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!