, 1754 ed., I, 335. 
 s Hill to Pope, May 11, 1738. Works, I, 248. 
 
 9 Sloane MSS, 4055. f. 347. 
 io Hill to Pope, July 31, 1738. Works, I, 290. 
 n Austin Dobson: Richardson, 66. 
 17 
 
242 AAEON HILL 
 
 North End, near Hammersmith turnpike ; and as it was 
 evidently no easy matter to get from Plaistow in the east 
 to Hammersmith in the west, Hill and Richardson had to 
 carry on their intercourse chiefly by letter. 12 
 
 There are a few pleasant pictures of the Plaistow home, — 
 ' ' a quiet, and not quite unpleasant solitude ; a place that 
 seems to have been only formed for books, and meditation, 
 and the Muses." 13 Astraea Hill tries to persuade Mrs. 
 Richardson to visit them: 14 "not that we have, here, any 
 beauties to boast of, except those of Nature and Innocence, 
 and those, too, are confined to the Garden. Our House is 
 too Old, and we ourselves are too New, to be worth the 
 Regard of the Curious. But without doors, I hope, we can 
 make you Amends: for there we have Silence, and Water, 
 and Wood enough, and Vineyard®, and Rockwork, and a 
 good deal of outlet all around us. We have also one nobler 
 Delight, that of changing deserts into groves . . . daily em- 
 ploying ourselves in contriving new Views, and new Walks, 
 and new Grottos." 15 
 
 But pleasant glimpses are rare. In the spring of 1739, 
 while setting out his vines, Hill was "surprised by an 
 ague ' ' ; and though from time to time in the following 
 
 12 Lord Hervey writes (November 27, 1736) of the road between 
 Kensington and St. James that it had "grown so infamously bad, 
 that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on a 
 rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us there 
 is between them and us a great impassable gulf of mud. ' ' (Memoirs 
 of the Reign of George II, ed. J. W. Croker, 1884, II, 362, n. 9.) 
 
 is Hill to Eichardson, January, 1743. Bichardson's Corres., I, 88. 
 
 "December 17, 1740. 
 
 is The young ladies went angling for carp, like Pamela ; and once, 
 under the spell of her sweet compassion, they saved the lives of a bag- 
 ful of eels by throwing them into the carp pond; the ungrateful 
 ' ' reptile rascals ' ' ate the carp, and had to be drawn out of the pond 
 with garden rakes by the Misses Hill, to the great amusement of their 
 father (Hill to Eichardson, November 25, 1748). 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 243 
 
 months he speaks of an improvement or a relapse, the 
 effects of this illness lasted for more than a year. Agues 
 continued to surprise the whole family. "My daughters 
 have been sensible some time," he writes in 1742 (Feb- 
 ruary 25), "that Plaistow has a moist, malignant Air, that 
 makes severe and lasting Agues a sure consequence of their 
 indulging a sweet evening Walk, or disregarding Change 
 of Wind to the cold quarters." He describes himself, a 
 few months later, as shrinking away in flesh and spirit, 
 with neither strength nor appetite, and all the family in the 
 same condition, or just recovered from it; he has lost a 
 .gardener of unusual accomplishments, and has, in fact, 
 seen most of the inhabitants of "this unlucky and ill-chosen 
 place" buried. 16 Once, Astraea's languor was overcome 
 by the "animated ideas" of Clarissa, 17 but only such extra- 
 ordinary remedies were effective. 
 
 Yet Hill was much more concerned about the tremors of 
 Richardson than the agues of his own household. For his 
 benefit, he recalls the sweating-tent (no bigger than a hoop- 
 skirt) which he had seen in Turkey and Persia; he dis- 
 cusses hot and cold baths and their effects on different 
 "habits" of body; the Bath waters and the Scarborough 
 waters ; vinegar for the gout ; and large doses of coffee for 
 Richardson's dizziness. The latter tried the coffee, but 
 unfortunately found his dizziness increase under the treat- 
 ment. Bishop Berkeley's tar- water is of "infinite extent 
 in its virtue," if made with water in which oak shavings 
 have been boiled. 18 Though he prescribed with a blithe 
 
 is October 24, 1742. Richardson's Corres., I, 80. 
 
 17 December, 1747. 
 
 is This oak-tincture is responsible for a rare touch of levity : Hill, 
 suddenly realizing the absurdity of a phrase wishing health to all the 
 pretty shooting branches of his friend's family, adds, "How natural 
 the step, from such a wooden Metaphor, to put you in mind of your 
 Oak-Tincture" (October 25, 1746). 
 
24:4 AARON HILL 
 
 assurance, Hill knew little of the condition of his patient; 
 for when he saw him for the first time after some years, he 
 was surprised and touched "with an Extremity of grief, to 
 mark the shakings of so strong a hand." 19 Eichardson, in 
 his turn, recommended the smoky air of London and asses' 
 milk, and urged the Hills at one time to take possession of 
 North End in the absence of his own family. 20 
 
 It was not willingly that the Hills remained in what 
 Richardson called "that terrible marsh-pit." In 1742 
 (February 25), they had two other places in mind nearer 
 London ; and in July of the same year, Hill had been look- 
 ing at a little estate to the north. In November, 1744, they 
 were planning to leave Plaistow the next spring ; and again 
 in 1747 (December 3), they limited their stay to one 
 summer more. The obstacle in the way seems to have been 
 a long-drawn-out Chancery suit. In the midst of his 
 illness in 1739, Hill was compelled to go to town "to settle 
 accounts with just such a tedious and slow-paced executor 
 as I would wish to your enemy's purposes." 21 He returned 
 to Essex in a very melancholy frame of mind, his nerves 
 shaken by his anger at the "Injustice and Tricks of the 
 Low-hearted."- 2 The person responsible for the trouble 
 figures in the letters as "a little Villain, whom the Defect 
 (or rather slowness of Pace in the Helps) of our Laws has 
 impowered to perplex my Affairs," and as "a vile wretch, 
 who has trifled with me these four or five years past, in 
 
 19 February, 1749. 
 
 20 October 29, 1742. Corres., I, 83. For all these medical discus- 
 sions, the correspondence is not so lugubrious as that of Eichardson 
 and Dr. Young. Hill notes that people die at Plaistow, but he does 
 not, like Young, ring their knells : "as I was going to fold my letter, 
 I heard a second knell" (Eichardson 's Corres., II, 10). 
 
 21 Hill to Eichardson, December 19, 1739. Eichardson 's Corres., I, 
 33. 
 
 22 December 23, 1739. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 245 
 
 matters of the utmost importance." 23 Between 1744 and 
 1746, the little villain gives place to a still more trouble- 
 some law-suit; and "dull and turbulent Law Processes" 
 were in full swing by July 21, 1746, when Hill and his 
 daughters were awaiting "the issue of the Suit we have 
 been forc'd into, by One of their Trustees, upon the Other's 
 death, in great arrears to us — and his own Circumstances 
 much entangled." 24 Perhaps money from his wife's family 
 was left in trust for his daughters ; and possibly the trustee 
 who died in debt was the vile wretch of a few years before. 25 
 From 1746 until his death, Hill vainly expected each term 
 to see the end of this suit. 26 He grew convinced that ' ' the 
 Pit poor Joseph was cast into was a mouse-hole in Com- 
 parison with John Bull 's bottomless one ' ' f 7 and as late as 
 January, 1749, he had a "huge paltry Barricade of 
 Chancery Lumber thrown up . . . with a long vile Per- 
 plexity of stamped accounts to disentangle ; which the most 
 persisting Courage in the "World would stagger at assault- 
 ing." 
 
 There were other troubles besides this of the law-suit. 
 In May, 1739, "an unhappy fugitive" from the family 
 (perhaps a nephew, from the nature of the allusions) died 
 under circumstances that pointed to murder, but proved 
 to be suicide, as Hill told Richardson in confidence. 28 
 
 23 January 8, 1740. Richardson 's Corres., I, 37. 
 
 2 4 July 10, 1746. He made some application early in 1744 {Corres., 
 
 I, 108). 
 
 25 As no names are mentioned by Hill and the nature of the action is 
 only vaguely indicated, the tracing of the suit is more difficult than 
 important. A search through the lists of Chancery suits for 1744- 
 1746, with the names of Hill and his daughters as clues, brought no 
 result. 
 
 26 See, for instance, his letters of December 3, 1747, and January 
 
 II, 1749. 
 
 27 May 5, 1748. 
 
 28 Richardson 's Corres., I, 24. 
 
246 AARON HILL 
 
 Within a few months, his daughter Urania, Thomson's 
 "young darling of the Muses," 29 made a rash love-match 
 with a Mr. Johnson, whom after his death, seven years 
 later, Hill described as an honest, modest man. But at the 
 time Hill was much offended, for in mentioning his 
 daughters he adds, "the only two of 'em, I mean, whom I 
 now own as such." 30 Mr. Johnson heedlessly ran through 
 a good fortune of his own and a better of his wife's, before 
 he grew melancholy and died, not having patience, Hill 
 wrote, to await the issue of the law-suit that was to relieve 
 the difficulties of the whole family. 31 Perhaps he was wise. 
 Hill's only son proved another source of acute anxiety. 
 His "juvenile weaknesses" were causing so much concern 
 in April, 1741, that his father feared him incapable of 
 ' ' the solid, or serious, Turn of Mind ; whether in Learning, 
 or Business." 32 There are dark hints of the nature of his 
 performances in a letter of July 29, of that year: "I fear, 
 vain, application to prevent the ruin of a youth, who being 
 born without an aptitude to think, was destined to be led 
 away by every Light Temptation ; and who, in undesigned, 
 and unfelt, Contradiction to the bias of a weak good 
 Nature, takes hardly any steps, but such as tend the 
 shortest and dirtiest way to a "Waste and Infamy. Imagine 
 for us, from this general Hint of an Affliction that has 
 many branches." In reply to Richardson's hesitating in- 
 quiry, five years later, after a "young too near male rela- 
 tion," Hill writes that, though he does not see him for 
 many months together, he hears of him too many ways, and 
 unhappily almost every way. He has gone through a con- 
 siderable fortune, weakly left to his early management by 
 "an unthinking grandmother," and is living dissolutely 
 
 29 Thomson to Hill, June 11, 1726. Col. of 1751. 
 
 so September 27, 1739. 
 
 si July 10, 1746. 
 
 32 Letter of April 13. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 247 
 
 in London; Hill tries to hope that he is not without an 
 inclination to a "slow irresolute repentance." 33 
 
 All these misfortunes from climate, law-suits, and unde- 
 sirable relations, might well have robbed Hill of any spirit 
 for literature. Yet, during the dozen years at Plaistow, 
 he wrote The Fanciad, The Impartial, The Religion of 
 Reason, The Art of Acting, Merope, tracts on war and on 
 agriculture (unpublished), and some versions of the odes 
 of Horace; 34 he also prepared Gideon for the press, three 
 books being published with elaborate notes ; and he planned 
 another enterprise that connects him once more with 
 Mallet's career. 
 
 The Duchess of Marlborough, who died in October, 1744, 
 bequeathed a thousand pounds to Mallet and Glover, if 
 they would undertake a biography of the great Duke. 
 Glover declined, but Mallet accepted. Now a life of the 
 Duke was one of Hill's projects. His Fanciad, published 
 in May, 1743, was written to stir up the Marlborough 
 family to a realization of the need of an adequate biog- 
 raphy; 35 and it might well have stirred them somewhat, if 
 they had read it. 36 He rather expected it to fall somehow 
 
 33 October 25, 1746. 
 
 34 To be printed in the Daily Gazetteer, with which Eichardson had 
 some connection till shortly before June, 1746; a letter from Hill of 
 June 13 comments on Eichardson 's reasons for dropping it. 
 
 35 Hill to Eichardson, April 2, 1743. Corres., I, 89. 
 
 36 The scene opens in the library of the present Duke, who is 
 startled first by the apparition of the great general, who discusses 
 the foreign situation, and then by the Fury Faction, who proclaims 
 from innumerable tongues the troubles at home. From the Fury he 
 is snatched up into the chariot of Fancy, where he finds Truth, 
 forced to borrow charms from Fancy in an age so indifferent to her 
 unadorned perfection. The chariot conveys them to the genius of 
 Britain, who arises from the sea to tell them, among other things, 
 how Marlborough, while conversing with Michael in heaven on war- 
 like themes, with Caesar as an attentive listener, heard of certain 
 designs of France against England, and promptly frustrated them 
 
248 AAEON HILL 
 
 into their hands, though he would not send it himself, lest 
 his motive might appear interested. 37 Richardson hastened 
 to assure him that his was the hand fittest for the his- 
 torian's task. 38 This Hill denied; but he disclosed a plan 
 to write an essay covering the events of one year (that of 
 the Blenheim campaign), just to prove the inadequacy of 
 previous histories, and to suggest how much better still the 
 work could be done with the aid of the private family 
 memoirs. 39 Then Eichardson reported 40 that the Duchess 
 was said to be at work digesting these papers with the 
 assistance of Mr. Hooke; but through the booksellers he 
 presently learned that the Duchess was less busy than he 
 supposed. 41 
 
 In June, Hill sent the Fanciad to Mallet, in response to 
 an inquiry how he was spending his leisure, and asked him 
 to find out, if possible, from the Duchess, whether there 
 was material enough for a life. "Don't imagine me so 
 vain to think myself half qualified for such a task as the 
 Duke's history. I did but wish to see some willing under- 
 taker equal to it. ' ' 42 The letter arranges for a meeting the 
 next Tuesday at St. Paul's Coffee House. The result of 
 
 by despatching a wily spirit to lure Fleury's thoughts to trade; as 
 interest in trade meant decline in martial vigor, England was spared 
 a dangerous war. After throwing a new light on history by this 
 masterpiece of explanation, the Genius sheds three tears, sighs three 
 times, and sinks into the sea. Fancy follows unexpectedly, nearly 
 drowning her passengers, but Truth snatches the reins just in time 
 and drives the young duke home. In a final exhortation, she points 
 out to him his duty of seeing that his noble ancestor is placed in a 
 proper light before the world — unless the task is made unnecessary by 
 the Duchess, so conspicuous for her noble taste of glory. 
 
 37 Hill to Eichardson, April 2, 1743. Corres., I. 
 
 38 Eichardson to Hill, April 2, 1743. 
 
 39 Hill to Eichardson, April 5, 1743. Corres., I, 93. 
 
 40 April 7, 1743. 
 
 4i Hill to Eichardson, April 25, 1743. 
 
 42 Hill to Mallet, June 2, 1743. Works, II, 229. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 249 
 
 the meeting can be partly conjectured from what happened 
 later. Probably Mallet did become interested in Hill 's idea. 
 By October 20, he had some new engagement, about which 
 #Hill was very curious; it may or may not have been con- 
 nected with the Duke 's life. Hill himself was at work upon 
 another poem by the following spring. But in December, 
 1744, he wrote a "long and curious" letter to Mallet on the 
 provision in the Duchess's will. 43 Mallet made no satis- 
 factory reply; and Hill talked the matter over with 
 Richardson : ' ' By your mentioning the visit from our 
 Strand Green Friend [Mallet], you just put me on remem- 
 bering to ask you, whether he proceeds upon the Marlboro' 
 History? I hope he don't. For tho' he was the person 
 whom I aim'd to hint to the old Duchess, in the Fanciad, 
 yet I make no Scruple to confess, I looked upon the poor 
 consideration she assigned him for it, and her odd and half 
 contemptuous method of expressing that assignment, as so 
 unequivalent, to all the Genius, Labour, Skill, and many 
 years' Attention, due to such a Work, if rightly executed, 
 that I used the strongest Arguments I could produce, with 
 purpose to dissuade him; . . . and he promised me his 
 weighed and future Sentiments upon this Subject. But 
 continues silent on it. ... I am afraid he lets himself be 
 tempted — tho' the Lady was a little past enchantment, and 
 her Apple was both Crabb and Windfall." 44 Richardson 
 replied that Mallet was going on, and had made great 
 progress; he expected his reward in the work itself — an 
 unusually disinterested point of view for Mallet ! 45 In the 
 letters, chiefly of gossip and compliment, between Mallet 
 and Hill during the years 1746 to 1749 — the two families 
 were evidently on pleasant calling terms, — Hill usually 
 refers to his friend as the Duke's historian, and once ex- 
 
 43 Hist. MS. Comm., Appendix to 9th Keport, 476.. 
 
 44 October 25, 1746. 
 
 45 October 29, 1746. 
 
250 AARON HILL 
 
 presses his longing to see a Marlborough's face in the glass 
 Mallet is silvering for it. 46 But neither Hill nor anyone 
 else ever saw it. 
 
 In practically all of Hill's work published after 1736, 
 Richardson was concerned as printer. But no printer not 
 also a friend and a very generous one would have conferred 
 so many favors as he did. The nature of these obligations 
 is suggested in the following acknowledgment from Hill : 47 
 "What you have done, in relation to the bills and the 
 advertisements [of Alzira], at once obliges and confounds 
 me — I mean the Gracefulness and Generosity of your 
 Spirit, in the Intention. — For I do, and must, consider 
 myself as still undischarged, in that particular, and only 
 more your debtor from the disposition you have shown to 
 remit the obligation." Another letter 48 acknowledges the 
 receipt of a hundred pounds, sent in a "surprisingly" 
 obliging manner, and other instances might be quoted. In 
 addition to these services, Richardson gave advice about 
 dedications, titles, favorable times for publication, and the 
 like. 49 Only twice did anything threaten interruption of 
 these amicable relations. Once, when slightly ruffled by a 
 comment of Hill's upon Clarissa, Richardson writes with 
 elaborate politeness that if any other printer ("Watts or 
 Draper, for instance) has offered to publish either of 
 Hill's charming dramatic pieces, no generous intentions to 
 himself must stand in the way. Hill's reply betrays per- 
 plexity, as neither Watts nor Draper had expressed any 
 desire to print his plays. 50 The misunderstanding finally 
 passed off, without the interposition of any other printer. 
 
 « Hill to Mallet, July 28, 1748. Works, II, 334. 
 
 47 July 5, 1736. 
 
 48 November, 1746. Corres., I, 118. 
 
 49 His remonstrances induced Hill to alter the extraordinary title 
 Go to Bed, Tom, to The Fanciad. 
 
 so Richardson to Hill, January 5, 1747, and Hill's reply January 23. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 251 
 
 Again, Richardson, hard-pressed by his work for the House 
 of Commons, turned Gideon over to another press; and 
 Hill, hearing nothing for some time either of his poem 
 or of his friend, writes that he is mortified to find Richard- 
 son so inattentive to Gideon. 51 Richardson in his reply 
 next day refers feelingly to the business that has kept him 
 at work from five in the morning to eleven at night; if 
 Gideon goes on slowly, Clarissa, out of print for two 
 months, does not go on at all. 
 
 Hill did not depend entirely on the outcome of his law- 
 suit for the means to discharge his obligations to Richard- 
 son. As far back as December 23, 1739, he planned to 
 assign to him a collection of old and new pieces, but was 
 deterred by the very just fear that they would prove 
 "chargeable children." "I therefore think," he writes, 52 
 "that I ought not only to offer it to you as a present, which 
 I heartily wish might be worth your acceptance; but, in 
 order to render it more certainly such, to be myself at the 
 charge of your printing and publishing it." It was a 
 discouragement to the scheme of a collection that the sepa- 
 rate poems made so little headway. 53 In 1748, Hill was 
 still engaged in transcribing and retranscribing his works, 
 and worrying over his indebtedness to Richardson. 54 Not 
 that Richardson asked repayment: "You are so very 
 earnest, ' ' he wrote in 1748, ' ' about transferring to me the 
 copyright to all your works, that I will only say, that that 
 point must be left to the future issues of things. But I 
 will keep account. ... It is therefore time enough to think 
 of the blank receipt you have had the goodness to send me 
 
 si May 9, 1749. Richardson printed the Journals of the House. 
 
 52 January 8, 1740. Corres., I, 37. 
 
 ss From a letter from Eichardson of July 1, 1746, we learn that the 
 collection was to consist of two volumes of poetry, and two entitled 
 Vocal Shades, — original letters, mixed with a few Prompters. 
 
 s* Hill to Eichardson, May 5, 1748. 
 
252 AARON HILL 
 
 to fill up. ' ' 55 When in January, 1749, Mallet secured from 
 Millar the publisher a proposal for printing Merope, Hill 
 was loth to accept it, because it involved the copyright that 
 he always considered Richardson's. Richardson appeared 
 willing to forego that advantage, — in fact, he had been 
 partly instrumental in persuading Millar to make the offer ; 
 for Millar had a large business and the means of promoting 
 the sale of what he engaged in. As to copyright, "You 
 must excuse me, Sir, but I cannot upon any Account, think 
 of accepting of your generous present of that Kind. ' ' 56 It 
 is interesting that Richardson planned to return Hill's 
 favor by bequeathing his own writings to his ' ' friendly care 
 and judgment." 57 
 
 Hill never really lost faith that his works would in the 
 end be accepted by the public, and prove profitable to some- 
 one — preferably Richardson. Yet the successive shocks 
 administered by a callous public during these years 
 gradually forced him into that last refuge of the unsuc- 
 cessful author, — contempt of his age. Richardson tried to 
 blame the cold reception of The Religion of Reason (1746) 
 on the popular absorption in political events. But it is 
 unnecessary to look beyond the poem itself — by no means 
 devoid of merit — for an explanation of the public indif- 
 ference. Interest in deistic ideas had been declining since 
 Tindal's death; and deism in blank verse, — belated echoes 
 of the attacks on a monopoly of revelation, on the pride 
 and stubbornness of the favored Jews, on the fanaticism 
 that left the negroes or the Chinese or the Hindus out of 
 the scheme of salvation, — could scarcely arrest attention. 58 
 
 ss October 27, 1748. Corres., I, 119. 
 
 56 Richardson to Hill, January 12, 1749. 
 
 57 Richardson to Hill, July 24, 1744. Corres., I, 102. 
 
 58 That Hill had some sympathy with deism is quite natural ; it 
 took in all races and all worlds; and to Hill narrow and confined 
 ideas in religion would be as repugnant as in trade. There are 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 253 
 
 Hill, however, caught at the friendly explanation: "If it 
 proves otherwise, I must either have no power of thinking 
 at all, or must think of this age very despicably. ' ' 59 
 
 Perhaps Richardson grew tired of hearing censure of the 
 age that approved of him; for he gently hinted to Hill at 
 last that genius must try to accommodate itself to the time 
 it lives in, "since works published in this age must take 
 root in it to nourish in the next." The taste of the world, 
 he goes on, has altered since Hill withdrew from it; 
 "your writings require thought to read . . . and the world 
 has no thought to bestow." It wants simplicity; it does 
 not want to dig for jewels in a mine. "Your sentiments, 
 even they will have it who allow them to be noble, are too 
 munificently adorned. . . . And yet, for my own part, I 
 am convinced that the fault lies in that indolent . . . 
 world." 60 Hill took the friendly plainness of the letter 
 well, but did not back down from his position. He knew 
 his writings were unpopular — he always expected them to 
 be so ; " nor shall I live to see them in another light. But 
 there will rise a time in which they will be seen in a far 
 different one ; I know it, on a surer hope than that of 
 vanity." As for simplicity — no one loves simplicity more 
 than he ; but he is apparently the only one who understands 
 
 good lines in the poem ? and fewer absurdities than usual; for 
 example : 
 
 "This dim ball 
 That day by day rolls round its eyeless bulk." 
 "Where the broad sea, scarce heard, rolls murmuring in." 
 "Turn thy sight eastward, o'er the time-hushed plains, 
 Now graves of vanished empire." 
 Hill concludes by deciding to doubt all faiths, "undoubting God," 
 until 
 
 "Death opening Truth's barred gate, 'tis time to see 
 God's meanings, in the light his presence lends." 
 ^ September 15, 1746. 
 co October 27, 1748. Corres., I, 119. 
 
254 AARON HILL 
 
 its true meaning, and Kichardson the only one who ex- 
 emplifies it in the present age. The "dim humble 
 wretches" who cry about it mean "the unjogging slide of 
 something . . . that paces their lame understanding smoothly 
 on, and does not shake it out of a composure necessary to 
 its weakness." Simplicity is merely a weaker word for 
 propriety; "everything is simple, that has nothing added 
 contrary to its own quality; and everything unsimple, that 
 has foreign and unnatural annexions. If a camel were to 
 be described, it might be done with all the requisite 
 simplicity, however loftily the poet should express the 
 beast's raised neck, majestic pace, and venerable counte- 
 nance. But from the moment he began to mention claws 
 and courage, as the camel's attributes, his deviation from 
 the rules of true simplicity would justly call for the re- 
 proach of too magnificently adorned; not because camels 
 ought not to be spoken of magnificently, but because 
 there should not be assigned them a magnificence repugnant 
 to their nature. ' ' 61 All quite true ; but so far as it applies 
 to Hill, the difficulty is not that he supplies his camels 
 with claws — it is his astonishing way of picturing their 
 humps. 62 
 
 Richardson had no reason for despising an age in which 
 his own writings were taking root, and Hill could not deny 
 that the age showed good taste in appreciating work of 
 which he approved enthusiastically. Richardson's novels 
 provide the most cheerful and entertaining topic in the 
 correspondence. 
 
 On December 8, 1740, Richardson, without declaring 
 himself the author, sent the two volumes of Pamela to be- 
 guile the young ladies at Plaistow in a tedious winter 
 
 6i November 2, 1748. Corres., I, 124. 
 
 02 Even in a literal sense : see Gideon, book II, stanza 21 — 
 "Next, loaded high, the bunchy camels go, 
 Stepping, with straight raised neck, sublimely slow." 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 255 
 
 hour. 63 "The book was published many months before I 
 saw or heard of it," wrote Hill to Mallet, assuring him 
 that he had no share in the authorship of ' ' that delightful 
 nursery of virtues," "and when he sent it me ... it came 
 without the smallest hint that it was his, and with a grave 
 apology, as for a trifle of too light a species. I found out 
 whose it was, by the resembling turn of Pamela's expres- 
 sions, weighed with some which I had noted as peculiar in 
 his letters. Yet very loth he was a long time to confess it. ' ' 
 He adds — and he was a true prophet for once — "I am 
 much mistaken in the promise of his genius, or Pamela . . . 
 is but the dawning of the day he is to give us." 64 With 
 Eichardson Hill at first pretended ignorance, and urged 
 him to name the author of the "powerful little piece," in 
 a fervid letter included among the ' ' greasy compliments ' ' 
 later printed in the introduction to the second edition of 
 Pamela. 65 Richardson was, in fact, very much delighted 
 with the unqualified approbation of the Hill family. How 
 could he name the author after such praise 1 He was more 
 effusive than he quite approved later, when, in going over 
 the copies of his letters, he scratched out some expressions 
 relating to Hill's godlike mind and matchless genius. 66 
 
 Hill's reply overflowed with enthusiasm. 67 Part of it 
 contains a new and very insinuating form of flattery, de- 
 scribing the effect of Pamela on a six-year-old child in the 
 family — "a pretty, gentle, gay-spirited" boy, a poor 
 soldier 's son, whom the Hills seem to have adopted. ' ' The 
 
 63 Pamela was published in November. 
 
 64 January 23, 1741. Works, II, 158. 
 
 65 December 17, 1740. Corres., I, 53. The characterization of 
 this and other compliments was made by one of Eichardson 's critics 
 (February 7, 1741. Forster MSS. Folio XVI). 
 
 66 Eichardson to Hill, December 22, 1740. 
 
 67 Eichardson himself endorsed it ' ' too high praise ' ' It is dated 
 December 29. The letter of the same date in the Correspondence 
 (I, 55) is probably the concluding portion of that in the Forster MSS. 
 
256 AARON HILL 
 
 wanton rogue is half air, and every motion he acts by has a 
 spring like your Pamela's, when she threw down the card- 
 table." This "tom-tit of a prater" happened to be present 
 when Hill was reading aloud Pamela's reflections at the 
 pond, upon the wisdom of suicide : ' ' The little rampant in- 
 truder, being kept out by the extent of the circle, had crept 
 under my chair, and was sitting before me on the carpet, 
 with his head almost touching the book, and his face bowing 
 down towards the fire. He had sat for some time in this 
 posture, with a stillness that made us conclude him asleep ; 
 when on a sudden we heard a succession of heart-heaving 
 sobs. ... I turned his innocent face to look towards me, 
 but his eyes were quite lost in his tears; which running 
 down from his cheeks in free currents had formed two 
 sincere little fountains on that part of the carpet he hung 
 over. All the ladies in company were ready to devour him 
 with kisses, and he has since become doubly a favorite; 
 and is, perhaps, the youngest of Pamela's converts." 68 
 
 The ' ' too high praise ' ' and the tale of Harry 's sensibility 
 brought from Richardson an epigram for Hill and a book 
 of fables for the boy. 69 Hill tells how he laid aside the 
 
 68 Sensibility was profitable then. "Mrs. Belfour" (Correspond- 
 ence, IV, 305) tells Kichardson how a lady read aloud to her intimate 
 friends from volume VII of Clarissa, while her maid dressed her 
 hair; but the maid showered tears so plentifully over her mistress 
 that reading and curling had to be discontinued; and the lady was 
 so pleased with the sensibility of the maid that she encouraged it by 
 the gift of a crown. 
 
 69 See letter from Hill, December, 1740, Corres., I, 59. This is 
 the epigram: 
 
 "When noble thoughts with language pure unite, 
 To give to kindred excellence its right; 
 Tho' unencumbered with the clogs of rhyme, 
 Where tinkling sounds for want of meaning chime; 
 Which, like the rocks in Shannon's midway course, 
 Divide the sense and interrupt its force; 
 Well we may judge so strong and clear a rill 
 Flows hither from the Muses' sacred Hill." 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 257 
 
 fables while he read the letter: "The busy pirate . . . fell 
 to lifting the leaves one by one, and peeping between them 
 with the archness and fear of a monkey; and I left him 
 . . . unobserved to the enjoyment of his cautious discoveries, 
 till I came to that paragraph in your letter where you call 
 him the dear amiable boy, which I purposely read out aloud. 
 At those words, up flashed all the fire of his eyes, with a 
 mixture of alarm and attention; and just then one of my 
 daughters happening to say: 'Now am I sure that this 
 good-natured and generous Mr. Richardson has sent those 
 two books for little Harry.' — 'See here,' added the other, 
 'what it is to be praised for a boy that is wise and loves 
 reading.' " Harry's ecstasy was unbounded. "His fairy 
 face (ears and all) was flushed as red as his lips; and his 
 flying feet told his joy to the floor, in a wild and stamping 
 impatience of gratitude. At last he shot himself, in ac- 
 knowledgment, upon me, with a force like a bullet; and 
 . . . fell to kissing me for a minute or two together." 
 Harry ' ' wanted art to explain his conceptions ' ' ; one would 
 sometimes rather have his stamping raptures than Hill's 
 more artful ecstasies. 70 
 
 There is scarcely any diminution in Hill's raptures dur- 
 ing the whole of the year 1741. 71 Mr. Richardson is his 
 
 ™ There are occasional later glimpses of the "little Campbell," 
 one under ' ' the umbrage of a pair of out-strutting hoops. ' ' He re- 
 mained one of Richardson's admirers, and developed some wit and 
 much honesty, though he was not so good as his first shoot promised. 
 Perhaps his sensibility decreased. He was one of the witnesses to 
 Kickardson's will. 
 
 7i Mrs. Jewkes kept Hill awake nights, "till the Ghost of Lady 
 Davers, drawing open the Curtain, scares the Scarer of me and of 
 Pamela" (January 15). Cf. the effect of Hill's Art of Acting on 
 Richardson: "My whole frame, so nervously affected before, was 
 shaken by it. I found such Tremors, such Startings, that I was un- 
 able to go through it," until fortified by the oak-tincture (October 
 29, 1746). 
 18 
 
258 AARON HILL 
 
 "dearest, wisest, most virtuous, and never enough to be 
 loved" friend; and he Richardson's "troublesome but in- 
 expressibly devoted" one. He offers to deal with any ob- 
 jections which Richardson's modesty prevents his answer- 
 ing, and he asks for the foundation of the story. The 
 letter Richardson wrote in reply — very important for his 
 biography, though less so for Hill 's — describes the originals 
 of Pamela and Mr. B., and the inception of the volume of 
 familiar letters which grew into Pamela. 72 The whole 
 family visited Richardson at Salisbury Court in July — the 
 girls apparently meeting him for the first time; for when 
 they were meditating the visit, Hill threatened to send 
 their true pictures before them, that Richardson "might 
 expect to see nothing extraordinary; and one of the bag- 
 gages answered me that the most extraordinary thing I 
 could send would be the pictures of women drawn truly. ' ' 73 
 In October, the young ladies were in Surrey, "preaching 
 Pamela and Pamela's author with true apostolical attach- 
 ment." 
 
 With one persistent request of Richardson 's — to ' ' render 
 Pamela more worthy" of their approbation by correcting 
 her — no one in the family was disposed to comply. He sent 
 the girls an interleaved copy of the book for this purpose, 74 
 but they filled the sheets with "progressive memorandums 
 of the Benefits her conversation brought them." 75 As 
 Richardson continued to insist "kindly and warmly" on 
 corrections, Hill sent a few verbal suggestions, after going 
 through the book once with the eye and the heart of a 
 cynic, and again with the vigilance of friendship. 76 Later, 
 he "improved" some passages by the addition of a 
 
 72 Corres., I, lxix f. 
 
 " Hill to Eichardson, April 21, 1741. Cones., I, 70. 
 
 -i December 22, 1740. 
 
 -5 December 30, 1740. 
 
 76 April 13, 1741. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 259 
 
 "slightly poetic turn." 77 One objection of an anonymous 
 writer had a little weight, in his opinion, — "that, which 
 advises some little Contraction of the Prayers and Appeals 
 to the Deity. I say little Contraction : for they are nobly 
 and sincerely Pathetic. And I say it only in Fear, lest, if 
 fancied too long by the fashionably Averse to the Subject, 
 Minds which most want the purposed Impression, might 
 hazard the Loss of its Benefits, by passing over those pious 
 Reflexions, which, if shorter, would catch their Atten- 
 tion." 78 He himself cautiously suggests that Pamela, in 
 writing to her parents, might sometimes refer to Mr. B. as 
 "beloved," instead of always "best-beloved"; for there is 
 a little harshness in this marked preference of the conjugal 
 to the filial affection. 79 But these trifling criticisms only 
 show how little Pamela needs alteration: "I would not 
 scratch such a beautiful Face for the Indies." 80 
 
 Hill was, if possible, more enthusiastic over the con- 
 tinuation of Pamela than over the first part. After re- 
 hearsing the least that could be said of its merits (which 
 included boundless invention, bold and vast reflection, 
 sharp and generous satire, and the like), and declaring that 
 he "never could endure a lukewarm approbation," he 
 expresses a desire to have the "sweet charmer's life" 
 lengthened to a fifth and even a sixth volume: "Do oblige 
 mankind with this Concession. Nothing ever equall'd 
 what you write: and, tho' you were to give the World as 
 many Volumes doubled as the Six I pray for, not a Reader 
 would complain, but at the end of the last Paragraph. ' ' 81 
 
 11 December 15, 1741. 
 
 78 January 6, 1741. 
 
 79 February 25, 1742. 
 so January 6, 1741. 
 
 81 October 22, 1741. To the present-day reader, this request sounds 
 monstrous. But there were admirers of Eichardson — and people of 
 sense, too, — who read every one of his volumes through once a year. 
 
260 AARON HILL 
 
 In his next novel, Richardson did his best to satisfy this 
 thirst for many volumes. The progress of Clarissa Har- 
 lowe is very fully reported in the correspondence. It was 
 far from being, like Pamela, a two-months' labor; and to 
 follow its development through the many closely written 
 pages of the letters of four years is to gain an indelible im- 
 pression of the seriousness and extent of the undertaking. 
 
 The first news of Pamela's successor — welcome after 
 dismal talk of the ill-success of The Fanciad and The Im- 
 partial — is Hill's acknowledgment of the receipt of the 
 "good and beautiful design" of a new attempt; "you must 
 give me leave to be astonished," he writes, "when you 
 tell me you have finished it already!" 82 This evidently 
 did not mean that it was ready for publication. With the 
 first instalments of the new novel (sent in November, 1744) 
 came the author 's usual request that Hill do some pruning ; 
 he replied that he could not think of it. Again, a few 
 weeks later, he sees no "modest possibility of doing it," 
 for — and his reason is good — "you have formed a style, 
 as much your property as our respect for what you write 
 is, where verbosity becomes a virtue; because, in pictures 
 which you draw with such a skilful negligence, redundance 
 but conveys resemblance ; and to contract the strokes would 
 be to spoil the likeness." 83 "With four MS. volumes of 
 Clarissa in his hands, Hill is "beyond expression, impatient 
 to attend her Elopement to her Lover," — an impatience 
 in which he has the modern reader's sympathy. 84 
 
 By March, Richardson is already much disturbed by the 
 length of his masterpiece; and so are his friends. Hill, 
 
 Thomas Edwards, of The Canons of Criticism, was one; and he 
 wept over the 7th volume of Clarissa as much in 1755 as he had in 
 1748 (Corres., Ill, 111). 
 
 82 July 24, 1744. Corres., I, 101. 
 
 83 January 7, 1745. Corres., I, 9&. 
 s* February 28, 1745. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 261 
 
 however, refuses to join in the remonstrances made by "the 
 erring Diligence" of his "curtailing Friends." He begins 
 to waver a little a month later, when he realizes that five 
 books give admission only to the hall of the delightful 
 building; yet Nature is lovely, though she lead us over 
 "boundless wilds." 85 Even at the end of the year, he will 
 not admit that the "still growing as well as lengthening 
 Beauty" is too tall; but, he adds, "if there is any Place, 
 that can be shortened, without maiming this delightful 
 Composition, You, who have created it, and have it's whole 
 Proportion and Connexion in your Eye, at once, are better 
 justified in doing it" than anyone else; "it is in the first 
 stages (if at all) that you must look for lopping Places. 
 All your after-growths are sacred, to the smallest Twig." 88 
 As Richardson kept on sending his manuscript and asking 
 advice, Hill was forced to keep on explaining why he did 
 not want the task of criticism. 87 In the effort to reassure 
 Richardson, he takes refuge in some curious reasoning : 
 "Your very full and striking Title Page informs us for 
 what kind of Readers, chiefly, you adapt the use, of your 
 instructive Story. — If you had designed a Piece, for the 
 Severe, the Pensive, and the Practised, you would cer- 
 tainly have acted right in cutting off whatever might seem 
 spread too broad, or too remote from the main point in- 
 tended. But you are here, endeavoring to fix the Mercury 
 of Light, and inattentive Volatiles. " 88 A method not well 
 adapted to the end, one would imagine ; but Hill thinks the 
 Volatiles like to hear of what resembles them, and Richard- 
 son must mix his instructions with what they like. 
 
 This settled the matter for a time. But it came up again 
 in the fall of 1746, and unfortunately found Hill less 
 
 85 April 4, 1745. 
 
 se Letter dated "end of 1745." 
 
 S7 January 30, 1746, 
 
 ss February 6, 1746. 
 
262 AARON HILL 
 
 obdurate. Richardson was then planning to abridge some 
 letters, and Hill suggests "cautiously retrenching Repeti- 
 tions of the same Events" by throwing in "Notes, in places 
 where it can be narratively done, without diminishing a 
 fine Effect that rises very often . . . from different views 
 and principles of Persons to whom the same Fact is re- 
 lated." 89 This advice was general enough to be harmless. 
 But he added some dangerously detailed comments on the 
 characters of Lovelace and Clarissa — too detailed to be 
 quoted at length. The gist of his criticism is that the lady 
 ought to be really in love with Lovelace before the duel, 
 and that he should be more generous in dealing with her 
 brother — an impressive genteel compliment or two would 
 not be amiss; such conduct would inspire Clarissa with 
 confidence and put a better face on her desertion. Richard- 
 son was so agitated by this letter that he turned it over to 
 a friend, whose comments, arranged under five heads, he 
 carefully copied out and attached to Hill's letter. The 
 obliging friend found the observations mistaken, even 
 though dictated by the brain of so sublime a genius as Hill : 
 for Richardson's Lovelace, delighting in cruelty and in 
 the tears of distressed beauty, they would substitute a Love- 
 lace actuated by generosity and true love. And Clarissa 
 in love — horrible ! ' ' Alas ! this Gentleman may have true 
 Ideas of Common Life, but not of that exalted Spirit, 
 which urges its Votaries to ascend the steep Summit of 
 Perfection." In short, Hill has suggested a new Clarissa 
 as well as a new Lovelace, — a confiding and unsuspecting 
 one, "such a one as might easily be adopted by any giddy 
 wench that ever ran away with her father's footman." It 
 is fortunate that Hill did not see this arraignment of his 
 delicacy. 
 
 sa October 23, 1746. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 263 
 
 Richardson's next letter contained an elaborate exposi- 
 tion of his conception of his characters. Clarissa must 
 not avow, even to herself, a passion whose object is un- 
 worthy; she must subdue it; she must be so faultless that 
 readers in doubt of a future life will realize that only a 
 heavenly reward could justify her sufferings on earth. 
 Lovelace is meant to be as unamiable as possible : " I once 
 read to a young Lady Part of his Character, and then his 
 end; and upon her pitying him, and wishing he had been 
 rather made a Penitent, than to be killed, I made him 
 more and more odious, by his heightened Arrogance and 
 Triumph, as well as by his vile actions, leaving only some 
 qualities in him laudable enough to justify her first liking." 
 Poor Richardson was now in serious difficulties on the vital 
 question of abridgment, not only with Hill, but with 
 several other friends. A certain doctor advises him not to 
 cut out any sentiments, but to follow the plan of the above- 
 weight Newmarket jockeys — sweat away what he takes out; 
 Mr. Cibber wants whole branches cut off — ' ' some of which, 
 however, he dislikes not"; but these are just the branches 
 Young would keep; and the doctor's wife, "a Woman of 
 fine Sense," begs not to be robbed of any of her Acquaint- 
 ance. Though he has carried out Hill's suggestion about 
 the narrative notes, Richardson still finds the book "a vast 
 deal too long"; and begs again for help. 90 
 
 Hill, declaring himself satisfied with the analysis of the 
 two leading characters, retired to the comparatively safe 
 ground of the title, which he thinks should be adequate to 
 Richardson's "unboundedness of Comprehension in the 
 Subject." The title he suggests is adequate enough for 
 anything : 
 
 90 October 29 ? 1746. One of Eiehardson 's objects — displaying an 
 unusually enlightened point of view — was "to expose that pernicious 
 notion that a reformed rake . . . makes the best husband." 
 
264 AARON HILL 
 
 " The Lady's Legacy : 
 
 or 
 
 The whole gay and serious Compass of the Human 
 
 Heart laid open, 
 
 For the service of both sexes. 
 
 In the History of the Life and Ruin of 
 
 a lately Celebrated Beauty 
 
 Miss Clarissa Harlowe. 
 
 Including 
 
 Great Variety of other Lives and Characters 
 
 Occasionally interested in the Moving Story. 
 
 Detecting and exposing 
 
 The most secret Arts and Subtlest Practices 
 
 of 
 
 That endangering Species of Triumphant Rakes 
 
 call'd 
 
 Women's Men. 
 
 Assisted by corrupt and vicious Engines of the Sex they plot against. 
 
 Published in compliance with the Lady's order on her death-bed, 
 
 as a Warning to unguarded, vain, or credulous Innocence." 
 
 The alternative title — for Hill was equal to more than one 
 — is worse : 
 
 " The Lady's Remembrancer : 
 
 or 
 
 The Way of a Young Man with a Maid. 
 
 Being the whole," and so on as before. 
 
 Hill thought this full enough without reference to the 
 parents; but it really seems a little harsh to discriminate 
 against them in so roomy a title. 91 
 
 A short time after this achievement, Hill offered to try 
 the Newmarket jockey method of contraction on a few 
 letters. If the experiment does no other good, he declares, 
 it may at least cure Richardson of his desire for curtail- 
 
 9i November 5, 1746. Bichardson thought the title too long (Janu- 
 ary 5, 1747). 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 265 
 
 ment. 9 - Hill has been accused of tactlessness in making 
 the attempt, 93 but it is hard to see what else he could have 
 done, when Richardson's persistent appeals for help con- 
 tinued after Hill had exhausted all his excuses for refusing. 
 And the experiment did accomplish the cure Hill antici- 
 pated; in addition, it unfortunately created a temporary- 
 coolness in their friendship. When The New Clarissa 
 arrived in December from Plaistow, Richardson was 
 amazed. 94 By his computations, Hill's alterations in the 
 eight or nine letters he had worked over would cut off 
 about two-thirds, and reduce the whole to three volumes. 
 This was too drastic — his purpose could scarcely be an- 
 swered in so small a compass, "without taking from it 
 those simple, tho' diffuse Parts, which some like, and have 
 (however unduly) complimented me upon, as making a 
 new species of writing." He is clearly quite miserable 
 over the matter. One shocked little comment is hidden 
 away in the margin of a page of The New Clarissa in the 
 Forster MSS. Hill had put the exclamation "by Heaven" 
 in the mouth of Arabella Harlowe : " To what regiment of 
 guards," writes Richardson, "could this lady belong?" 
 He assured Hill, however, that as a model his efforts would 
 be of great service, and asked him to proceed farther in the 
 volume and write a preface, as well. 
 
 Hill could only exclaim in despair, "I knew . . . (and 
 have told you so with a sincerity becoming the Affection I 
 ever did, and ever must, bear you) that your Genius was as 
 new as extensive; and that you constituted a new Species, 
 by your peculiarly natural Manner of Writing. — I told 
 you, too, that I judged it an impossibility, to shorten . . . 
 without cutting off a Luxuriancy of beauties. And now, 
 you have had an Example and Proof that everything I said 
 
 92 November 20, 1746. 
 
 93 C. L. Thomson : Samuel Eicliardson, 42. 
 
 94 January 5, 1747. 
 
266 AARON HILL 
 
 to you was true. And that wherever a Genius so peculiar 
 as yours is, overruns the Space it allots itself, it is only 
 the same Genius, that can, fitly, reduce it. ' ' Since Richard- 
 son is unwilling to leave out the "lively Simplicities" that 
 must be sacrificed if there is to be any reduction, he has 
 destroyed his attempts at further alteration. Suppose one 
 unreduced volume is tried on the public ; if they accept it, 
 the rest can be printed without contraction. 95 
 
 Richardson might have been appeased, if Hill had not 
 gone on to reaffirm his views of Lovelace and Clarissa. 
 He had seized the opportunity in his version to make 
 Lovelace more of a gentleman — a more delicate thinker; to 
 picture him so very black a villain would be to destroy the 
 moral: what young woman would suppose her lover so 
 base? It is a question whether the addition of Hillian 
 delicacy of thought would not have made Lovelace a more 
 impossible combination of qualities than critics usually 
 agree he now is. But Richardson's reply proved there was 
 no hope of his improvement : " I am a good deal warped by 
 the character of a Gentleman I had in my Eye, when T 
 drew both him, and Mr. B. in Pamela. The best of that 
 gentleman for the latter; the worst of him for Lovelace, 
 made still worse by mingling the worst of two other Char- 
 acters, that were as well known to me, of that Gentleman's 
 Acquaintance." 90 At least, Hill may be given credit for 
 recognizing certain weaknesses in the conception of Love- 
 lace, and for standing by his opinion. Most of Richard- 
 son's correspondents were incapable of that much inde- 
 pendence of thought in relation to his works. 
 
 It was Clarissa, however, who nearly broke off the friend- 
 ship. "No inducement, weaker than resistless Love," 
 
 95 January 23, 1747. 
 
 96 January 26, 1747. The gentleman who sat for these portraits 
 of Lovelace and Mr. B. is sometimes identified as Philip, Duke of 
 Wharton. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 267 
 
 wrote Hill, "will justify Clarissa's rash elopement with a 
 man." She could have refused her consent at the altar; 
 and she had less to fear from her father's indignation at her 
 rejection of the wretch he proposed to her than from 
 "running away from his House, with a worse, if possible, 
 of her own choosing. ' ' 97 This harsh characterization of the 
 divine Clarissa's flight was more than Richardson could 
 stand. He was greatly mortified that her act "should be 
 called by such a clear discerner: a rash Elopement with a 
 Man." He had tried to make it manifest that, though 
 provoked in every way and even brought to promise to go 
 off, she had met Lovelace only to refuse. "I am very un- 
 fortunate, good Sir, ... to be so ill understood, to have 
 given Eeason, I should say, to be so little understood. ' ' To 
 confront Hill, he brings up the testimony of two very deli- 
 cate minds of the "sex," who owned "they should not, in 
 her Case, have been able, however reluctant, to avoid being 
 carried off." 98 
 
 Hill's conciliatory reply brought no answer, and he 
 began to fear, after writing once more, that he might have 
 been misunderstood. He reminded his friend that the 
 office of "contractor" was undertaken at Richardson's re- 
 quest; that his advice was asked; and he thought it his 
 duty to point out in a frank and friendly manner the few 
 places where there was room for criticism. He stubbornly 
 reiterated, however, that Clarissa should be betrayed into 
 meeting Lovelace. 99 
 
 In the absence of any letters until the following Novem- 
 
 97 This comment resembles in brutal frankness that of Lady M. W. 
 Montagu on Clarissa : ' ' Any girl that runs away with a young fellow, 
 without intending to marry him, should be carried to Bridewell or to 
 Bedlam the next day" (Letters and Works, ed. W. Moy Thomas, II, 
 232). 
 
 as January 26, 1747. 
 
 99 Hill to Eiehardson, January 28 and February 9, 1747. 
 
268 AARON HILL 
 
 ber, it must be supposed that Richardson was not mollified. 
 When the correspondence was reopened — apparently by 
 Hill, — the dangerous subject was dropped altogether. Hill 
 politely inquired what his friend meant to do with the 
 divine Clarissa. Heaven forbid that he should leave pub- 
 lication to his executors. Richardson responded by send- 
 ing the first printed volumes, and thus throwing the whole 
 family into raptures. 100 For Clarissa, henceforth, Hill has 
 only praise, and that varied and fluent to the limit of his 
 vocabulary ; and beyond that limit, he takes refuge in silent 
 amazement: "You are — in short, I cannot tell what you 
 are. I only know, I feel it!" 101 
 
 Richardson's sufferings were now caused by other 
 friends, who wished the novel to end happily. With the 
 present of the sixth and seventh volumes, he writes : ' ' These 
 will show you, Sir, that I intend more than a Novel or Ro- 
 mance by this Piece ; and that it is of the tragic kind. In 
 short, that I thought my principal characters could not be 
 rewarded by any happiness short of the heavenly. But 
 how have I suffered by this from the cavils of some, from 
 the Prayers of others, from the entreaties of many more, to 
 make what is called a happy ending. Mr. Lyttleton, the 
 late Mr. Thomson, Mr. Cibber, and Mr. Fielding have been 
 among these." 102 Hill did not swell the chorus. Nor did 
 his daughters make any rash effort at compliance, when 
 Richardson, undeterred by former experiences, asked them 
 to point out any lack of delicacy or female grace in Clarissa 
 or Miss Howe ; he would not have even Miss Howe, in the 
 height of her vivacity, indelicate. 103 The father of the 
 young ladies replied for them : to hint that Clarissa lacked 
 delicacy ! ' ' who alone could reinspire it through an unsexed 
 
 100 Hill to Richardson, November 3 and November 26, 1747. 
 ioi May 5, 1748. 
 
 102 November 7, 1748. 
 
 103 November 18, 1748. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 269 
 
 ivorld!" XOi The family were hoping at this time soon to 
 have the noble pleasure of attending the divine Clarissa to 
 her "heavenly Period"; and on November 29, Hill "buried 
 the dear girl" at three o'clock in the morning — after she 
 had cost him tears enough to swim the volumes that excited 
 them. "At this moment," he wrote, "I have three girls 
 around me — Each a Separate Volume in her hand, and all 
 their Eyes like a wet flower in April!" 105 
 
 "When the Misses Hill had dried their eyes, they wrote 
 to ask Richardson if there ever really were such "masked 
 male Savages as Lovelace," and to compare the author's 
 gradations to those of Nature from season to season: "You 
 raised your Pamela from very humbly sweet, to very nobly 
 elevated. And now, beginning with Clarissa where you 
 left your other charmer, you have found a more than mortal 
 Power to raise her also with a gradual Exaltation." 106 
 Richardson was more pleased with Astraea and Minerva 
 than he had recently been with their father. Can they 
 believe, he asks, that many of their sex pity Lovelace and 
 call Clarissa hard-hearted? Presently he is begging them 
 to indicate his faults — their praise is making him vain: 
 "From whom can I, in Matters of Delicacy, expect De- 
 tection and Correction, if not from Ladies who have the 
 Happiness of so dear and near a Relation to Mr. Hill?" 107 
 
 The delicacy of the young ladies was notable when it ap- 
 proved of Clarissa; for less obvious when it saw good in 
 Tom Jones. Richardson's attitude towards his rival 
 novelist, who had insulted him far more by achieving popu- 
 
 104 November 25, 1748. 
 
 105 They were more sociable than the Highmore family, who retired 
 each to a separate apartment to read and weep at ease (Corres., I, cxi). 
 
 loe December 13, 1748. 
 
 107 Letters from Richardson, December 14, 1748, and January 6, 
 1749. 
 
270 AARON HILL 
 
 larity with a Tom Jones than by making his "lewd and 
 ungenerous engraftment" upon Pamela, is distinctly petty 
 and spiteful. The two men were temperamentally at oppo- 
 site poles. Nor was it to the credit of most of Richardson's 
 correspondents that they humored him in his jealousy. 
 The Hill girls, for all their delicacy, proved to be excep- 
 tions. "Dear Sir," wrote Richardson, July 12, 1749, 
 "have you read Tom, J ones f ... I have found neither 
 Leisure nor Inclination, yet, to read that Piece, and the 
 less inclination as several good judges of my acquaintance 
 condemn it and the general taste together. I could wish to 
 know the Sentiments of your ladies upon it. If favourable, 
 they would induce me to open the six volumes." Hill 
 promised that the girls would oblige him in the matter: 
 "They will certainly have sauciness enough to do it, being 
 of late grown borrowing Customers to an Itinerary Book- 
 seller's Shop, that rumbles, once a week, thro' Plaistow in 
 a wheelbarrow, with Chaff enough, of Conscience! and 
 sometimes a weightier Grain." 108 Within a week, Astraea 
 and Minerva sent their joint sentiments: 109 
 
 " Having with much ado got over some reluctance, that was 
 bred by a familiar coarseness in the Title, we went thro' the 
 whole six volumes; and found much (masqued) merit, in 'em 
 all; a double merit, both of Head, and Heart. Had there been 
 only that of the last sort, you love it, I am sure, too much to 
 leave a Doubt of your resolving to examine it. . . . The author 
 introduces all his Sections . . . with long runs of bantering 
 Levity, which his good sense may suffer the effect of. It is true, 
 he seems to wear this Lightness, as a grave Head sometimes wears 
 a feather; which tho' he and Fashion may consider as an orna- 
 ment, Reflection will condemn, as a Disguise and covering. Girls, 
 perhaps, of an untittering Disposition, are improper Judges of 
 what merit there may be in Lightness, when it endeavors rather 
 
 los j u i y 20, 1749. 
 109 July 27, 1749. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 271 
 
 at ironic satire than encouragement of Folly. But tell us, 
 Dear Sir, are we in the right, or no, when we presume to own it 
 as our Notion, that however well meant such a Motive may have 
 been, the execution of it must be found distasteful? For we 
 can't help thinking that a mind framed right for Virtue courts 
 and serves her with too much Respect, to join in throwing a 
 Fool's Coat upon her. . . . Meanwhile, it is an honest pleasure, 
 which we take in adding, that (exclusive of one wild, detached 
 and independent Story of a Man of the Hill, that neither brings 
 on anything, nor rose from anything that went before it) All the 
 changefull windings of the author's fancy carry on a course of 
 regular design; and end in an extremely moving close, where 
 Lines that seemed to wander and run different ways, meet, All, 
 in an instructive Centre. 
 
 " The whole Piece consists of an inventive race of Disappoint- 
 ments and Recoveries. It excites Curiosity, and holds it watchful. 
 It has just and pointed Satire; but it is a partial satire, and 
 confined too narrowly. It sacrifices to Authority and Interest. 
 Its Events reward Sincerity, and punish and expose Hypocrisy; 
 shew pity and benevolence in amiable Lights, and Avarice and 
 Brutality in very despicable ones. In every Part it has 
 Humanity for its Intention; in too many it seems wantoner than 
 it was meant to be: It has bold shocking Pictures; and (I fear) 
 not unresembling ones, in high Life and in low. And (to con- 
 clude this too adventurous guess work from a pair of forward 
 baggages) would, everywhere, . . . deserve to please, — if stript 
 of what the Author thought himself most sure to please by." 
 
 An excellent criticism, but not one to please Richardson. 
 He replied that he had been prejudiced by the opinion of 
 judicious friends against the coarse-titled Tom: "I was 
 told, that it was a rambling Collection of waking Dreams, 
 in which Probability was not observed; and that it has a 
 very bad tendency. And I had Reason to think that the 
 Author intended for his second View (his first, to fill his 
 Pocket by accommodating it to the reigning Taste) in 
 writing it, to whiten a vicious Character, and to make 
 
272 AARON HILL 
 
 Morality bend to his practises." Why else did he make 
 Tom a "kept Fellow, the lowest of all Fellows," and yet 
 in love with a young creature who was "traipsing after 
 him?" Why such a fond, foolish, insipid heroine? He 
 does not know how to draw a delicate woman — he is not 
 accustomed to their company. He knows the man and 
 dislikes his principles, public and private. 110 
 
 Reduced to tears by this letter, but not subdued, the two 
 critics permitted their father to answer for them: "Un- 
 fortunate Tom Jones! how sadly has he mortified Two 
 sawcy correspondents of your making ! They are with me 
 now, and bid me tell you, you have spoiled 'em both, for 
 criticks. Shall I add, a Secret which they did not bid me 
 tell you? They, both, fairly cried, that you should think 
 it possible they could approve of anything, in any Work, 
 that had an evil tendency, in any part or purpose of it. 
 They maintain their point so far, however, as to be con- 
 vinced, they say, that you will disapprove this over-rigid 
 Judgment of those Friends, who could not find a thread of 
 moral meaning, in Tom Jones, quite independent of the 
 Levities they justly censure. And as soon as you have 
 time to read him, for yourself, 'tis there, pert creatures, they 
 will be bold enough to rest the matter." 111 
 
 Richardson, distressed as he was to have given pain to 
 the ladies, yet insists on their few adverse comments to 
 justify himself : did they not say the merit was masqued ? 
 and did they not make other fine reflections on the inad- 
 visability of showing wisdom with a monkey's face? "I 
 imagined, I said, that the censurers of Tom Jones were 
 too severe; and why? Because ladies of superior delicacy 
 were so good as to overlook the passages unworthy of their 
 regard, and find a good intention in the rest. ... I said, 
 
 no August 4, 1749. 
 in August 11, 1749. 
 
HILL AND RICHARDSON 273 
 
 that, knowing the man, I had the more suspicion ; for he is 
 a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding spirited 
 man, and is capable of forming a morality to his practise." 
 And the ladies said, too, that it had shocking pictures; 
 "could I have imagined, Sir, that I, in following this clue, 
 and in writing freely what those censurers have said, who 
 were disgusted with these faults, and looked upon them in 
 a light too strong, without considering the rest with that 
 candour which your ladies have laudably manifested, for 
 what must therefore be praiseworthy in it, or even for ex- 
 pressing my own disgust on several of the passages which I 
 had read, should have written so as to have affected the 
 dear ladies?" 112 The ladies must have been very well 
 aware by this time of the nature of their offense. 
 
 This marks the close of the correspondence with Hill. 
 He was seriously ill during the greater part of the year, and 
 died on February 8, 1750, "at the instant of the earth- 
 quake." 113 On February 10, Richardson wrote to his 
 friend Skelton : 114 ' ' I have just lost my dear and excellent- 
 hearted friend, Mr. Hill, author of Gideon. I was present 
 at some of his last scenes; my nerves can witness that I 
 was. I am endeavoring to find opportunities to show my 
 regard to his memory, by my good offices to three excellent 
 
 112 August 18, 1749. 
 
 us London Magazine, February, 1750, 56. 
 
 in Corres., V., 199. From the profuse expressions of gratitude in 
 the letters of Hill's brother and of his daughters Astraea and 
 Urania, Eichardson must have carried out his generous intentions, 
 probably helping in the publication of Hill's works. Urania, "the 
 managing sister of the three," who inherited her father's epistolary 
 style more completely than her sisters, kept up a correspondence with 
 Eichardson for eight years, — until he criticized for indelicacy a 
 novel she submitted to him. Her hurt rejoinder led him to comment 
 despairingly on the margin of her letter: "I will only say, I truly 
 meant, service, not criticism. Who but the Lady was to see what I 
 wrote?" 
 19 
 
274 AAEON HILL 
 
 daughters, who, for their filial piety, merit all praise, and 
 for their other merits, deserve to be the care of all who 
 know them." Hill's death occurred the day before a 
 benefit performance of Merope, which had been commanded 
 — probably through Mallet's influence — by the Prince of 
 "Wales. There is a touch of irony in the fact that the man 
 who had so generously promoted many benefit performances 
 for his distressed friends should have needed such aid him- 
 self in the last days of his life, and should have died before 
 he could receive it. He was buried near his wife, in the 
 cloisters of Westminster Abbey. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 It would be rash to claim that the preceding chapters 
 have dealt with all of Hill's activities; some of them may 
 have left no traces that can be discovered now. There is 
 a hint in a scurrilous attack on the Prompter in Fog's 
 Weekly Journal (December 7, 1734) that Hill "plied at 
 Cato's elbow, in the South Sea days"; it may mean that 
 he wrote anonymously in the London Journal or the British 
 Journal, which published Cato's letters against the South 
 Sea Company. If he did, then he was engaged to some 
 extent in political controversy — the one form of activity he 
 seemed to care little about. Once he himself referred to 
 all he had seen in the armies of three nations. Most prob- 
 ably these observations were made during his early tours, 
 though he may have found, before he began to write poetry 
 in London, a few odd months to serve a campaign or two. 
 
 The discovery of some new enterprise would arouse no 
 astonishment in one who reflects upon the versatility that 
 had revealed Hill before the age of thirty as traveller, 
 tutor, secretary, poet, translator, historian, dramatist, stage 
 manager, opera librettist, and commercial projector. In 
 some of these roles he appeared only once. But a pro- 
 jector, in practise and in theory, he remained to the end of 
 his life — the enterprising agent of the York Buildings 
 Company, the dreamer of a Paradise in America, the pro- 
 prietor of the Plaistow vineyards. A theatrical expert he 
 was always — a keen observer of changing conditions, a 
 student of the art of acting, a caustic critic of the managers, 
 and a dramatist, who won with his translations of Voltaire 
 275 
 
276 AARON HILL 
 
 a success that had been denied to his original work. He 
 was a poet — so far as his talents permitted him to be — to 
 the last ; and in that role he came to know and to influence 
 the careers of younger writers; and the most successful of 
 his poems brought him the mixed reward of a gold medal 
 from a Czar and a literary quarrel with Pope. His many 
 acts of kindness were in a manner repaid — not by their 
 recipients, but by the loyal friendship of Richardson. This 
 versatility, and the touch of romantic ardor in his nature, 
 which had sent him off as a boy of fifteen alone to Turkey, 
 explain in some measure the attraction he had for his con- 
 temporaries and the esteem in which he was held. His 
 friends saw him engaged in many fields; if some of them 
 were a little uncertain of his eminence in that field which 
 they knew best, they were probably willing to believe him 
 greater in another of which they knew little. When 
 Colonel Horsey recovered from the transports of his first 
 contemplation of Scotch timber, he may have reflected that 
 an imagination, which was not an unmixed blessing to a 
 projector, must be an asset of great value to a poet; and if 
 Savage or Thomson secretly entertained any doubts of 
 their loved Hillarius's poetic supremacy, they could not 
 resist the impression of the coach and six bearing the 
 projector in triumph to Scotland. Praise directed at a 
 man of so many talents must find its mark somewhere. 
 
 When, three years after Hill's death, his Works were 
 published in four volumes, his reputation was still great 
 enough to attract over fifteen hundred subscribers; but 
 seven years later, only one-fourth that number could be 
 persuaded to subscribe to his Dramatic Works. The course 
 of his fame was steadily downward as the impression of his 
 vigorous personality faded away, and only his works were 
 left to speak for him. They spoke very badly. Although, 
 seventy years after his death, selections were still made 
 
CONCLUSION 277 
 
 from his poetry and his plays for the volumes of the 
 British poets and the British drama, these volumes them- 
 selves are now little read. But his name and the record of 
 his activities could not perish so completely as his poems. 
 Those who have written in recent years of Richardson and 
 Fielding, of Pope and Thomson and Savage, have found 
 Hill in their path, not to be ignored ; the chronicler of the 
 York Buildings Company owed to him some of his most 
 entertaining pages; the student of the legal aspects of stage 
 history discovered in the Prompter the keenest apprecia- 
 tion of the problem of regulation. And none of those who 
 mention him find it possible to be merely perfunctory. 
 They grow cheerful and witty, even in their very exaggera- 
 tion of his power to bore ; or in soberer mood, they express 
 a curiosity about other aspects of his life and character 
 than those they touch upon. They all acknowledge the 
 generosity and kindliness of his nature, his humanity and 
 politeness, as Dr. Johnson has it, — a tribute that can be 
 paid without reserve to very few of the greater men of his 
 time. 
 
 This reaction of the modern writer is in itself evidence of 
 the interest and vigor of Hill's personality. His faults — 
 his vanity, self-confidence, and extravagance — are obvious 
 enough ; they brought their own punishment in leading him 
 to attempt what he could not perform, and to make claims 
 for his work that could have been satisfied only by a trans- 
 cendent genius. But though he did habitually overestimate 
 the talents and virtues of himself and of his friends, he had 
 flashes of keen insight into character; he had imagination, 
 evident in his projects, if not in his writings ; and there is 
 even now and then a gleam of poetry in his verse and his 
 prose. Had his faculties been better balanced, had he been 
 slightly more modest in his own estimation of his talents, 
 he might have attained secure eminence in one of the many 
 
278 AARON HILL 
 
 fields of his activity. As it is, one cannot but respect in 
 him qualities admirable in themselves, whether or not they 
 bring success to their possessor, — the tireless energy that 
 cannot endure to rust in idleness, the courage that looks 
 upon failure only as an incentive to further effort. Hill in 
 spirit belongs to the band of those 
 
 " Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 LIST OF HILL'S WEITINGS: 
 
 1707. Camillus. A Poem, Humbly inscrib'd to the Right Hon- 
 
 orable Charles, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth. 
 By Aaron Hill, Gent. London, 1707. 
 
 1708. The Invasion: A Poem to the Queen. By Mr. Hill. 
 
 London, 1708. 
 
 The celebrated Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, for the 
 Armour of Achilles, in the 13th Book of Ovid's Meta- 
 morphoses. Essay'd in English Verse by Mr. Tate, 
 Poet Laureat; and Aaron Hill, Gent. London, 1708. 
 
 1709. A full and just Account of the Present State of the 
 
 Ottoman Empire in all its Branches: with the Govern- 
 ment, and Policy, Religion, Customs, and Way of 
 Living of the Turks, in General. Faithfully related 
 from a Serious Observation, taken in many Years 
 Travels thro' those Countries. By Aaron Hill, Gent. 
 London, 1709. 
 
 Second edition, with editions [sic]. London, 1710. 
 
 Another edition. By A. H. London, 1733. 
 
 1710. Elf rid, or the Fair Inconstant. A Tragedy, as it is acted 
 
 at the Theatre Royal by her Majesty's Servants. To 
 which is added, The Walking Statue, or the Devil in 
 the Wine Cellar. A Farce. By Mr. Hill. London, 
 1710. 
 
 Another edition of The Walking Statue. London, 
 1780? 
 
 1711. Rinaldo, an Opera, as it is performed at the Queen's 
 
 Theatre in London. London, 1711. 
 1714. Dedication of the Beech-Tree. To the most honourable 
 the Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer of Great 
 Britain. Occasioned by the late discovery of making 
 Oil from the fruit of that Tree. By Aaron Hill, Esq. 
 London, 1714. 
 
 (Advertised in the Post Boy, April 17-20, 1714.) 
 279 
 
280 AARON HILL 
 
 An impartial account of the nature, benefit and 
 design, of a new discovery and undertaking, to make a 
 pure, sweet, and wholesome Oil, from the Fruit of the 
 Beech Tree. By authority of her Majesty's Royal 
 Letters Patents, under the great seal of Great Britain. 
 With particular answers to every Objection, which has 
 been made, or may reasonably be conceived against it. 
 And proposals for raising a stock not exceeding twenty 
 thousand pounds: wherein every hundred pounds ad- 
 vanced, will entitle to an annuity for fourteen years, of 
 fifty pounds per annum, and for a less sum propor- 
 tionably, upon a good and solid security. London, 1714. 
 
 Proposals for raising a Stock of one hundred thou- 
 sand pounds; for laying up great quantities of Beech 
 Mast for two years, at an Interest of Forty-Five 
 Pounds per cent, per Annum, to the Subscribers, and 
 upon a Security whereby they will always have in 
 their own Hands, above Ten Times the Value of the 
 Sum, they Contribute. To which is added, a particular 
 account of the nature, benefit, and design of the under- 
 taking. London, 1714. 
 
 1715. An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Beech-Oil 
 
 Invention, and All the Steps which have been taken in 
 that Affair, from the first discovery to the present time, 
 as also what is further designed in that Undertaking. 
 London, 1715. 
 
 1716. An impartial state of the case between the Patentee, 
 
 Annuitants, and Sharers, in the Beech-Oil Company. 
 Published by the Patentee as well in Vindication of his 
 own Measures, as for the General Satisfaction of all 
 the concem'd Parties. (A. H.) London, 1716. 
 
 The Fatal Vision : or, The Fall of Siam. A Tragedy : 
 as it is acted at the New Theatre in Lincoln' s-Inn-Fi elds, 
 1716. London. [1716.] 
 1718. Four Essays: viz. 
 
 1. On making China Ware in England, as good as 
 ever was brought from India. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 
 
 2. On a method for furnishing Coals at a Third Part 
 of the Price they are usually sold at. 
 
 3. On the Repairing of Dagenham, or other Breaches. 
 
 4. On our English Grapes, proving that they will make 
 the best of Wines. 
 
 By a Society of Gentlemen. For the Universal Benefit 
 of the People of England. Adorned with Four Beauti- 
 ful Cutts. London, 1718. 
 
 (A MS. note in the British Museum copy reads: 
 " The Essays were first publisht under this title : Essays, 
 for the month of December, 1716, to be continued 
 monthly. By a Society of Gentlemen. London, for 
 J. Roberts, 1716.") 
 
 The Northern-Star. A Poem. Written by Mr. Hill. 
 London, 1718. 
 
 Second edition. The Northern-Star: a poem on the 
 great and glorious actions of the present Czar of Russia : 
 English and Latin. London, 1724. 
 
 (The dedication is signed by Gilbert Hill, the author 
 of the translation. The preface is by Aaron Hill.) 
 
 Third edition. The Northern Star. A Poem. Sacred 
 to the name and memory of the Immortal Czar of 
 Russia. London, 1725. 
 
 Fifth edition. The Northern Star: A Poem. Orig- 
 inally publish'd in the Life-time of Peter Alexiovitz, 
 Great Czar of Russia. The fifth edition, revised and 
 corrected by the Author. London, 1739. 
 
 (I have not found any fourth edition.) 
 1720. The Creation. A Pindaric illustration of a Poem, orig- 
 inally written by Moses, on that Subject. With a 
 preface to Mr. Pope, concerning the sublimity of the 
 Ancient Hebrew Poetry, and a material and obvious 
 Defect in the English. 
 
 (From an advertisement published in the Post Boy, 
 July 30, 1720. The poem is printed in Hill's Works, 
 1753, IV, 189. The first edition is not in the libraries 
 to which I have had access.) 
 
282 AARON HILL 
 
 1721. The Judgement Day. A Poem. By Aaron Hill, Esq. 
 The second edition. London. [1721?] 
 
 (The poem is advertised as "this day published," in 
 the Post Boy, March 7-9, 1720-1721. The preface in 
 the so-called second edition is dated March 1, 1720- 
 1721. I have not seen a first edition.) 
 
 The Fatal Extravagance, a Tragedy, in a manner 
 wholly new: As it is acted at the Theatre in Lincoln' s- 
 Inn-Fields, with great applause. 
 
 (From an advertisement in the Post Boy, April 22- 
 25, 1721— "on Thursday will be published." A later 
 advertisement in the same paper for May 2 adds 
 " written by Mr. Mitchel." I have not found this 
 edition.) 
 
 Genest notes a Dublin edition of 1721, in two acts, 
 and another of 1726. 
 
 Fourth edition. The Fatal Extravagance: a Tragedy 
 presented at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln' s-lnn-Fields, 
 in one act; but in this Fourth edition improved into 
 Five Acts, by the Addition of several new characters 
 and episodical Incidents. By Joseph Mitchell. London, 
 1726. 
 
 Other London editions of 1730 and 1753. 
 
 The Prodigal: a Dramatic piece [altered from the 
 Fatal Extravagance of J. Mitchell, or rather A. H.]. 
 London, 1794. 
 1723. King Henry the Fifth, or the Conquest of France by the 
 English. A Tragedy. As acted at the Theatre Boyal 
 in Drury Lane. London, 1723. 
 
 (Advertised in the Daily C our ant, Dec. 10, 1723.) 
 
 Another edition. London, 1759. 
 
 Another edition. London, 1765. 
 1724-1725. The Plain Dealer. (The British Museum copy is 
 imperfect, lacking nos. 28, 29, 31, 42, 46, 53, 91-98, 
 102-117.) 
 
 The Plain Dealer: Being Select Essays on several 
 curious subjects, relating to Friendship, Love, and Gal- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 
 
 lantry, Marriage, Morality, Mercantile Affairs, Paint- 
 ing, History, Poetry, and Other Branches of Polite 
 Literature. Published originally in the Year 1724, and 
 now first collected into Two Volumes. London, 1730. 
 
 Second edition. London, 1734. (This contains the 
 dedication by William Bond to Lord Hervey. The 
 frontispiece pictures a gentleman seated at a table, pen 
 in hand, listening to the discourse of a lady with lux- 
 uriant hair; another lady, helmeted and draped, spear 
 in hand, points to a painting on the wall, which depicts 
 some sort of aerial battle directed by still a third lady; 
 the devil is seated in meditation at the gentleman's feet.) 
 
 1730. The progress of wit : a caveat. For the use of an eminent 
 
 writer. By a fellow of All-Souls. To which is prefixed, 
 an explanatory discourse to the reader. By Gamaliel 
 Gunson, professor of Physic and Astrology. London, 
 1730. 
 
 1731. Advice to the Poets. A Poem. To which is prefixed, an 
 
 Epistle dedicatory to the few Great Spirits of Great 
 Britain. Written by Mr. Hill. London, 1731. 
 
 (Advertised in the Daily Journal of March 23.) 
 
 Athelwold: a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre- 
 Royal in Drury-Lane, by his Majesty's Servants. Lon- 
 don, 1731. 
 
 Second edition. London, 1732. 
 
 Another edition. Dublin, 1732. 
 
 Another edition. London, 1760. 
 1734-1736. The Prompter. (The British Museum copy lacks 
 nos. 138 and 158; that in the Library of Yale Univer- 
 sity lacks nos. 24, 84, 93, 116, 138, 152.) 
 1736. The Tragedy of Zara, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal 
 in Drury-Lane. London, 1736. 
 
 Other separate London editions in 1736, 1752, 1763, 
 1778, 1791, 1803. 
 
 Dublin editions of 1737 and 1762. 
 
 Published also in Bell's British Theatre, 1 (17^6), 
 17 (1797); English Theatre, 10 (1776); Inchbald's 
 
284 AARON HILL 
 
 British Theatre, 7 (1808) ; Modern British Drama, 2 
 (1811); Dibdin's London Theatre, 19 (1814-1818); 
 London Stage, 4 (1824-1827) ; Inchbald's British 
 Theatre, 6 (1824); British Drama, 2 (1824); Cumber- 
 land's British Drama, 13; British Drama, 2 (Phila- 
 delphia, 1850). 
 
 Alzira, a Tragedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal 
 in Lincoln' s-Inn-Fields. London, 1736. 
 
 Other separate London editions in 1744, 1779, 1791. 
 
 An Edinburgh edition of 1755. (Select Collection 
 of English Plays, vol. 2.) 
 
 Published also in Bell's British Theatre, 10 (1777), 
 7 (1797) ; and British Drama, 2 (1824). 
 
 1737. The Tears of the Muses: in a Conference between Prince 
 
 Germanicus and a Male-content Party. London, 1737. 
 (Dedicated to the Society for the Encouragement of 
 Learning. ) 
 
 1738. Enquiry into the Merit of Assassination: with a View to 
 
 the character of Caesar; and his designs on the Roman 
 Republic. London, 1738. 
 
 1743. The Fanciad: an heroic Poem in Six cantos. To his 
 
 Grace the Duke of Marlborough, on the Turn of his 
 Genius to Arms. London, 1743. 
 
 1744. The Impartial. An address without flattery. Being a 
 
 poet's free thoughts on the situation of our public 
 affairs anno 1744. London, 1744. 
 
 (This called forth in the same year a reply from 
 " Antiquae," entitled A Poet's Impartial Reply to a 
 Poem entitled The Impartial; " I have not attempted," 
 he says in the preface, " to imitate your lofty style ; and 
 though our sentiments pretty nearly agree, yet I have 
 only given you a sketch of mine in a different light.") 
 1746. The Art of Acting. Deriving rules from a new principle 
 for touching the passions in a natural manner. Part I. 
 London, 1746. 
 
 Free Thoughts on Faith: or, the Religion of Reason. 
 A Poem. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 
 
 (From an advertisement in the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for July, 1746. The poem is printed in Hill's Works, 
 1753, IV, 217. I have not seen this separate edition.) 
 
 1749. Gideon, or the Patriot. An Epic Poem in Twelve Books. 
 Upon a Hebrew Plan. In honour of the two chief 
 Virtues of a people: Intrepidity in Foreign War, and 
 spirit of domestic Liberty. With miscellaneous Notes, 
 and large reflections upon different Subjects: Critical, 
 Historical, Political, Geographic, Military, and Com- 
 mercial. {By A. H.) London, 1749. 
 
 Merope: a Tragedy. Acted at the Theatre-Royal in 
 Drury-Lane, by his Majesty's Servants. By Aaron Hill, 
 Esq. London, 1749. 
 
 Other separate London editions in 1753, 1758, 1777, 
 1786, 1803. 
 
 An Edinburgh edition of 1755. 
 
 Published also in Bell's British Theatre, 10 (1776), 
 23 (1797) ; and the English Theatre, 4 (1776). 
 
 1751. A Collection of Letters never before printed: written by 
 Alexander Pope, Esq; and other ingenious Gentlemen, 
 to the late Aaron Hill, Esq. London, 1751. 
 
 1753. The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, Esq; in four volumes. 
 Consisting of Letters on Various Subjects, and of 
 Original Poems, Moral and Facetious. With an Essay 
 on the Art of Acting. Printed for the Benefit of the 
 Family. London, 1753. 
 
 (The first two volumes contain the letters and the last 
 two the poems. Many of the poems have already been 
 noted in earlier editions. The most important are the 
 following: The Reconciliation, To Mr. James Thomson, 
 St. Matthew, Chapters V, VI, VII, Bellaria at her Spin- 
 net, An Ode on Occasion of Mr. Handel's great Te Deum, 
 The Dream, The Northern Star, The Picture of Love, 
 Advice to the Poets, The Impartial, A Dialogue between 
 Damon and Philemon, To the Unknown Author of the 
 Beautiful New Piece called Pamela, The Progress of 
 Wit, The Art of Acting, and The Dedication of the Beech- 
 
286 AARON HILL 
 
 Tree (all in Volume III) ; Verses made for Mr. S-v-ge, 
 On Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's bringing with her out 
 of Turkey the Art of Inoculating the Smallpox, To the 
 Editor of Clarissa, The Actor's Epitome, The Muse to 
 the Writer — a Translation from the French of DuBartas, 
 The 104th Psalm, The Tears of the Muses, The Creation, 
 Camillus, Free Thoughts upon Faith, Sareph and Hamar 
 — an Episode from Gideon, The Judgement-Day, Cleon 
 to Lycidas, The Excursion of Fancy — a Pindaric Ode, 
 and Amoris Pictura (in Volume IV). There are also 
 many short poems, — epigrams and love poems; and 
 many prologues and epilogues. The prose Essay on the 
 Art of Acting is printed at the end of Volume IV.) 
 Second edition. London, 1754. 
 
 1754. The Roman Revenge, a Tragedy. 2nd edition. London, 
 1754. 
 
 1758. The Insolvent, or Filial Piety, a Tragedy. London, 1758. 
 
 1760. The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill, Esq. In two volumes. 
 London, 1760. Contents: Life of the Author, Elf rid, 
 Walking Statue, Rinaldo, Fatal Vision, King Henry V, 
 Fatal Extravagance, Merlin in Love, Athelwold, Muses 
 in Mourning, Zara, Snake in the Grass, Alzira, Saul, 
 Daraxes, Merope, Roman Revenge, Insolvent or Filial 
 Piety, Love Letters. 
 
 Most of these plays have been discussed in the text. 
 The Muses in Mourning is a short opera, with Apollo, 
 the Muses, and the Geniuses of Spain, France, Holland, 
 and England, as the characters. Merlin in Love is a 
 pantomime opera, in which Harlequin and Columbine 
 take part. Saul is a tragedy, of which the first act only 
 was completed. Daraxes is a pastoral opera, of two acts : 
 Daraxes, an Indian general, invades a peaceful com- 
 munity of shepherds and shepherdesses, in his flight from 
 a Persian foe. " Amorous and gallant scenes " between 
 Daraxes and the shepherdesses are interrupted by the 
 arrival of the Persian soldiers. After much conversa- 
 tion, Daraxes discovers his lost father in the Persian 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 
 
 general. The opera concludes with marriages and a 
 shepherds' dance. It would be interesting to the student 
 of the pastoral to know the date of this effort of Hill's. 
 It may have been written and refused by the managers 
 about the time the first act was printed in the Prompter 
 (January 23, 1736). 
 1821. The Actor, or Guide to the Stage : exemplifying the whole 
 art of Acting; in which the Dramatic Passions are 
 defined, analyzed, and made easy of Acquirement. The 
 whole interspersed with Select and Striking Examples 
 from the most popular modern pieces. London, 1821. 
 (An arrangement of Aaron Hill's prose essay.) 
 There are selections from Hill's poetry in the following: 
 The British Poets, volume 8, Edinburgh, 1794. 
 Southey's Specimens, Volume II, 1807. 
 S. J. Pratt's Cabinet of Poetry, volume 3, London, 
 1808. 
 
 Park's British Poets, volume 45, London, 1808. 
 British Poets, volume 60, Chiswick, 1822. 
 For Hill's correspondence see also Elwin and Courthope's 
 edition of Pope, volume X, and Mrs. Barbauld's edition of 
 Richardson's Correspondence, I, 1-132. The correspondence in 
 the Forster MSS. at the Victoria and Albert Museum at South 
 Kensington is contained in Folio XIII (2), Folio XIV (1), and 
 Folio XV. Hill's letters are chiefly in Folio XIII, and those 
 of Urania Johnson in Folio XIV. The letter from the Hill girls 
 about Tom Jones is in Folio XV. 
 
 Works ascribed to Hill: 
 
 The Works of Lucian, translated from the Greek by several 
 eminent hands. London, 1711. (The eminent hands are Dryden 
 T. Feme, W. Moyle, Sir H. Sheere, A. Baden, Sprag, Hill, 
 S. Atkinson, H. Blount, Ayloffe, J. Philips, L. Eachard, C. 
 Eachard, Savage, J. Digby, Hare, J. Washington, N. Tate, Sir 
 J. Tyrell, C. Blount, T. Brown, J. Drake, S. Cobb, Gildon, 
 Cashem, Vernon. The Tyrant Killer (Vol. II, 443-462), and 
 Dipsas (Vol. II, 463-469), are by Mr. Hill. The style of these 
 
288 AARON HILL 
 
 short prose selections is simple and not at all suggestive of Hill's, 
 though he may possibly be the translator. More probably, the 
 " Mr. Hill " concerned in the Original Poems (see infra) is the 
 "Mr. Hill" of these translations.) 
 
 The Book of Ecclesiastes paraphrased; a divine poem; by A. 
 Hill. Newcastle, 1712. (Ascribed in the catalogue of the 
 Bodleian Library to Aaron Hill. It is the work of a minister — 
 the author declares in the preface that he prefers the character 
 of a preacher to that of a poet. The style is very prosaic, and 
 quite different from that of Hill's paraphrases.) 
 
 Original Poems and Translations. By Mr. Hill, Mr. Eusden, 
 Mr. Broome, Dr. King, etc. Never before printed. London, 
 1714. (Ascribed with a question in the British Museum cata- 
 logue to Aaron Hill. The poem by Mr. Hill (pp. 8-10) is 
 On the Death of Vulcan, of sordid memory, an old Servant at 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. The poem exhibits an intimate 
 knowledge of Trinity College customs; it has no marks of Hill's 
 style; and he had, so far as I know, no connection with Trinity 
 College; his brother was at Clare Hall five years earlier. On the 
 last page of the pamphlet, among the advertisements, under 
 Musae Britannieae, is Rationes Boni et Mali sunt eternae et 
 immutdbiles. Per T. Hill, e. Col. Trin. Soc. This Thomas Hill 
 was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the author (see 
 B. M. catalogue) of Nundinae Sturbrigienses, 1702; adjiciuntur 
 duo alia poemata, London, 1709.) 
 Biographies and principal biographical notices of Hill: 
 
 The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland. By Mr. 
 Cibber and other hands. London, 1753. Volume V, pp. 252- 
 276. 
 
 (Note on page 252 — " This was sent us by an unknown hand.") 
 
 The Life of Aaron Hill, Esq. By I. K. In the Dramatic 
 Works of Aaron Hill, I, i-xx. London, 1760. 
 
 Biographia Britannica: or, the Lives of the Most Eminent 
 Persons who have flourished in Great Britain and Ireland . . . 
 to which are added, a Supplement and Appendix, etc. 6 volumes. 
 London, 1766. Supplement, pp. 97-98. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 
 
 Davies, Thomas: Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, etc. 
 London, 1780. Volume I, chapter XIII. 
 
 British Poets, volume VIII. Edinburgh, 1794. Life of Hill 
 by R. Anderson. 
 
 Biographia Dramatica: or, a Companion to the Playhouse, etc. 
 (Carried to the year 1764 by D. E. Baker; continued to 1782 by 
 Isaac Reed, and to 1811 by Stephen Jones.) 3 volumes. Lon- 
 don, 1812. Volume I, Part I, p. 334 f. 
 
 British Poets, volume 60. Chiswick, 1822. Life of Hill by 
 R. A. Davenport. 
 
 Article by Leslie Stephen in the Dictionary of National 
 Biography. 
 
 The chief authorities used in the chapters on the stage are the 
 following: 
 
 Baker, David Erskine: The Companion to the Playhouse, or 
 an Historical Account of all the Dramatic Writers and their 
 Works. . . . From the Commencement of our Theatrical Exhibi- 
 tions down to the present year 1764, etc. 2 volumes. London, 
 1764. 
 
 Baker, H. Barton: The London Stage: its History and Tradi- 
 tions from 1576 to 1903. 2 volumes. London, 1904. 
 
 Burney, Charles : A General History of Music from the Earliest 
 Ages to the Present Period. London, 1789. (Volume IV.) 
 
 Cibber, Colley: An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, 
 Comedian, and late Patentee of the Theatre-Boyal, etc. Edited 
 with notes by R. W. Lowe. 2 volumes. London, 1889. 
 
 Cooke, William: Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Comedian, with 
 the Dramatic Characters, Manners, Anecdotes, etc., of the Age 
 in which he lived, etc. 2nd edition. London, 1806. 
 
 Davies, Thomas: Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, inter- 
 spersed with Characters and Anecdotes of his theatrical Contem- 
 poraries, etc. 2 volumes. London, 1780. 
 
 Dibdin, C. : History of the Stage. 5 volumes. London 
 (1800?). 
 
 Fitzgerald, Percy H. : A New History of the English Stage 
 from the Restoration to the Liberty of the Theatres, etc. 2 vol- 
 umes. London, 1882. 
 20 
 
290 AAEON HILL 
 
 Genest, John: Some Account of the English Stage, from the 
 Restoration in 1660 to 1830. 10 volumes. Bath, 1832. (Vol- 
 umes II, m, IV.) 
 
 Lounsbury, Thomas R. : Shakespeare and Voltaire. New York, 
 1902. 
 
 Nicholson, Watson : The Struggle for a Free Stage in London. 
 Boston and New York, 1906. 
 
 A Proposal for the better Regulation of the Stage, with some 
 Remarks on the State of the Theatres among the Ancient Greeks 
 and Romans. London, 1732. 
 
 Ralph, James: The Taste of the Town, or a guide to all Pub- 
 lick Diversions. London, 1731. 
 
 A Seasonable Examination of the pleas and pretensions of 
 the proprietors of, and subscribers to, playhouses erected in 
 defiance of the royal license, with some brief Observations on the 
 printed case of the Players belonging to Drury-Lane and Covent 
 Garden Theatres. London, 1735. 
 
 Victor, Benjamin : The History of the Theatres of London and 
 Dublin from the year 1730 to the present Time, etc. 2 volumes. 
 London, 1761. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Account of the Bise and Progress 
 
 of the Beech Oil Invention, An, 
 
 30, 38-40, 280. 
 Addison, Joseph, 87, 92, 153, 155, 
 
 156. 
 Advice to the Poets, 15, 218-219, 
 
 283. 
 Alatamaha (river), 50, 55n., 75. 
 Almahide, 88. 
 
 Alsira, 145-147, 241, 250, 284. 
 Ames, J. G., The Eng. Lit. Per. of 
 
 Morals and Manners, 17n. 
 Arbuthnot, Dr., 233, 234. 
 Arnall, W., 153. 
 Arsinoe, 87. 
 Art of Acting, The, 130, 247, 
 
 257n., 284. 
 Astell, Mary, 159n. 
 Athelwold, 114-118, 221, 222, 224, 
 
 226n., 228, 283. 
 Athenian Gazette, The, 17. 
 Athenian Mercury, The, 17. 
 Attorney-General, the, 53, 54. 
 Aurengezebe, 80. 
 Azilia, Margravate of, 50-56, 57, 
 
 58. 
 
 Barnard, Sir John, 137, 140. 
 Barnstaple Grammar School, 2. 
 Barnwell, Col. John, 57. 
 Bathurst, Lord, 116. 
 Bee, The, 228 and n. 
 Beech-Oil Stock Company, 33, 35- 
 
 36, 37, 38-39, 40-42, 43. 
 Beggar's Opera, 113. 
 Berkeley, George, 74, 243. 
 
 Bermudas, 48-49, 74. 
 
 Betterton, Thomas, 76, 77, 78, 
 
 80n., 86. 
 Biekerstaff (actor), 83, 84. 
 Billingsley, Case, 60 and n. 
 Biographia Dramatica, 82. 
 Blackmore, Sir Bichard, 167n. 
 Blinman, Dr. J., 206n. 
 Board of Trade, 48, 54. 
 Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, vis- 
 count, 15n., 153, 155, 235, 237. 
 Bond, William, 25n., 141, 142, 156, 
 
 157, 160, 189, 205n. 
 Booth, Barton, 2, 80, 83, 84, 95, 
 
 96 and n., 104, 107-109, 113, 
 
 118, 120, 126-127. 
 Bowman, Walter, 186. 
 Bradley, James, 60. 
 Brett, Col., 78. 
 British Apollo, The, 16-18, 21 and 
 
 n., 83 and n., 91, 155. 
 British Journal, The, 189n., 275. 
 Budgell, Eustace, 228, 230. 
 Burlington, Lord, 116. 
 Burney 's Hist . of Music, 87 and n. 
 Burt, Capt. Edward, 62-63, 64, 
 
 68 and n. 
 Busby, Dr., 2. 
 
 Caesar (Hill's play), see The 
 
 Soman Bevenge. 
 Caesar (character of), 147, 148, 
 
 235. 
 Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit., 4n. 
 Camilla, 87. 
 Camillus, 9, 13, 279. 
 
 291 
 
292 
 
 Campbell, Harry, 255-257. 
 Carolina, 49, 50, 53. See also 
 
 under Azilia. 
 Carteret, John, Earl of Granville, 
 
 2, 50. 
 Cato, 95, 149n. 
 Caveat, The. See The Progress of 
 
 Wit. 
 Celebrated Speeches of Ajax and 
 
 Ulysses, The, 20-21, 279. 
 Censor, The, 155. 
 Chandos, Duke of, 163n., 222, 223, 
 
 224. 
 Charitable Corporation for the 
 
 Eelief of the Industrious Poor, 
 
 71-72. 
 Charles II, 77. 
 Cheats of Scapin, The, 110. 
 Chesterfield, Earl of, 74. 
 Chinaware, 44-45, 59. 
 Cibber, Colley, 78, 79n., 86, 94, 
 
 95, 96, 113, 118, 120, 126, 146, 
 
 263, 268. 
 Cibber, Susanna Maria, 142. 
 Cibber, Theophilus, 118-119, 142n., 
 
 150n. 
 Cibber 's Lives (quoted), 3, 9-10, 
 
 11, 14, 51, 66, 67, 68, 98, 156, 
 
 166n., 170, etc. 
 Citizen, The, 73 and n. 
 Clarissa Harlowe, 240, 243, 251, 
 
 256n., 260-269. 
 "Clio," 172, 185, 187, 188-192, 
 
 198. 
 Coals (project for the manufacture 
 
 of), 45-46, 59. 
 Cobbett 's Parliamentary Hist., 
 
 60n. 
 Collections of the Hist. Soc. of 
 
 South Carolina, 53n., 58n., 62n., 
 
 71n. 
 
 Collier, Wm, 79, 80, 83, 86 and n., 
 
 94, 95. 
 Commentator, The, 61. 
 Commissioners for Trade, 53. 
 Compton, Sir Spencer, 195-196. 
 Concanen, Matthew, 185, 187. 
 Congreve, Wm., 78, 82, 95, 164. 
 Cooke, Charles, 53. 
 Cooke, Thomas, 185. 
 Corneille, Pierre, 151. 
 Court Tales, 42n. 
 Courthope, W. J. (quoted), 202, 
 
 207, 212, 218, 220. 
 Covent Garden Theatre, 77. 
 Craftsman, The, 155. 
 Creation, The, 165n., 171n., 204, 
 
 205, 281. 
 Cunningham's Growth of Eng. 
 
 Industry and Commerce, 28, 
 
 45n., 63n. 
 Cupid and Bacchus, 110. 
 
 Dagenham Breach (repair of), 
 
 46 and n. 
 Daily Courant, The, 21n. 
 Daily Journal, The, 208, 229. 
 Daily Post, The, 64n. 
 Daraxes, 134, 286-287. 
 Davenant, Sir William, 77. 
 Davies, Thomas (quoted), 111-112, 
 
 115, 126, 131 and n., 135n., 142, 
 
 143, 147, 220n. 
 Dedication of the Beech Tree, The, 
 
 34-35, 46, 63, 279. 
 Defoe, Daniel, 12n., 25n., 29, 31n., 
 
 155. 
 Dennis, John, 95, 163n., 164-169, 
 
 207, 227. 
 Description of the Golden Islands, 
 
 54n., 56-57. 
 Dibdin's Stage (quoted), 94. 
 
293 
 
 Discourse concerning the Design' d 
 
 Establishment of a New Colony 
 
 to the South of Carolina, 51-52. 
 Dobson, Austin, 240n., 241. 
 Doctor, The, 156. 
 Doctor Faustus, 110. 
 Dodington, Bubb, 198. 
 Dogget (actor), 94. 
 Dramatic Poetaster, The, 134n. 
 Drury-Lane Theatre, 77, 78, 80, 
 
 86, 100, 104, 110, 111, 114, 119, 
 
 122, 151, 162. 
 Dryden, John, 82, 95, 228n. 
 Dunciad, The, 113 and n., 208-209, 
 
 211, 212, 214, 217, 218, 219, 220, 
 
 239. 
 Dunton, John, 17. 
 Dyer, John, 32n., 166n., 172, 185, 
 
 187, 188n., 189, 190. 
 
 Edwards, Thomas, 260n. 
 
 Elfrid, 80-81, 90n., 114, 279. 
 
 Ellis, Mr., 118, 120. 
 
 Elson, Arthur, his Hist, of Opera 
 quoted, 89. 
 
 Englishman, The, 35n., 155. 
 
 Essay on Man, 236, 237, 238. 
 
 Essay on Propriety and Impro- 
 priety, etc., 215, 218, 232, 234 
 and n., 237. 
 
 Etearco, 88. 
 
 Examiner, The, 34n., 35n., 155. 
 
 Fair Quaker of Deal, The, 82. 
 Fanciad, The, 15n., 247-248, 250n., 
 
 260, 284. 
 Farquhar, George, 82, 95. 
 Fatal Dowry, The (Massinger's 
 
 play), 150n. 
 Fatal Extravagance, The, 97-100, 
 
 170, 171n., 282. 
 Fatal Vision, The, 95-97, 164, 280. 
 
 Female Tatler, The, 18. 
 
 Fielding, General, 241. 
 
 Fielding, Henry, 101, 111, 125, 133, 
 
 134 and n., 135, 139, 268, 269, 
 
 270-271, 272, 273, 277. 
 Fitzgerald, Percy H., his New 
 
 Hist, of the Eng. Stage quoted, 
 
 83-85, lOln. 
 Fleetwood, John, 119, 122, 135-136. 
 Fog's Journal, 211n., 275. 
 Forster MS., 240, 287; quoted, 2, 
 
 48, 73, 122, etc. 
 Four Essays, 43, 280-281. 
 Fowke, Martha. See "Clio." 
 Free Thinker, The, 156. 
 
 Garrick, David, 76, 101, 115, 131, 
 
 149n., 151. 
 Gay, John, 2, 16, 18, 74, 116. 
 Gazetteer, The, 239. 
 Gentleman's Magazine (quoted), 
 
 130n., 132n., 133n., 135n., 141, 
 
 167, 184. 
 George I, 95, 202. 
 George Barnwell, 113. 
 Georgia, 50, 52n., 58, 124 and n. 
 Gideon, 124, 166, 185, 187, 188n., 
 
 247, 251, 254n., 273, 285. 
 Giffard (theatrical manager), 118, 
 
 135, 139n. 
 Gildon, Chas., 95, 164. 
 Glover, E., 247. 
 Golden Groves of Abernethy, 66, 
 
 75, 154. 
 Golden Islands, 56-58, 59, 75. 
 Golden Bump, The, 139. 
 Goodman's Fields Theatre, 101, 
 
 113, 118, 135, 139n., 140. 
 Grahame, Governor, 241. 
 Grant, Sir Archibald, 71. 
 Grant, Eev. John, 70. 
 
294 
 
 Gregory, Mrs. Ann, 1, 4. 
 
 Grub Street Journal, The, 123n., 
 
 126, 134n., 224, 228-232. 
 Guardian, The, 155. 
 Gustavus Vasa, 140. 
 
 Habaklcuk (Hill's metrical ver- 
 sion), 163n. 
 
 Ealf-Pay Officers, 104. 
 
 Hamlet, 127-128. 
 
 Handel, Georg, 75, 86, 88 and n., 
 92, 93, 94. 
 
 Harlequin. See Pantomime. 
 
 Harlequin Sorcerer, 111. 
 
 Harlequin Horace, 134n. 
 
 Harley, Eobert, Earl of Oxford, 
 15n., 34, 155, 226. 
 
 Harper (actor), 119. 
 
 Haymarket opera-house, 78, 86, 91, 
 104, 110. 
 
 Haywood, Mrs. Eliza, 185-187, 
 188, 189n. 
 
 Henley, "Orator," 153. 
 
 Henry V (Hill's), 104-109, 154, 
 187, 282. 
 
 (Earl of Orrery's), 107n. 
 
 Hervey, Lord, 156, 242n. 
 
 Highmore, John, 118-121, 141. 
 
 Hill, Aaron, birth and education, 
 1-4; travels in the East, 4-9; 
 adventure in the catacombs, 7-8 ; 
 return to England, 9; travels 
 with William Wentworth, 10-11 ; 
 description of, 11, 220n.; rela- 
 tions with the Earl of Peter- 
 borough, 13-15 ; assists Gay, 16 ; 
 connection with the British 
 Apollo, 16-19 ; The Invasion, 19- 
 20; collaborates with Tate, 20- 
 21; his Ottoman Empire, 21-26; 
 marriage, 26; his "projecting" 
 
 spirit, 29, 38-39, 43, 74-75, 275; 
 the beech-mast project, 29-43; 
 scheme for remitting the land- 
 tax, 34; the Four Essays, 43-47; 
 vineyard experiments and theo- 
 ries, 46-49 ; illness, 48, 242-243 ; 
 joins Sir Eobert Montgomery in 
 Carolina colonizing scheme, 50- 
 55; potash experiments, 51, 64; 
 treasurer of the Golden Islands, 
 56-58 ; his projects ridiculed, 58, 
 64, 69, 230; agent of the York 
 Buildings Company, 59-71; in- 
 troduces rafting in the High- 
 lands, 67 ; later projecting ideas, 
 73-74; his versatility, 75, 152, 
 275-276; tributes to, 26, 82-83, 
 91, 98, 131n., 171, 178, 179, 186, 
 187, 188, 194, 198n., 256n. ; man- 
 ager of Drury-Lane, 80-86; 
 director of the opera; 86-94 ; his 
 Fatal Vision produced, 95-97; 
 views on acting, 96, 114, 121- 
 122, 126-131, 132n., 142; rela- 
 tions with Joseph Mitchell, 97- 
 98, 170-173; his Fatal Extrava- 
 gance, 97-100; schemes for 
 theatrical management, 101-104, 
 114, 120-121, 136-137, 199; fail- 
 ure of his Henry V, 104-109; 
 opposition to pantomime, 110, 
 112-113, 133-134; views upon 
 stage regulation, 114, 137-139, 
 140-141; production of Athel- 
 wold, 114-118; criticism of the- 
 atrical managers, 120-121, 135- 
 136, 138-139; edits the Promp- 
 ter, 122-139 ; his translations of 
 Voltaire's plays, 141-151; edits 
 the Plain Dealer, 154-161; his 
 literary style, 156, 162, 166, 231 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 29 
 
 relations with Young, 161-164; 
 relations with Dennis, 164-169; 
 his scriptural paraphrases, 164- 
 165; relations with Mallet, US- 
 UI, 247-250, 252, 274; cham- 
 pions Savage, 177-184; relations 
 with Eliza Haywood, 185-187; 
 relations with "Clio," 188-192; 
 relations with Thomson, 192- 
 200; relations with Pope, 201- 
 238 (see under Pope) ; writes 
 The Northern Star, 201-206, 
 The Progress of Wit, 209-211, 
 Advice to the Poets, 218-219; 
 relations with Richardson, 238- 
 274 (see under Richardson) ; 
 financial troubles, 241, 251; law- 
 suit, 244-245; family troubles, 
 245-247; literary work at Plais- 
 tow, 247-254; death, 273-274; 
 estimate of his achievements 
 and character, 275-278. 
 
 Hill, Mrs., wife of Aaron Hill, 26, 
 66, 68, 69, 70n., 172, 185, 191n., 
 221. 
 
 Hill, Astraea, 26, 242, 243, 269, 
 270-273. 
 
 Hill, George, father of Aaron Hill, 
 1. 
 
 Hill, Gilbert, brother of Aaron, 1, 
 14n., 83, 84, 205, 241, 273n. 
 
 Hill, Julius, son of Aaron Hill, 
 26, 48, 246-247. 
 
 Hill, Minerva, 26, 269, 270-273. 
 
 Hill, Urania, 26, 71n., 195, 211, 
 218, 221, 246, 273n. 
 
 Hill, — , nephew of Aaron Hill, 
 141-143. 
 
 "Hillarius." See Hill, Ar.ron. 
 
 Hist. MSS. Comm., 102, 249. 
 
 Historical Register, The, 133, 139. 
 
 Hive, The, 177. 
 Hogarth, William, 112. 
 Homer, 174. 
 Horace (odes), 247. 
 Horsey, Col. Samuel, 59, 62 and n., 
 65, 67, 68, 71n., 102, 276. 
 
 "I. K," his Life of Hill quoted, 
 
 4, 51. 
 Idaspe fedele, 88. 
 Impartial, The, 2, 247, 260, 284. 
 Impartial Account of ... a new 
 
 Discovery . . . to make Oil, etc., 
 
 31-33, 280. 
 Insolvent, The, 150n., 286. 
 Instructor, The, 156. 
 Invasion, The, 19-20, 279. 
 Inverness, 63, 64, 66. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 114n., 157, 177, 
 
 178, 182, 183n., 184, 193, 216, 
 
 224n., 277. 
 Johnson, — , husband of Urania 
 
 Hill, 246. 
 Johnson, Urania. See Hill, Urania. 
 Jonson, Ben, 112. 
 Judgment Day, The, 163n., 165n., 
 
 170, 171n., 282. 
 
 Keene (actor), 83, 84, 96. 
 
 Keith, Sir William, 73 and n. 
 
 Kent, Marquis of, 82. 
 
 Key to the Bape of the Lock, 209. 
 
 Key to Three Hours after Mar- 
 riage, 16. 
 
 Killigrew, Sir Thomas, 77. 
 
 Knight of the Burning Pestle, 
 The, 175n., 176. 
 
 Knipe, Dr. Thomas, 3. 
 
 La Mort de Cesar, 147, i48. 
 Lear, 128, 145. 
 
296 
 
 Leeky's Eighteenth Century 
 
 (quoted), 28m, 34n., 202n. 
 Lee, Nathaniel, 95. 
 Leigh (actor), 84, 85. 
 Lessing, G. E., 143 and n. 
 Liberty, 188n., 198-199, 200. 
 Licensing Act, 76, 139-141. 
 Life of Mr. John Dennis, 167-168. 
 Life of Savage, 178, 183. 
 Lincoln 's-Inn- Fields theatre, 77, 
 
 86, 95, 98, 110, 113, 145, 167. 
 Lintot, Bernard, 201, 202, 203, 204. 
 Little Theatre in the Haymarket, 
 
 101, 102, 103, 104, 113, 119, 120, 
 
 135, 139-140. 
 London Journal, The, 2,75. 
 Lord Chamberlain, the, 77, 78, 84, 
 
 100, 119, 140. 
 Lotteries, 54 and n., 55, 56, 58, 
 
 60n., 61 and n. 
 Lounsbury, T. E. (quoted), 107n., 
 
 145, 182, 229n. 
 Love for Love, 78. 
 Lover's Degree of Comparison, 
 
 The, 19. 
 Luttrell, Narcissus, 9n. 
 
 McCrady's Hist, of South Caro- 
 lina, etc., 54n., 57n, 59n. 
 
 McSwiney, Owen, 78, 86, 94. 
 
 Macklin, Charles, 131. 
 
 Macpherson's Annals of Com- 
 merce (quoted), 28n., 55, 56, 
 59n., 65n. 
 
 Maggot, The, 119. 
 
 Makower, S. V., 182n. 
 
 Mallet, David, 63, 99, 114 and n., 
 116, 149, 153, 155, 169, 170, 173- 
 177, 185, 189, 192, 193, 194n., 
 196, 197, 198, 206n., 236, 247- 
 250, 252, 255, 274. 
 
 Mandeville, Bernard, 32n. 
 Marlborough, Duchess of, 247-248. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 247 and n. 
 Mars and Venus, 110. 
 "Menander" (correspondent in 
 
 Pasquin), 108-109. 
 Mercator, The, 155. 
 Mercurius Politicus, 25n. 
 Merit of Assassination, The, 147n., 
 
 284. 
 Merope (Hill's), 149-151, 247, 
 
 252, 274, 285. 
 
 (Jeffreys'), 149n. 
 
 (Voltaire's), 149, 150. 
 
 Military Memoirs of Captain 
 
 George Carleton, 12n. 
 Millar (publisher), 252. 
 Mills (actor), 115. 
 Milton, John, 240. 
 Mira. See "Clio." 
 Miranda. See Hill, Mrs. 
 Mississippi Bubble, 28. 
 Mist's Weekly Journal, 69, 214. 
 Mitchell, Joseph, 97, 98, 99, 153, 
 
 169, 170-173, 189. 
 Montagu, Lady Mary "Wortley, 9n., 
 
 159, 267n. 
 Montague, Duke of, 101-104. 
 Montgomery, Sir Eobert, 50-51, 52, 
 
 53, 54, 55, 56-58. 
 Morel, L., his Thomson quoted, 
 
 143n., 192n., 198. 
 Morris, Edmund, 26, 40n., 83. 
 Murray, David, his York Buildings 
 
 Co. quoted, 61n., 65 and n., 66, 
 
 67, 70, 72. 
 
 Necromancer, or Hist, of Dr. 
 
 Faustus, The, 111. 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 100. 
 New Clarissa, The, 265. 
 
INDEX 
 
 297 
 
 Nicholson, Watson, his Struggle 
 for a Free Stage quoted, 101, 
 125, 140. 
 
 Nicolini, 88. 
 
 Night Thoughts, The, 164n. 
 
 Northern Star, The, 201-206, 208, 
 280. 
 
 Oldfield, Anne, 76, 104, 113, 178. 
 Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of the 
 
 House of Commons, 226, 238. 
 Opera, 87-88, 89, 92-93, 133n. 
 Orfeo, 93. 
 
 Orpheus and Eurydice, 110. 
 Othello, 132n., 144, 145, 146. 
 Ottoman Empire, The, 4, 5 and n., 
 
 6, 7n., 8, 10, 21-26, 279. 
 Otway, Thomas, 82, 95, 106n. 
 Oxford Hist, of Music, The, 88, 
 
 89, 93n. 
 
 Paget, Lord, 4, 9, 23. 
 Pamela, 240, 254-260, 270. 
 Pantomime, 110-113, 133-134, 138. 
 Parnell, Col. Arthur, 12n. 
 Pasquin (Fielding's play), 108n., 
 
 139. 
 Pasquin (the periodical), 108, 112. 
 Pastoral, 286-287. 
 Patents (stage), 77, 79, 95, 100, 
 
 118-119, 121, 122, 137, 140-141. 
 Paul, H. G., his John Dennis 
 
 quoted, 164, 165. 
 Pepys, Samuel, 115n. 
 Peter the Great, 201, 202, 203, 205, 
 
 206, 207. 
 Peterborough, Earl of, 11-12, 14 
 
 and n., 15, 22, 26, 80, 116. 
 Phillips, Ambrose, 156. 
 Picture of Love, The, 160, 185. 
 Pinkethman (actor), 84 and n. 
 Pirro e Demetrio, 87. 
 
 Plain Dealer, The, started, 156; 
 editors, 156-157; contents and 
 characteristics, 157-161 ; suc- 
 cess, 161; Young's possible con- 
 tributions, 161-164; appeals in 
 behalf of Dennis, 166-167; 
 praise of Mitchell, 172; of Mal- 
 let, 174-176; of Thomson, 192; 
 champions Savage, 179-182 ; 
 quoted, 3, 50n., 93, 112-113, 154, 
 159, 160, 161, 165, 170, 207; 
 bib., 282-283. 
 
 Plaistow, 47-48, 72, 114, 241-242, 
 243, 244, 270. 
 
 Piatt, Sir Hugh, 45 and n. 
 
 Poetical Register, 179, 188. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, his opinion of 
 Hill's works, 118, 204, 219, 223, 
 227, 235; relations with Dennis, 
 168; attacked by Hill, 203-204; 
 accepts Hill's apology, 204-205; 
 friendly relations with Hill, 206- 
 .207, 221, 226-227; ridicules 
 Hill in the Bathos, 208; the 
 Dunciad episode, 208-220; satir- 
 ized by Hill in the Caveat, 209- 
 211; his equivocation, 212, 216, 
 218, 222, 231; appeals to Hill to 
 defend him, 222-224; concern 
 for his reputation for honesty, 
 213, 218, 223, 233 ; views of the 
 sublime, 225-226; connection 
 with the Grub Street-Prompter 
 controversy, 228-232 ; renewal of 
 intercourse with Hill, 232-235; 
 his Essay on Man revised by 
 Hill, 237-238; mentioned, 15, 
 16, 23n., 116, 153, 166, 276, 277. 
 
 Popple, William, 48-49, 71n., 122, 
 124n., 185, 228, 231, 232. 
 
 Post Boy, The, 56n., 155n. 
 
298 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Potter (the carpenter), 101-104. 
 
 Powell (actor), 84, 85. 
 
 Present State of Wit, The, 18. 
 
 Prince of Wales, Frederick, 137, 
 145, 177n., 199, 274. 
 
 Prior, Matthew, 153. 
 
 Progress of Wit, The, 209-211, 
 215, 217, 218, 283. 
 
 Prompter, The, started, 122; con- 
 tributors, 122 and n. ; purpose, 
 123; range of subjects, 123-124; 
 value of, 124-125, 277 ; comment 
 on plays, 124-125; criticism of 
 actors, 126-130; theory of the 
 art of acting, 130-131; criti- 
 cism of audiences, 132; con- 
 demnation of pantomime, 133- 
 134; criticism of theatrical 
 managers, 135-136, 138-139; 
 views upon stage regulation, 
 137-139; comments on Voltaire, 
 144, 146; controversy with the 
 Grub Street Journal, 228-232; 
 mentioned, 168n., 199, 251n., 
 275, 283. 
 
 Proposal for the Better Begula- 
 Hon of the Stage, 121n. 
 
 Proprietors (of South Carolina), 
 50, 53, 57 and n., 58 and n., 62n. 
 
 Purcell, Henry, 87. 
 
 Quin, James, 126, 131. 
 
 Eacine, J., 151. 
 
 Ealph, James, 122n., 132, 135n. 
 
 Bambler, The, 156. 
 
 Eamsay, Allan, 169 and n., 173, 
 
 177. 
 Beligion of Beason, Th°, 247, 252 
 
 and n., 284. 
 Beview, The, 155. 
 
 Eich, Christopher, 77, 78, 79 and 
 n., 83, 85, 86, 95, 100. 
 
 Eich, John, 86n., 95, 101, 110-113, 
 131, 134n., 135-136, 138, 141, 
 167. 
 
 Eichardson, Samuel, Hill's letters 
 to quoted, 2, 25, 47, 73, 74, 164n., 
 200, 223, 225-226, 231, 249, 251; 
 his kindness to the Hill family, 
 48, 250-252, 273; defended by 
 Hill, 238; his nervous disorders, 
 243-244, 257n.; his criticism 
 of Hill 's works, 253 ; his Pamela 
 praised by the Hills, 254-260; 
 his difficulties with Clarissa Har- 
 lowe, 260-269; his jealousy of 
 Fielding, 260-273. 
 
 Binaldo, 87, 88 and n., 89-92, 279. 
 
 Boman Bevenge, The, 148 and n., 
 220, 235, 286. 
 
 Bosamond, 87. 
 
 Eossi, Giaeomo, 87, 89, 92. 
 
 Eowe, N., 95, 153. 
 
 Eussel (the "Bavius of Grub 
 Street"), 229n. 
 
 Eycaut, Sir Paul, his Present State 
 of the Ottoman Empire, 22. 
 
 Sacheverell, Henry, 82. 
 St. James's Journal, 60n. 
 Saintsbury, G. E., 4n. 
 Sansome, Mrs. See ' ' Clio. ' ' 
 Sargeaunt, John, his Annals of 
 
 Westminster School, 2n., 3. 
 Savage, Bichard, 16, 63, 155, 157, 
 
 166n., 177-184, 185, 187, 188, 
 
 189n., 191, 217, 276, 277. 
 Savage's Miscellany, 17, 122, 154, 
 
 181, 185. 
 Seasonable Examination, A, 137. 
 Sewell, Dr. George, 205n. 
 
INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 Shadwell, Charles, 95. 
 Shakespeare, William, 82, 95, 96, 
 
 98, 105-109, 112, 128, 147, 151, 
 
 175, 187, 197, 207, 233. 
 Shelley, P. B., 201. 
 Skipwith, Sir Thomas, 78. 
 Sloane, Sir Hans, 241. 
 Smith, Marshall, 17, 26, 185. 
 Snake in the Grass, The, 135n. 
 Society for the Encouragement of 
 
 Learning, 73n. 
 South Sea Bubble, 28, 29, 56, 59, 
 
 61, 98, 154, 155, 178, 275. 
 Southerne (the dramatist), 95. 
 Southey, Eobert, 21 In. 
 Spectator, The, 88n., 92, 156, 157, 
 
 158. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 3. 
 Squire Brainless, or Trick upon 
 
 Trick, 82. 
 Stebbing, William, his Peterbor- 
 ough quoted, 12, 14n., 15n. 
 Steele, Sir Eichard, 42n., 60n., 74, 
 
 80n., 95, 100, 119, 141, 155, 
 
 168, 183, 188. 
 Stephens, William, 67n., 69. 
 Swift, Jonathan, 153, 155, 208, 
 
 216. 
 
 Tasso, 90 and n., 92. 
 
 Tate, Nahum, 20-21, 107. 
 
 Toiler, The, 79, 84n., 85, 88n., 155. 
 
 Tears of the Muses, The, 284. 
 
 Theatre, The, 100. 
 
 Theobald, Lewis, 155, 233. 
 
 Thomas, W., his Young quoted, 
 157, 162, 163. 
 
 Thomas, W. Moy, 181, 182. 
 
 Thomson, James, 63n., 64n., 73n., 
 114, 136, 140, 152, 153, 155, 
 165n., 166n., 169, 170, 172 and 
 
 n., 173, 184 and n., 185, 188n., 
 
 189, 192-200, 206n., 221n., 227, 
 
 232, 236, 268, 276, 277. 
 Thomyris, 87. 
 Thurmond, 111. 
 Tindal, Matthew, 228, 230, 232, 
 
 252. 
 Tom Jones, 111, 125, 133, 269-273. 
 Transport, The, 19. 
 Treatise on the Bathos, 167n., 208, 
 
 233. 
 Trent, W. P., 12n., 25n. 
 True Briton, The, 108, 109n. 
 Two Harlequins, The, 110. 
 Tyrconnel, Lord, 116, 183, 225. 
 
 Unities, the, 80, 96, 106n., 117. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 78, 95. 
 Verstegan's Antiquities, 115. 
 Victor, Benjamin, 71n., 119-121, 
 
 172, 189, 190, 193. 
 Voltaire, 76, 141, 143-151, 227, 
 
 275. 
 
 Walking Statue, The, 80, 82, 279. 
 Walpole, Sir Eobert, 100, 139 and 
 
 n., 153, 172, 177n. 
 Walpole, Lady, 227n. 
 Warton, Joseph (quoted), 15, 
 
 208n. 
 Weaver, John, 110. 
 Wedgwood, Josiah, 44. 
 Weekly Journal, The, 112. 
 Weekly Miscellany, The, 226. 
 Weekly Register, The, 132-133. 
 Wentworth, Sir William, 10-11, 22. 
 Westminster School, 2. 
 Whig Examiner, The, 155. 
 Wilts, Eobert, 86, 94, 95, 96, 113, 
 
 114-116, 118, 127-128, 183. 
 
300 INDEX 
 
 William and Margaret, 174-177. Yorlc Buildings Dragon, The, 62n. 
 
 Winter, 172, 193, 195, 196. Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 98. 
 
 Wollaston, Dr., his Religion of Young, Edward, 157, 161-164, 
 
 Nature Delineated, 163n. 244n. 263. 
 Woman's Eights, 124, 160 and n. 
 Wycherley, William, 95. 
 
 Wyndham, Sir William, 116. Zaire, 141. 
 
 Zara, 141-145, 198, 199, 228 and 
 
 York Buildings Company, 59-66, n., 283. 
 
 69-72. 
 
VITA 
 
 Dorothy Brewster was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 
 September 8, 1883. She received her early education in 
 the schools of Philadelphia and New York City. Entering 
 Barnard College, Columbia University, in the autumn of 
 1902, she proceeded to the degree of A.B. in 1906, and to 
 that of A.M. in 1907. From 1908 to 1911, she taught in 
 the Department of English in Barnard College as Assist- 
 ant ; from 1911 to 1912, she was a Special Fellow in English 
 at Columbia University. During the years of her graduate 
 study under the Faculty of Philosophy in Columbia Uni- 
 versity, she pursued courses in English and Comparative 
 Literature under Professors W. P. Trent, A. H. Thorndike, 
 W. W. Lawrence, H. M. Ayres, J. B. Fletcher, V. C. Gilder- 
 sleeve, and J. W. Cunliffe, and Professor Otto Jespersen of 
 the University of Copenhagen; and in History under Pro- 
 fessor J. H. Robinson. 
 
 301 
 

 
 
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