Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/414

 'The Pathway to Prayer and Pietie. Containing (1) An Exposition of the Lords Prayer …; (2) A Preparation to the Lords Supper, with Ma. Zanchius Confession concerning that Sacrament; (3) A Direction to a Christian Life; (4) An Instruction to die well,' 2 pts, 8vo, London 1613. To the sixth edition (5 pts, 8vo, London 1615-16) is appended J. Sylvester's 'Elegie' upon the death of Mrs. Hill. The eighth edition (1629) contains 'The Protestation of J. White written to the end the Papists might understand he departed out of this world of the same opinion.' From the plan of this eloquently written manual Jeremy Taylor may have derived that of his 'Holy Living and Dying.' Hill translated from the Latin of William Bucanus 'Institvtions of Christian Religion,' 4to, London, 1606, and edited W. Perkins's 'Godly Exposition upon the three first chapters of the Revelation,' fol., London, 1607. In the fourth part of the 'Workes' of R. Greenham, fol., London, 1612, is 'An Exposition of the 119 Psalme found unperfect and perfected by R. Hill.' He also collected the posthumour sermons and lectures of Samuel Hieron [q. v.], and published them in folio in 1620 as the second volume of Hieron's works. Hill has Latin verses before Foulke Robartes's 'The Revenue of the Gospel in Tythes,' 1613. His portrait has been engraved.

 HILL, ROBERT (1699–1777), learned tailor, the son of poor parents, was born on 11 Jan. 1699, at Miswell, Hertfordshire. His father died within a year of his birth, and his mother about five years later married Thomas Robinson, a tailor in Buckingham. Robert Hill was left to the care of his grandmother, Mrs. Clark, at Miswell, and on her removal in 1710 to Tring Grove became a farmer's boy. Proving too delicate for this occupation, he was apprenticed in 1714 to his stepfather in Buckingham, where the chance acquisition of a grammar at the age of seventeen inspired him with zeal for learning. His first studies were Latin and French. He married in 1721, and turned schoolmaster in 1724, on finding his increasing family hard to support on tailoring. For some years he numbered more than fifty scholars in his school. In 1730 he lost his wife. A second wife, whom he married in 1732, proved so unsatisfactory, that he left his home and travelled about the country. Before leaving home he had learned Greek, and during his wanderings worked at Hebrew. On hearing of his second wife's death, he returned in 1744 to Buckingham, and married a third time in 1747. About this date Hill came under the notice of a neighbouring clergyman, who introduced him to the learned world. This friend having given him a copy of the ‘Essay on Spirit,’ by Bishop Berkeley, he wrote some ‘Observations’ on it, and also a tract, ‘Some Considerations on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost.’ This was in 1753. In 1757 Joseph Spence published his ‘Parallel in the Manner of Plutarch, between a most celebrated Man of Florence, and one, scarce ever heard of, in England.’ This tract compares Hill with Magliabechi, giving an account of Hill's career; it was included in ‘Fugitive Pieces, by several Authors,’ published in two vols. by Dodsley in 1761, and several times reprinted. From a list of benefactors, three pages long, at the end of Spence's tract in Dodsley's volumes, we learn that Hill was substantially assisted by the benevolent, but in 1775 he was again in difficulties. In a ‘Premonition by a Friend of the Author,’ prefixed to ‘Christianity the True Religion—an Essay in answer to the Blasphemy of a Deist,’ by Mr. Robert Hill, Chester, 1775, 12mo, we are told that Hill's ‘learning and ingenuity have not been able to set him above the frowns of fortune.’ Hill inscribes the treatise to Sir John Chetwode ‘in acknowledgment of many generous favours.’ This is the last we hear of him. Besides the treatise mentioned, he wrote in 1753 a tract against papists, dedicated and presented to Lady Temple; a tract on the ‘Character of a Jew,’ when the bill for naturalising the Jews was in agitation; some short ‘Criticisms on Job;’ and made considerable progress in a Hebrew grammar. His literary ability is in no way extraordinary. He died at Buckingham in July 1777, after a long illness.

 HILL, ROBERT GARDINER (1811–1878), surgeon, originator of the non-restraint system in lunacy, son of Robert Hill of Leamington, was born at Louth, Lincolnshire, on 26 Feb. 1811. John Harwood Hill [q. v.] was an elder brother. At the age of fourteen Robert was apprenticed to a surgeon in his native town. He then studied at Grainger's, Guy's, and St. Thomas's Hospitals, becoming a member of the College of Surgeons of 