_Robert Hill._--I possess a Latin Bible which formerly belonged to this
person, and contains many MS. notes in his handwriting. The following is by
another hand:
"This book formerly belonged to Mr. Robert Hill, a taylor of
Buckingham, and an acquaintance of my cousin John Herbert, surgeon of
that town. J. L."
"In literature we find of this profession (_i. e._ that of a taylor)
John Speed, a native of Cheshire, whose merit as an historian and
antiquary are indisputable--to whom may be added the name of a man who
in literature ought to have taken the lead, we mean John Stow. Benjamin
Robins, the compiler of _Lord Anson's Voyage_, who united the powers of
the sword and the pen, was professionally a taylor of Bath; as was
Robert Hill of Buckingham, who, in the midst of poverty and distress,
while obliged to labour at his trade for the support of a large family,
acquired a knowledge of the Hebrew, and other languages, such as has
only been equalled by Magliabecchi, who studied in a cradle curtained
by cobwebs and colonised by spiders."--See "Vestiges Revived," No. XX.
_European Mag._ for Mar. 1813.
The above choice note is, I presume, an extract from the _Europ. Mag._, and
may serve to show that although ordinarily it takes "nine tailors to make a
man," it may occasionally require nine men to make such a tailor as R. Hill
seems to have been.