Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/202

 162

NOTES AND QUERIES, [lo* s. m. MARCH *, 1905.

gest a possible identity with Joseph Betts, matriculated at University College in 1736, B.A. 1740, M.A. 1743, and Savilian Professor of Geometry 1765-6. He was a contemporary of the Eev. John Coulson, M.A., University College, 1746, whom Johnson visited at times, and with whom he stayed in University College in June, 1775 ('Letters of Samuel Johnson,' Hill, Oxford, 1892, i. 323).

In 1764, when writing to William Strahan regarding the entering of George Strahan as a Commoner of University College, Johnson says, "The College is almost filled with my friends, and he will be well treated " (' Let- ters,' i. 113).

Betts died in 1766, however, which makes it a rather far cry to 1771, when the verses were written. Some allowance may be made for Mrs. Thrale's poetical licence or her in- accuracy, and since Johnson's acquaintance with the Thrales began before the date of Betts's death, it is not impossible that he may himself have mentioned the two names in conjunction to Mrs. Thrale. At a later period he mentioned Coulson a number of times when writing to Mrs. Thrale from Oxford. E. P. MEERITT.

Boston, U.S.

BENSON EARLE HILL.

A PASSAGE of some interest in one of the works of this writer induced me a few weeks since to inquire into the details of his career ; and after some difficulty I constructed the following notice.

Benson Earle Hill was born at Bristol, in or about the year 1795, and was educated at the establishment of Dr. Watson on Shooter's Hill, and at the military colleges of Marlow and Woolwich. On 20 March, 1809, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery (London Gazette, 1809, pt. i. 375), and was ordered to Ireland in 1810. His promotion to the rank of first lieutenant was dated 17 March, 1812 (ib. t 1812, pt. i. 854).

Hill was appointed in the following June " to a company in the Kent district " ; and in 1814 he was sent with his regiment, under the command of Sir Edward Pakenham, to New Orleans, landing again in England on 30 May, 1815. His regiment was stationed at Ostend from 6 to 26 June, when it marched to Brussels. On 11 July it was at Mons, under Sir Alexander Dickson, and was engaged afterwards in reducing the frontier towns of Belgium and France. In the middle of September he returned to Brussels on leave to witness the inauguration of the King of the Netherlands. He saw at

the end of that month the Emperor Alex- ander pass through Mons, and on 9 October he was presented, as being on the staff of Sir Alexander Dickson, to the King of Prussia, at Maubeuge.

The following winter Hill was quartered in various towns near the frontiers, and in April, 1816, he obtained leave, owing to the death of a near relative, to return from Valenciennes to England. From July, 1816, to February, 1819, he was housed in the camp at Shorncliffe or at Archcliffe Fort, Dover, where his sister Isabel joined him. From the latter date until he retired from the army on half-pay (801. a year) in July, 1822, he was with his regiment at Woolwich, living with his sister in a cottage in Nightingale Vale. During this period he made constant expe- ditions to London to see his friends on the stage or to join in amateur theatricals, and it was while living at Woolwich that he entertained Charles Mathews the elder in the manner described by Mrs. Mathews ('Memoirs of C. Mathews,' second edition, 1839, iii. 126-42). The brother in the summer of 1822 went touring about the kingdom with Trotter's company. He visited, among other places, Worthing, Cheltenham, and Windsor, where he met Edmund Kean. In 1825 he was in Scotland, in 1827 in Ireland, but his theatrical career was not a success, and their resources were diminishing. Brother and sister were together in London from Janu- ary, 1828, to September, 1841, when she went to Richmond for her health. He is said to have assisted Theodore Hook in the editorship of The New Monthly Magazine for a short time ; but by 1841 they were in the depths of poverty, and Miss Helen Faucit was among those who aided them in their distress. Isabel, who was born at Bristol, 21 August, 1800, died, after struggling against consumption for several years, in January or February, 1842, and was buried at Old Brompton Cemetery.

A gleam of sunshine came when Hill suc- ceeded in December, 1841, to the post of editor of The Monthly Magazine, but it soon died away. The number for July, 1842, was the last which he supervised, and at very short notice F. G. T. (Tomlins) took his place. His "last employment was at the free list of the Lyceum Theatre." He caught a severe cold, which resulted in consumption ; and his death "in London at an obscure abode, in penury and distress," is recorded in The Gen- tleman's Magazine for November, 1845, p. 543,

The works of his composition which are entered under his name in the British Museum Catalogue are :