PERSONAL

With sleek appearance and with ambling

расе, And, type of vacant head, with vacant face, The Proteus Hill put in his modest plea,Let Favour speak for others, Worth for me.For who, like him, his various powers could call

Into so many shapes and shine in all?

Who could so nobly grace the motley list,
Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist?
Knows any one so well-sure no one knows—
At once to play, prescribe, compound, com-
pose?

-CHURCHILL, CHARLES, 1761, The Rosciad.

Dr. Hill was, notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean expedients to raise his reputation.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1767, Conversation with George III., Life by Boswell, ed. Hill, vol. II, p. 44.

He had received no academical education; but his ambition prompting him to be a graduate, he obtained, from one of those universities which would scarce refuse a degree to an apothecary's horse, a diploma for that of doctor of physic. After this, he engaged in a variety of works, the greater part whereof were mere compilations, which he sent forth with incredible expedition; and though his character was never in such estimation with the booksellers as to entitle him to an extraordinary price for his writings, he has been known by such works as those above mentioned, by novels, pamphlets, and a periodical paper called "The Inspector," the labour of his own head and hand, to have earned, in one year, the sum of £1500. He was vain, conceited, and in his writings disposed to satire and licentious scurrility, which he indulged without any regard to truth, and thereby became engaged in frequent disputes and quarrels that always terminated in his own disgrace.-HAWKINS, SIR JOHN, 1787, The Life of Samuel Johnson, p. 211.

The literary Proteus, Dr., afterwards Sir John Hill, who shared with Orator

Henley the dubious honour of being the most notorious man of his age. Hill was originally an apothecary, but abandoning his business for the stage, he produced a few bad farces at the Haymarket, in which he appeared as an actor. Hay

ing been hissed off the stage, he betook himself with industry to the study of medicine and natural history; and many works on these subjects, displaying considerable information and research, proceeded from his pen. As a consequence of his scientific labours, and armed with. the cheap honours of a Scotch degree, he obtained a large practice as a physician, and was enabled to launch out into extravagances which increased his notoriety, and showed the shallowness of his character.

His activity and industry were indeed marvellous. Though he spent so much of his time in the amusements of the gay world, and in frequenting places of entertainment, his pen was never idle. -LAWRENCE, FREDERICK, 1855, The Life of Henry Fielding, pp. 304, 305.

Hill was a versatile man of unscrupulous character, with considerable abilities, great perseverance, and unlimited impudence.-BARKER, G. F. RUSSELL, 1891, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXVI, p. 398.

GENERAL

See where my son, who gratefully repays
Whate'er I lavish'd on his younger days;
Whom still my arm protects to brave the town
Secure from Fielding, Machiavel, or Brown;
Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall
hurt,

Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert!
Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,
I gave his mother's milk to Confidence;
She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face,
And changed his skin to monumental brass.
-ANON, 1752, The Pasquinade.

The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true-
Should Jove himself, in calculation mad,
Still negatives to blank negations add;
How could the barren ciphers ever breed;

But nothing still from nothing would proceed.
Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame
Inanity will ever be the same.

SMART, CHRISTOPHER, 1753, The Hilliad.

For physics and farces, His equal there scarce is; His farces are physic,

His physic a farce is. -GARRICK, DAVID, On Dr. Hill Farce.

Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance-I think it was called "Exotic Botany"-which he wished to have presented to the king, and therefore named it to Lord Bute. His lordship waived that, saying that "he had a greater object to propose;" and shortly after laid before him a plan of the most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever man attempted. I tremble when I name its title because I think the severe application which it required killed him; and I am sure the expense ruined his fortune

"The Vegetable System." This work was to consist of twenty-six volumes folio, containing sixteen hundred copperplates, the engraving of each cost four guineas; the paper was of the most expensive kind; the drawings by the first hands.

The

printing was also a very weighty concern; and many other articles, with which I am unacquainted. Lord Bute said that "the expense had been considered, and that Sir John Hill might rest assured his circumstances should not be injured." Thus he entered upon and finished his destruction. The sale bore no proportion to the expense. After "The Vegetable System" was completed, Lord Bute proposed another volume to be added, which Sir John strenuously opposed; but his lordship repeating his desire, Sir John complied, lest his lordship should find a pretext to cast aside repeated promises of ample provision for himself and family. But this was the crisis of his fate-he died.-HILL, HON. LADY, 1787, An Address to the Public.

One of the most extraordinary characters of the eighteenth century. . . . It cannot be denied, that, in many of these volumes, a considerable fund of information, especially on Botany, was communicated

This despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary life, performed more for the improvement of the "Philosophical Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. His real ability extorts that regard which his misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more worthless motives, had lost for him in the world.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1814, Sir John Hill, Quarrels of Authors.

A detailed account of these many publications would be of but small interest to the modern reader, who knows little of Sir John save his name, and this principally through his quarrels with the Royal Society, and with Garrick. He was a man of remarkable versatility of talent, but his moral character cannot be commended.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 185458, Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. I, p. 846.

66

PERSONAL

Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume. The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skilful in that science pretend to discern the smallest trace of the faculities of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His His face was broad and flat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility; his eyes vacant and spiritless; and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to convey the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than that of a refined philosopher. His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable; so that wisdom most certainly never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb.CHARLEMONT, JAMES CAULFIELD EARL, 1748, Memoirs of Political and Private Life by Hardy, p. 8.

At this time David Hume was living in Edinburgh and composing his "History of Great Britain." He was a man of great knowledge, and of a social and benevolent temper, and truly the best-natured man in the world. He was branded with the title of Atheist, on account of many attacks on revealed religion that are to be found in his philosophical works, and in many places of his History, -the last of which are still more objectionable than the first, which a friendly critic might call only sceptical. Apropos of this, when Mr. Robert Adam, the celebrated architect, and his brother, lived in Edinburgh with their mother, an aunt of Dr.

Robertson's, and a very respectable woman, she said to her son, "I shall be glad to see any of your companions to dinner, but I hope you will never bring the Atheist here to disturb my peace." But Robert soon fell on a method to reconcile her to him, for he introduced him under another name, or concealed it carefully from her. When the company parted she said to her son," I must confess that you bring very agreeable companions about you, but the large jolly man who sat next me is the most agreeable of them all." "This was the very Atheist," said he, "mother, that you was so much afraid of." "Well," says she, "you may bring him here as much as you please, for he's the most innocent, agreeable, facetious man I ever met with." This was truly the case with him; for though he had much learning and a fine taste, and was professed a sceptic, though by no means an atheist, he had the greatest simplicity of mind and manners with the utmost facility and benevolence of temper of any man I ever knew. His conversation was truly irresistible, for while it was enlightened, it was naïve almost to puerility.-CARLYLE, ALEXANDER, 1753, Autobiography, p. 221.

Ever since I was acquainted with your works, your talents as a writer have, notwithstanding some differences in abstract principles, extorted from me the highest veneration. But I could scarce have thought that, in spite of differences of a more interesting nature, even such as regard morals and religion, you could ever force me to love and honour you as a man. Yet no religious prejudices, as you would probably term them, can hinder me from