Chapter XVIII: Part 18

I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a
literary court of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate
the works of a contemporary; and how idly the literary
historian performs his task, whenever he adopts the character
of a writer from another who is his adversary. This may be
particularly shown in the present instance.

MORHOFF, in his _Polyhistor Litteraria_, censures the _Plus
Ultra_ of Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with
contempt all ages and nations but his own. The German
bibliographer had never seen the book, but took its character
from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the _Plus
Ultra_, however, differs little from the other works of
Glanvill, which Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.

[271] The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover
very opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to
the world. He attempted to turn men's minds from all inquiries
into politics and religion, to mere philosophical ones. He
wished that the passions of mankind might be so directed, as
to spend their force in philosophical discussions, and in
improvements in science. He therefore insisted on a uniformity
on those great subjects which have so long agitated modern
Europe; for the ancients seem to have had no wars merely for
religion, and perhaps none for modes of government. One may
discover an enlightened principle in the project; but the
character of Campanella was a jumble of sense, subtlety, and
wildness. He probably masked his real intentions. He appears
an advocate for the firm establishment of the papal despotism;
yet he aims to give an enlightened principle to regulate the
actions of mankind. The intentions of a visionary are
difficult to define. If he were really an advocate for
despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater
part of his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the
surface of things? Did Campanella imagine that, if men were
allowed to philosophise with the utmost freedom, the despotism
of religion and politics would dissolve away in the weakness
of its quiescent state?

The project is a chimera--but, according to the projector, the
political and religious freedom of _England_ formed its
greatest obstacle. Part of his plan, therefore, includes the
means of weakening the Insular heretics by intestine
divisions--a mode not seldom practised by the continental
powers of France and Spain.

The political project of this fervid genius was, that his
"Prince," the Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign
in Europe. For this, he was first to prohibit all theological
controversies from the Transalpine schools, those of Germany,
&c. "A controversy," he observes, "always shows a kind of
victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause." He
would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to
prevent all diversity of opinion. He would have revived the
ancient philosophical sects, instead of the modern religious
sects.

The _Greek_ and the _Hebrew_ languages were not to be taught!
for the republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians
had often proved destructive of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold
scheme of his _Leviathan_, seems to have been aware of this
fatality. Campanella would substitute for these ancient
languages the study of the _Arabic_ tongue! The troublesome
Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the
Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did
sagacity and extravagance associate in the mind of this wild
genius. But _Mathematical_ and _Astronomical_ schools, and
other institutions for the encouragement of the _mechanical
arts_, and particularly those to which the northern genius is
most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of
the people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and
withdraw them from theological factions. Campanella thus would
make men great in science, having first made them slaves in
politics; a philosophical people were to be the subjects of
despots--not an impossible event!

His plan, remarkable enough, of _weakening the English_, I
give in his words:--"No better way can possibly be found than
by causing divisions and dissensions among them, and by
continually keeping up the same; which will furnish the
Spaniard and the French with advantageous opportunities. As
for their religion, which is a moderated Calvinism, that
cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out there, unless
there were some schools set up in Flanders, where the English
have great commerce, by means of which there may be scattered
abroad the seeds of schism and division. These people being of
a nature which is still desirous of novelties and change, they
are easily wrought over to anything." These _schools_ were
tried at Douay in Flanders, and at Valladolid in Spain, and
other places. They became nests of rebellion for the English
Catholics; or for any one, who, being discontented with
government, was easily converted to any religion which aimed
to overturn the British Constitution. The _secret history_ of
the Roman Catholics in England remains yet to be told: they
indeed had their martyrs and their heroes; but the _public
effects_ appear in the frequent executions which occurred in
the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

Stubbe appears to have imagined that the ROYAL SOCIETY was
really formed on the principle of Campanella; to withdraw the
people from intermeddling with _politics_ and _religion_, by
engaging them merely in philosophical pursuits.--The reaction
of the public mind is an object not always sufficiently
indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual
persecutions of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed
and tolerant principles of religion at the Restoration; as,
the democratic fury having spent itself, too great an
indulgence was now allowed to monarchy. Stubbe was alarmed
that, should Popery be established, the crown of England would
become feudatory to foreign power, and embroil the nation in
the restitution of all the abbey lands, of which, at the
Reformation, the Church had so zealously been plundered. He
was still further alarmed that the _virtuosi_ would influence
the education of our youth to these purposes; "an evil," says
he, "which has been guarded against by our ancestors in
founding _free-schools_, by uniformity of instruction
cementing men's minds." We now smile at these terrors; perhaps
they were sometimes real. The absolute necessity of strict
conformity to the prevalent religion of Europe was avowed in
that unrivalled scheme of despotism, which menaced to efface
every trace of popular freedom, and the independence of
nations, under the dominion of Napoleon.

[272] To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the
noble apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his
opinions. See p. 347. At the moment of the Restoration it
was unwise for any of the parties to reproach another for
their opinions or their actions. In a national revolution,
most men are implicated in the general reproach; and Stubbe
said, on this occasion, that "he had observed worse faces in
the society than his own." Waller, and Sprat, and Cowley had
equally commemorated the protectorship of Cromwell and the
restoration of Charles. Our satirist insidiously congratulates
himself that "_he_ had never compared Oliver the regicide to
Moses, or his son to Joshua;" nor that he had ever written any
Pindaric ode, "dedicated to the happy memory of the most
renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector:" nothing to recommend
"the sacred urn" of that blessed spirit to the veneration of
posterity; as if

"His _fame_, like men, the elder it doth grow,
Will of itself turn _whiter_ too,
Without what needless art can do."

These lines were, I think, taken from Sprat himself! Stubbe
adds, it would be "imprudent in them to look beyond the act of
indemnity and oblivion, which was more necessary to the Royal
Society than to me, who joined with no party, &c."--_Preface
to "Legends no Histories."_

[273] He has described this intercourse of his enemies at court with
the king, where, when this punishment was suggested, "a
generous personage, altogether unknown to me, being present,
bravely and frankly interposed, saying, that 'whatever I was,
I was a Roman; that Englishmen were not so precipitously to be
condemned to so exemplary a punishment; that representing that
book to be a libel against the king was too remote a
consequence to be admitted of in a nation free-born, and
governed by laws, and tender of ill precedents.'" It was a
noble speech, in the relaxed politics of the court of Charles
II. He who made it deserved to have had his name more
explicitly told: he is designated as "that excellent
Englishman, the great ornament of this age, nation, and House
of Commons; he whose single worth balanceth much of the
debaucheries, follies, and impertinences of the kingdom."--_A
Reply unto the Letter written to Mr. Henry Stubbe, Oxford,
1671_, p. 20.

[274] Stubbe gives some curious information on this subject. Harvey
published his Treatise at Frankfort, 1628, but Caesalpinus's
work had appeared in 1593. Harvey adopted the notion, and more
fully and perspicuously proved it. I shall give what Stubbe
says. "Harvey, in his two Answers to Riolan, nowhere asserts
the invention so to himself, as to deny that he had the
intimation or notion from Caesalpinus; and his silence I take
for a tacit confession. His _ambition of glory_ made him
_willing to be thought the author of a paradox_ he had so
illustrated, and brought upon the stage, where _it lay
unregarded_, and in all probability buried in oblivion; yet
such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by
telling a lie."--STUBBE'S _Censure_, &c., p. 112.

I give this literary anecdote, as it enters into the history
of most discoveries, of which the _improvers_, rather than the
_inventors_, are usually the most known to the world. Bayle,
who wrote much later than Stubbe, asserts the same, and has
preserved the entire passage, art. _Caesalpinus_. It is said
Harvey is more expressly indebted to a passage in Servetus,
which Wotton has given in the preface to his "Reflections on
Ancient and Modern Learning," edition 1725. The notion was
probably then afloat, and each alike contributed to its
development. Thus it was disputed with Copernicus, whether his
great discovery of a fixed sun, and the earth wheeling round
that star, was his own; others had certainly observed it; yet
the invention was still Copernican: for that great genius
alone corrected, extended, and gave perfection to a hint, till
it expanded to a system.

So gradual have often been the great inventions of genius.
What others _conjectured_, and some _discovered_, Harvey
_demonstrated_. The fate of Harvey's discovery is a curious
instance of that patience and fortitude which genius must too
often exert in respect to itself. Though Harvey lived to his
eightieth year, he hardly witnessed his great discovery
established before he died; and it has been said, that he was
the only one of his contemporaries who lived to see it in some
repute. No physician adopted it; and when it got into vogue,
they then disputed whether he was the inventor! Sir William
Temple denied not only the discovery, but the doctrine of the
Circulation of the Blood. "Sense can hardly allow it; which,"
says he, "in this dispute must be satisfied as well as reason,
before mankind will concur."

[275] Stubbe has an eloquent passage, which describes the philosophy
of science. The new Experimental School had perhaps too wholly
rejected some virtues of the old one; the cultivation of the
human understanding, as well as the mere observation on the
facts that they collected; an error which has not been
entirely removed.

"That art of reasoning by which the prudent are discriminated
from fools, which methodiseth and facilitates our discourses,
which informs us of the validity of consequences and the
probability of arguments, and manifests the fallacies of
impostors; that art which gives life to solid eloquence, and
which renders Statesmen, Divines, Physicians, and Lawyers
accomplished; how is this cried down and vilified by the
ignoramuses of these days! What contempt is there raised upon
the disputative Ethics of Aristotle and the Stoics; and those
moral instructions, which have produced the Alexanders and the
Ptolemies, the Pompeys and the Ciceroes, are now slighted in
comparison of _day-labouring_! Did we live at Sparta, where
the daily employments were the exercises of substantial virtue
and gallantry, and _men_, like _setting dogs_, were rather
_bred up_ unto, than _taught_ reason and worth, it were a more
tolerable proposal (though the different policy of these times
would not admit of it); but this _working_, so recommended, is
but the _feeding of carp in the air_, &c. As for the study of
Politics, and all critical learning, these are either
pedantical, or tedious, to those who have _a shorter way of
studying men_."--_Preface to "Legends no Histories."_

[276] "Legends no Histories," p. 5.

[277] Dr. King was allied to the families of Clarendon and Rochester;
he took a degree as Doctor of Civil Law, and soon got into
great practice. "He afterwards went with the Earl of Pembroke,
Lord-Lieutenant, to Ireland, where he became Judge Advocate,
Sole Commissioner of the Prizes, Keeper of the Records,
Vicar-General to the Lord Primate of Ireland; was countenanced
by persons of the highest rank, and might have made a fortune.
But so far was he from heaping up riches, that he returned to
England with no other treasure than a few merry poems and
humorous essays, and returned to his student's place in Christ
Church."--_Enc. Brit._ He was assisted by Bolingbroke; but
when his patronage failed, Swift procured him the situation of
editor to "Barber's Gazette." He ultimately took to drinking;
Lintot the bookseller, told Pope, "I remember Dr. King could
write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not
speak." His last patron was Lord Clarendon, and he died in
apartments he had provided for him in London, Dec. 25, 1712,
and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey at the
expense of his lordship.--ED.

[278] Sloane describes Clark, the famous posture-master, "Phil.
Trans." No. 242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with
many curious particulars; the gentleman in one of Dr. King's
Dialogues inquires the secretary's opinion of the causes of
this man's wonderful pliability of limbs; a question which
Sloane had thus solved, with colloquial ease: it depended upon
"bringing the body to it, by using himself to it."

In giving an account of "a child born without a brain"--"Had
it lived long enough," said King, "it would have made an
excellent publisher of Philosophical Transactions!"

Sloane presented the Royal Society with "a figure of a
Chinese, representing one of that nation using an ear-picker,
and expressing great satisfaction therein."--"Whatever
pleasure," said that learned physician, "the Chinese may take
in thus picking their ears, I am certain most people in these
parts, who have had their hearing impaired, have had such
misfortune first come to them by picking their ears too
much."--He is so _curious_, says King, that the secretary took
as much satisfaction in looking upon the ear-picker, as the
Chinese could do in picking their ears!

But "What drowning is"--that "Hanging is only apoplexy!" that
"Men cannot swallow when they are dead!" that "No fish die of
fevers!" that "Hogs s--t soap, and cows s--t fire!" that the
secretary had "Shells, called _Blackmoor's-teeth_, I suppose
from their _whiteness_!" and the learned RAY'S, that grave
naturalist, incredible description of "a very curious little
instrument!" I leave to the reader and Dr. King.

[279] Sir Hans Sloane was unhappily not insensible to these ludicrous
assaults, and in the preface to his "History of Jamaica,"
1707, a work so highly prized for its botanical researches,
absolutely anticipated this fatal facetiousness, for thus he
delivers himself:--"Those who strive to make ridiculous
anything of this kind, and think themselves great wits, but
are very ignorant, and understand nothing of the argument,
these, if one were afraid of them, and consulted his own ease,
might possibly hinder the publication of any such work, the
efforts to be expected from them, making possibly some
impression upon persons of equal dispositions; but considering
that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment,
knowledge, &c., I have great reason to value; and considering
that these sorts of men have been in all ages ready to do the
like, not only to ordinary persons and their equals, but even
to abuse their prince and blaspheme their Maker, I shall, as I
have ever since I seriously considered this matter, think of
and treat them with the greatest contempt."

[280] Dr. King's dispersed works have fortunately been collected by
Mr. Nichols, with ample illustrations, in three vols. 8vo,
1776. The "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts
of Learning," form a collection of ludicrous dissertations
of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosophy, Criticism, &c., where
his own peculiar humour combines with his curious reading. [In
this he burlesqued the proceedings of the Royal and
Antiquarian Societies with some degree of spirit and humour.
By turning vulgar lines into Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon,
a learned air is given to some papers on childish subjects.
One learned doctor communicates to another "an Essay proving,
by arguments philosophical, that millers, falsely so reputed,
are not thieves, with an interesting argument that taylors
likewise are not so." A Welsh schoolmaster sends some
"natural observations" made in Wales, in direct imitation of
the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1707, and with humorous
love for genealogy, reckons that in his school, "since the
flood, there have been 466, and I am the 467th master: before
the flood, they living long, there were but two--Rice ap Evan
Dha the good, and Davie ap Shones Gonnah the naught, in
whose time the flood came." The first paper of the collection
is an evident jest on John Bagford and his gatherings for
the history of printing, now preserved among the manuscripts
of the British Museum. It purports to be "an Essay on the
invention of samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford,
with an account of her collections for the same:" and
written in burlesque of a paper in the "Philosophical
Transactions" for April, 1697. It is a most elaborate
performance, deducing with mock-seriousness the origin of
samplers from the ancient tales of Arachne, who "set forth
the whole story of her wrongs in needlework, and sent it to
her sister;" and our author adds, with much humour, "it is
very remarkable that the memory of this story does at present
continue, for there are no samplers, which proceed in any
measure beyond the first rudiments, but have a tree and a
nightingale sitting on it." Such were the jests of the day
against the Royal philosophers.] He also invented _satirical
and humorous indexes_, not the least facetious parts of
his volumes. King had made notes on more than 20,000 books
and MSS., and his _Adversaria_, of which a portion has been
preserved, is not inferior in curiosity to the literary
journals of Gibbon, though it wants the investigating spirit
of the modern philosopher.

SIR JOHN HILL,

WITH THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, &c.

A Parallel between Orator HENLEY and Sir JOHN HILL--his love of the
Science of Botany, with the fate of his "Vegetable System"--ridicules
scientific Collectors; his "Dissertation on Royal Societies," and his
"Review of the Works of the Royal Society"--compliments himself
that he is NOT a Member--successful in his attacks on the
Experimentalists, but loses his spirit in encountering the
Wits--"The Inspector"--a paper war with FIELDING--a literary
stratagem--battles with SMART and WOODWARD--HILL appeals to the
Nation for the Office of Keeper of the Sloane Collection--closes
his life by turning Empiric--Some Epigrams on HILL--his
Miscellaneous Writings.

In the history of literature we discover some who have opened their career with noble designs, and with no deficient powers, yet unblest with stoic virtues, having missed, in their honourable labours, those rewards they had anticipated, they have exhibited a sudden transition of character, and have left only a name proverbial for its disgrace.

Our own literature exhibits two extraordinary characters, indelibly marked by the same traditional odium. The wit and acuteness of Orator HENLEY, and the science and vivacity of the versatile Sir JOHN HILL, must separate them from those who plead the same motives for abjuring all moral restraint, without having ever furnished the world with a single instance that they were capable of forming nobler views.

This _orator_ and this _knight_ would admit of a close parallel;[281] both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for their effrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devotedness to study, with the same inventive and enterprising genius. Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form a collection of rare plants: the patronage he received was too limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated the national taste for the science of botany by half a century. Our young philosopher's valuable "Treatise on Gems," from Theophrastus, procured for him the warm friendship of the eminent members of the Royal Society. To this critical period of the lives of Henley and of Hill, their resemblance is striking; nor is it less from the moment the surprising revolution in their characters occurred.

Pressed by the wants of life, they lost its decencies. Henley attempted to poise himself against the University; Hill against the Royal Society. Rejected by these learned bodies, both these Cains of literature, amid their luxuriant ridicule of eminent men, still evince some claims to rank among them. The one prostituted his genius in his "Lectures;" the other, in his "Inspectors." Never two authors were more constantly pelted with epigrams, or buffeted in literary quarrels. They have met with the same fate; covered with the same odium. Yet Sir John Hill, this despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary life, performed more for the improvement of the "Philosophical Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. His real ability extorts that regard which his misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more worthless motives, had lost for him in the world.[282]

At the time that Hill was engaged in several large compilations for the booksellers, his employers were desirous that the honours of an F.R.S. should ornament his title-page. This versatile genius, however, during these graver works, had suddenly emerged from his learned garret, and, in the shape of a fashionable lounger, rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to Ranelagh; was visible at routs; and sate at the theatre a tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him tumults and divisions;[283] and in his "Inspectors," a periodical paper which he published in the _London Daily Advertiser_, retailed all the great matters relating to himself, and all the little matters he collected in his rounds relating to others. Among other personalities, he indulged his satirical fluency on the scientific collectors. The Antiquarian Society were twitted as medal-scrapers and antediluvian knife-grinders; conchologists were turned into cockleshell merchants; and the naturalists were made to record pompous histories of stickle-hacks and cockchafers. Cautioned by Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society,[284] not to attempt his election, our enraged comic philosopher, who had preferred his jests to his friends, now discovered that he had lost three hundred at once. Hill could not obtain three signatures to his recommendation. Such was the real, but, as usual, not the ostensible, motive of his formidable attack on the Royal Society. He produced his "Dissertation on Royal Societies, in a letter from a Sclavonian nobleman to his friend," 1751; a humorous prose satire, exhibiting a ludicrous description of a tumultuous meeting at the Royal Society, contrasted with the decorum observed in the French Academy; and moreover, he added a _conversazione_ in a coffee-house between some of the members.

Such was the declaration of war, in a first act of hostility; but the pitched-battle was fought in "A Review of the Works of the Royal Society, in eight parts," 1751. This literary satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them to bind the "Review" with the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious knowledge which he pretended the Royal Society wanted; and with this knowledge he attempted to combine the humour of Dr. King.[285]

Hill's rejection from the Royal Society, to another man would have been a puddle to step over; but he tells a story, and cleanly passes on, with impudent adroitness.[286]

Hill, however, though he used all the freedom of a satirist, by exposing many ridiculous papers, taught the Royal Society a more cautious selection. It could, however, obtain no forgiveness from the parties it offended; and while the respectable men whom Hill had the audacity to attack, Martin Folkes, the friend and successor of Newton, and Henry Baker, the naturalist, were above his censure,--his own reputation remained in the hands of his enemies. While Hill was gaining over the laughers on his side, that volatile populace soon discovered that the fittest object to be laughed at was our literary Proteus himself.

The most egregious egotism alone could have induced this versatile being, engaged in laborious works, to venture to give the town the daily paper of _The Inspector_, which he supported for about two years. It was a light scandalous chronicle all the week, with a seventh-day sermon. His utter contempt for the genius of his contemporaries, and the bold conceit of his own, often rendered the motley pages amusing. _The Inspector_ became, indeed, the instrument of his own martyrdom; but his impudence looked like magnanimity; for he endured, with undiminished spirit, the most biting satires, the most wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations.[287] His vein of pleasantry ran more freely in his attacks on the Royal Society than in his other literary quarrels. When Hill had not to banter ridiculous experimentalists, but to encounter wits, his reluctant spirit soon bowed its head. Suddenly even his pertness loses its vivacity; he becomes drowsy with dulness, and, conscious of the dubiousness of his own cause, he skulks away terrified: he felt that the mask of quackery and impudence which he usually wore was to be pulled off by the hands now extended against him.

A humorous warfare of wit opened between Fielding, in his _Covent-Garden Journal_, and Hill, in his _Inspector_. _The Inspector_ had made the famous lion's head, at the Bedford, which the genius of Addison and Steele had once animated, the receptacle of his wit; and the wits asserted, of this now _inutile lignum_, that it was reduced to a mere state of _blockheadism_. Fielding occasionally gave a facetious narrative of a paper war between the forces of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, the literary hero of the _Covent-Garden Journal_, and the army of Grub-street; it formed an occasional literary satire. Hill's lion, no longer Addison's or Steele's, is not described without humour. Drawcansir's "troops are kept in awe by a strange mixed monster, not much unlike the famous chimera of old. For while some of our Reconnoiterers tell us that this monster has the appearance of a lion, others assure us that his ears are much longer than those of that generous beast."

Hill ventured to notice this attack on his "blockhead;" and, as was usual with him, had some secret history to season his defence with.

"The author of 'Amelia,' whom I have only once seen, told me, at that accidental meeting, he held the present set of writers in the utmost contempt; and that, in his character of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, he should treat them in the most unmerciful manner. He assured me he had always excepted me; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he proceeded to mention a conduct which would be, he said, useful to both; this was, the amusing our readers with a mock fight; giving blows that would not hurt, and sharing the advantage in silence."[288]

Thus, by reversing the fact, Hill contrived to turn aside the frequent stories against him by a momentary artifice, arresting or dividing public opinion. The truth was, more probably, as Fielding relates it, and the story, as we shall see, then becomes quite a different affair. At all events, Hill incurred the censure of the traitor who violates a confidential intercourse.

And if he lies not, must at least betray.
POPE.

Fielding lost no time in reply. To have brought down the _Inspector_ from his fastnesses into the open field, was what our new General only wanted: a battle was sure to be a victory. Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his indifferent puns, but his natural facetiousness.

"It being reported to the General that a _hill_ must be levelled, before the Bedford coffee-house could be taken, orders were given; but this was afterwards found to be a mistake; for this _hill_ was only a little paltry _dunghill_, and had long before been levelled with the dirt. The General was then informed of a report which had been spread by his _lowness_, the Prince of Billingsgate, in the Grub-street army, that his Excellency had proposed, by a _secret treaty_ with that Prince, to carry on the war only in appearance, and so to betray the common cause; upon which his Excellency said with a smile:--'If the betrayer of a private treaty could ever deserve the least credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself either a liar or a fool. None can doubt but that he is the former, if he hath feigned this treaty; and I think few would scruple to call him the latter, if he had rejected it.' The General then declared the fact stood thus:--'His Lowness came to my tent on an affair of his own. I treated him, though a commander in the enemy's camp, with civility, and even kindness. I told him, with the utmost good-humour, I should attack his Lion; and that he might, if he pleased, in the same manner defend him; from which, said I, no great loss can happen on either side--'"

_The Inspector_ slunk away, and never returned to the challenge.

During his inspectorship, he invented a whimsical literary stratagem, which ended in his receiving a castigation more lasting than the honours performed on him at Ranelagh by the cane of a warm Hibernian. Hill seems to have been desirous of abusing certain friends whom he had praised in the _Inspectors_; so volatile, like the loves of coquettes, are the literary friendships of the "Scribleri." As this could not be done with any propriety there, he published the first number of a new paper, entitled _The Impertinent_. Having thus relieved his private feelings, he announced the cessation of this new enterprise in his _Inspectors_, and congratulated the public on the ill reception it had given to the _Impertinent_, applauding them for their having shown by this that "their indignation was superior to their curiosity." With impudence all his own, he adds--"It will not be easy to say too much in favour of the candour of the town, which has despised a piece that cruelly and unjustly attacked Mr. Smart the poet." What innocent soul could have imagined that _The Impertinent_ and _The Inspector_ were the same individual? The style is a specimen of _persiflage_; the thin sparkling thought; the pert vivacity, that looks like wit without wit; the glittering bubble, that rises in emptiness;--even its author tells us, in _The Inspector_, it is "the most pert, the most pretending," &c.[289]

Smart, in return for our Janus-faced critic's treatment, balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent Dunciad _The Hilliad_. Hill, who had heard of the rod in pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength; and, according to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, with a story of his having recommended the bard to his bookseller, "who took him into salary on my approbation. I betrayed him into the profession, and having starved upon it, he has a right to abuse me." This story was formally denied by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller.

"The Hilliad" is a polished and pointed satire. The hero is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven.

On earth, "a tawny sibyl," with "an old striped curtain--"

And tatter'd tapestry o'er her shoulders hung--
Her loins with patchwork cincture were begirt,
That more than spoke diversity of dirt.
Twain were her teeth, and single was her eye--
Cold palsy shook her head----

with "moon-struck madness," awards him all the wealth and fame she could afford him for sixpence; and closes her orgasm with the sage admonition--

The chequer'd world's before thee; go, farewell!
Beware of Irishmen; and learn to spell!

But in heaven, among the immortals, never was an unfortunate hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothingness! Jove, disturbed at the noise of this thing of wit, exclaims, that nature had never proved productive in vain before, but now,

On mere privation she bestow'd a frame,
And dignified a nothing with a name;
A wretch devoid of use, of sense, of grace,
The insolvent tenant of incumber'd space!

Pallas hits off the style of Hill, as

The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true--
Should Jove himself, in calculation mad,
Still negatives to blank negations add;
How could the barren ciphers ever breed;
But nothing still from nothing would proceed.
Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame,
Inanity will ever be the same.

But Phoebus shows there may still be something produced from inanity.

E'en blank privation has its use and end--
From emptiness, how sweetest music flows!
How absence, to possession adds a grace,
And modest vacancy, to all gives place.
So from Hillario, some effect may spring;
E'en him--that slight penumbra of a thing!

The careless style of the fluent Inspectors, beside their audacity, brought Hill into many scrapes. He called Woodward, the celebrated harlequin, "the meanest of all characters." This Woodward resented in a pamphlet-battle, in which Hill was beaten at all points.[290] But Hill, or the Monthly Reviewer, who might be the same person, for that journal writes with the tenderness of a brother of whatever relates to our hero, pretends that the Inspector only meant, that "the character of Harlequin (if a thing so unnatural and ridiculous ought to be called a character) was the _meanest_ on the stage!"[291]

I will here notice a characteristic incident in Hill's literary life, of which the boldness and the egotism is scarcely paralleled, even by Orator Henley. At the time the Sloane Collection of Natural History was purchased, to form a part of our grand national establishment, the British Museum, Hill offered himself, by public advertisement, in one of his _Inspectors_, as the properest person to be placed at its head. The world will condemn him for his impudence. The most reasonable objection against his mode of proceeding would be, that the thing undid itself; and that the very appearance, by public advertisement, was one motive why so confident an offer should be rejected. Perhaps, after all, Hill only wanted to _advertise himself_.

But suppose that Hill was the man he represents himself to be, and he fairly challenges the test, his conduct only appears eccentric, according to routine. Unpatronised and unfriended men are depressed, among other calamities, with their quiescent modesty; but there is a rare spirit in him who dares to claim favours, which he thinks his right, in the most public manner. I preserve, in the note, the most striking passages of this extraordinary appeal.[292]

At length, after all these literary quarrels, Hill survived his literary character. He had written himself down to so low a degree, that whenever he had a work for publication, his employers stipulated, in their contracts, that the author should conceal his name; a circumstance not new among a certain race of writers.[293] But the genius of Hill was not annihilated by being thrown down so violently on his mother earth; like Anthaeus, it rose still fresh; and like Proteus, it assumed new forms.[294] Lady Hill and the young Hills were claimants on his industry far louder than the evanescent epigrams which darted around him: these latter, however, were more numerous than ever dogged an author in his road to literary celebrity.[295] His science, his ingenuity, and his impudence once more practised on the credulity of the public, with the innocent quackery of attributing all medicinal virtues to British herbs. He made many walk out, who were too sedentary; they were delighted to cure headaches by feverfew tea; hectic fevers by the daisy; colics by the leaves of camomile, and agues by its flowers. All these were accompanied by plates of the plants, with the Linnaean names.[296] This was preparatory to the _Essences_ of Sage, _Balsams_ of Honey, and _Tinctures_ of Valerian. Simple persons imagined they were scientific botanists in their walks, with Hill's plates in their hands. But one of the newly-discovered virtues of British herbs was, undoubtedly, that of placing the discoverer in a chariot.

In an Apology for the character of Sir John Hill, published after his death, where he is painted with much beauty of colouring, and elegance of form, the eruptions and excrescences of his motley physiognomy, while they are indicated--for they were too visible to be entirely omitted in anything pretending to a resemblance--are melted down, and even touched into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real purpose appears in the last page; where we are informed that Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable recipes and herbal remedies!

FOOTNOTES:

[281] The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in
"Calamities of Authors."

[282] The twenty-six folios of his "Vegetable System," with many
others, testify his love and his labour. It contains 1600
plates, representing 26,000 different figures of plants _from
nature only_. This publication ruined the author, whose widow
(the sister of Lord Ranelagh) published "An Address to the
Public, by the Hon. Lady Hill, setting forth the consequences
of the late Sir John Hill's acquaintance with the Earl of
Bute," 1787. I should have noticed it in the "Calamities of
Authors." It offers a sad and mortifying lesson to the votary
of science who aspires to a noble enterprise. Lady Hill
complains of the _patron_; but a patron, however great, cannot
always raise the public taste to the degree required to afford
the only true patronage which can animate and reward an
author. Her detail is impressive:--

"Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance--I
think it was called 'Exotic Botany'--which he wished to have
presented to the king, and therefore named it to Lord Bute.
His lordship waived that, saying that 'he had a greater object
to propose;' and shortly after laid before him a plan of the
most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever man
attempted. I tremble when I name its title--because I think
the severe application which it required killed him; and I am
sure the expense ruined his fortune--'The Vegetable System.'
This work was to consist of twenty-six volumes folio,
containing sixteen hundred copper-plates, the engraving of
each cost four guineas; the paper was of the most expensive
kind; the drawings by the first hands. The printing was also a
very weighty concern; and many other articles, with which I am
unacquainted. Lord Bute said that 'the expense had been
considered, and that Sir John Hill might rest assured his
circumstances should not be injured.' Thus he entered upon and
finished his destruction. The sale bore no proportion to the
expense. After 'The Vegetable System' was completed, Lord Bute
proposed another volume to be added, which Sir John
strenuously opposed; but his lordship repeating his desire,
Sir John complied, lest his lordship should find a pretext to
cast aside repeated promises of ample provision for himself
and family. But this was the crisis of his fate--he died."
Lady Hill adds:--"He was a character on which every virtue was
impressed." The domestic partiality of the widow cannot alter
the truth of the narrative of "The Vegetable System," and its
twenty-six tomes.

[283] His apologist forms this excuse for one then affecting to be a
student and a rake:--"Though engaged in works which required
the attention of a whole life, he was so exact an economist of
his time that he scarcely ever missed a public amusement for
many years; and this, as he somewhere observes, was of no
small service to him; as, without indulging in these respects,
he could not have undergone the fatigue and study inseparable
from the execution of his vast designs."--Short Account of the
"Life, Writings, and Character of the late Sir John Hill,
M.D." Edinburgh: 1779.

[284] Hogarth has painted a portrait of Folkes, which is still hanging
in the rooms of the Royal Society. He was nominated
vice-president by the great Sir Isaac Newton, and succeeded
him as president. He wrote a work on the "English Silver
Coinage," and died at the age of sixty-four, 1754.--ED.

[285] Hill planned his Review with good sense. He says:--"If I am
merry in some places, it ought to be considered that the
subjects are too ridiculous for serious criticism. That the
work, however, might not be without its _real use_, an _Error_
is nowhere exposed without establishing a _Truth_ in its
place." He has incidentally thrown out much curious
knowledge--such as his plan for forming a _Hortus Siccus_, &c.
The Review itself may still be considered both as curious and
entertaining.

[286] In exposing their deficiencies, as well as their redundancies,
Hill only wishes, as he tells us, that the Society may by this
means become ashamed of what it has been, and that the world
may know that _he is NOT a member of it till it is an honour
to a man to be so_! This was telling the world, with some
ingenuity, and with no little impudence, that the Royal
Society would not admit him as a member. He pretends to give a
secret anecdote to explain the cause of this rejection. Hill,
in every critical conjuncture of his affairs, and they were
frequent ones, had always a story to tell, or an evasion,
which served its momentary purpose. When caned by an Irish
gentleman at Ranelagh, and his personal courage, rather than
his stoicism, was suspected, he published a story of _his_
having once caned a person whom he called Mario; on which a
wag, considering Hill as a Prometheus, wrote--

"To beat one man great Hill was fated.
What man?--a man whom he created!"

We shall see the story he turned to his purpose, when pressed
hard by Fielding. In the present instance, in a letter to a
foreign correspondent, who had observed his name on the list
of the _Correspondents_ of the Royal Society, Hill said--"You
are to know that _I have the honour NOT to be a member of the
Royal Society of London_."--This letter lay open on his table
when a member, upon his accustomed visit, came in, and in his
absence read it. "And we are not to wonder," says Hill, "that
he who could obtain intelligence in this manner could also
divulge it. _Hinc illae lachrymae!_ Hence all the animosities
that have since disturbed this philosophic world." While Hill
insolently congratulates himself that he is _not_ a member of
the Royal Society, he has most evidently shown that he had no
objection to be the member of any society which would enrol
his name among them. He obtained his medical degree from no
honourable source; and another title, which he affected, he
mysteriously contracted into barbaric dissonance. Hill
entitled himself--

_Acad. Reg. Scient. Burd. &c. Soc._

To which Smart, in the "Hilliad," alludes--

"While _Jargon_ gave his titles on a _block_,
And styled him M.D. Acad. Budig. Soc."

His personal attacks on Martin Folkes, the president, are
caustic, but they may not be true; and on Baker, celebrated
for his microscopical discoveries, are keen. He reproaches
Folkes, in his severe dedication of the work, in all the
dignity of solemn invective.--"The manner in which you
represented me to a noble friend, while to myself you made me
much more than I deserved; the ease with which you had
excused yourself, and the solemnity with which, in the
face of Almighty God, you excused yourself again; when we
remember that the whole was done within the compass of a day;
these are surely virtues in a patron that I, of all men,
ought not to pass over in silence." Baker, in his early
days, had unluckily published a volume of lusory poems. Some
imitations of Prior's loose tales Hill makes use of to
illustrate _his_ "Philosophical Transactions." All is food for
the malicious digestion of Wit!

His anecdote of Mr. Baker's _Louse_ is a piece of secret
scientific history sufficiently ludicrous.

"The Duke of Montague was famous for his love to the whole
animal creation, and for his being able to keep a very grave
face when not in the most serious earnest. Mr. Baker, a
distinguished member of the Royal Society, had one day
entertained this nobleman and several other persons with the
sight of the peristaltic motion of the bowels in a louse, by
the microscope. When the observation was over, he was going
to throw the creature away; but the Duke, with a face that
made him believe he was perfectly in earnest, told him it
would be not only cruel, but ungrateful, in return for the
entertainment that creature had given them, to destroy it.
He ordered the boy to be brought in from whom it was procured,
and after praising the smallness and delicacy of Mr. Baker's
fingers, persuaded him carefully to replace the animal in its
former territories, and to give the boy a shilling not to
disturb it for a fortnight."--"A Review of the Works of the
Royal Society," by John Hill, M.D., p. 5.

[287] These papers had appeared in the London _Daily Advertiser_,
1754. At their close he gleaned the best, and has preserved
them in two volumes. But as Hill will never rank as a
classic, the original nonsense will be considered as most
proper for the purposes of a true collector. Woodward, the
comedian, in his lively attack on Hill, has given "a mock
Inspector," an exquisite piece of literary ridicule, in
which he has hit off the egotisms and slovenly ease of the
real ones. Never, like "The Inspector," flamed such a
provoking prodigy in the cloudy skies of Grub-street; and
Hill seems studiously to have mortified his luckless rivals
by a perpetual embroidery of his adventures in the "Walks
at Marybone," the "Rotunda at Ranelagh," spangled over with
"my domestics," and "my equipage." [One of his adventures
at Ranelagh was sufficiently unfortunate to obtain for him the
unenviable notoriety of a caricature print representing him
enduring a castigation at the Rotunda gate from an Irish
gentleman named Brown, with whose character he had made
far too free in one of his "Inspectors." Hill showed much
pusillanimity in the affair, took to his bed, and gave out
that the whole thing was a conspiracy to murder him. This
occasioned the publication of another print, in which he
is represented in bed, surrounded by medical men, who treat
him with very little respect. One insists on his fee, because
Hill has never been acknowledged as one of themselves; and
another, to his plea of want of money, responds, "Sell your
sword, it is only an encumbrance."]

[288] It is useful to remind the public that they are often played
upon in this manner by the artifices of _political writers_.
We have observed symptoms of this deception practised at
present. It is an old trick of the craft, and was greatly used
at a time when the nation seemed maddened with political
factions. In a pamphlet of "A View of London and Westminster,
or the Town-spy," 1725, I find this account:--"The _seeming
quarrel_, formerly, between _Mist's Journal_ and the _Flying
Post_ was _secretly concerted_ between themselves, in order to
decoy the eyes of all the parties on both their papers; and
the project succeeded beyond all expectation; for I have been
told that the former narrowly missed getting an estate by
it."--p. 32.

[289] Isaac Reed, in his "Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and
Humour," vol. iv., in republishing "The Hilliad," has
judiciously preserved the offending "Impertinent" and the
abjuring "Inspector." The style of "The Impertinent" is
volatile and poignant. His four classes of authors are not
without humour. "There are men who write because they have
wit; there are those who write because they are hungry; there
are some of the modern authors who have a constant fund of
both these causes; and there are who will write, although they
are not instigated either by the one or by the other. The
first are all spirit; the second are all earth; the third
disclose more life, or more vapidity, as the one or the other
cause prevails; and for the last, having neither the one nor
the other principle for the cause, they show neither the one
nor the other character in the effect; but begin, continue,
and end, as if they had neither begun, continued, nor ended at
all." The first class he instances by Fielding; the second by
Smart. Of the third he says:--"The mingled wreath belongs to
Hill," that is himself; and the fourth he illustrates by the
absurd Sir William Browne.

"Those of the first rank are the most capricious and lazy of
all animals. The monkey genius would rarely exert itself, if
even idleness innate did not give way to the superior love of
mischief. The ass (that is Smart), which characters the
second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a ridiculous
comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of
the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a
distance. His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we
laugh at the insensibility and obstinacy that make him prick
his lips with thistles."

[290] Woodward humorously attributes Hill's attack on him to his
_jealousy_ of his successful performance of _Harlequin_, and
opens some of the secret history of Hill, by which it appears
that early in life he trod the theatrical boards. He tells us
of the extraordinary pains the prompter had taken with Hill,
in the part of Oroonoko; though, "if he had not quite
forgotten it, to very little purpose." He reminds Hill of a
dramatic anecdote, which he no doubt had forgotten. It seems
he once belonged to a strolling company at May-fair, where, in
the scene between Altamont and Lothario, the polite audience
of that place all chorused, and agreed with him, when dying he
exclaimed, "Oh, Altamont, thy genius is the stronger." He then
shows him off as the starved apothecary in _Romeo and Juliet_,
in one of his botanic peregrinations to Chelsea Garden; from
whence, it is said, he was expelled for "culling too many rare
plants"--

"I do remember an apothecary,
Culling of simples----."

Hill, who was often so brisk in his attack on the wits, had no
power of retort; so that he was always buffeting and always
buffeted.

[291] He was also satirised in a poem termed "The Pasquinade,"
published in 1752, in which the goddesses of Pertness and
Dulness join to praise him as their favourite reflex.

"Pertness saw her form distinctly shine
In none, immortal Hill! so full as thine."

Dulness speaks of him thus rapturously:--

"See where my son, who gratefully repays
Whate'er I lavish'd on his younger days;
Whom still my arm protects to brave the town
Secure from Fielding, Machiavel, or Brown;
Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt,
Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert!
Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,
I gave his mother's milk to Confidence;
She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face,
And changed his skin to monumental brass.
Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt,
Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert!
Rescued an orphan babe from common sense,
I gave his mother's milk to Confidence;
She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face,
And changed his skin to monumental brass."

[292] Hill addresses the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and the Speaker, on Sir Hans Sloane's Collection of Natural
History, proposing himself as a candidate for nomination in
the principal office, by whatever name that shall be
called:--"I deliver myself with humility; but conscious also
that I possess the liberties of a British subject, I shall
speak with freedom." He says that the only means left for a
Briton is to address his sovereign and the public. "That
foreigners will resort to this collection is certain, for it
is the most considerable in the world; and that our own people
will often visit it is as sure, because it may be made the
means of much useful as well as curious knowledge. One and the
other will expect a person in that office who has sufficient
knowledge: he must be able to give account of every article,
freely and fluently, not only in his own, but in the Latin and
French languages.

"This the world, and none in it better than your lordship,
sees is not a place that any one can execute: it requires
knowledge in a peculiar and uncommon kind of study--knowledge
which very few possess; and in which, my lord, the bitterest
of my enemies (and I have thousands, although neither myself
nor they know why) will not say I am deficient----.