Nothing could be more proper than this, but against it must be set the opinion of men of his own time, as expressed in the quotation on p. 88, taken from Baker's Biographica Dramatica.
Many estimates of the character of Hill have been put forward, the first of any authority being that of Johnson[1]: "The King then asked him what he thought of Dr Hill. Johnson answered, that he was an ingenious man, but had no veracity; and immediately mentioned, as an instance of it, an assertion of that writer, that he had seen objects magnified to a much greater degree by using three or four microscopes at a time than by using one. 'Now,' added Johnson, 'everyone acquainted with microscopes knows, that the more of them he looks through, the less the object will appear.'...'I now,' said Johnson to his friends, when relating what had passed, 'began to consider that I was depreciating the man in the estimation of his sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that might be more favourable.' He added, therefore, that Dr Hill was, notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean expedients to raise his reputation."
If Hill's reputation for lying rests on no surer foundation than this, he must be held acquitted of much that is charged him. In the above quotation the term microscopes must be read lenses; thus Johnson's reason for his opinion is unfortunate and clearly shews, as Bishop Elrington has remarked, that Johnson was talking of things he knew nothing about. This is the more to be regretted since the opinion of a man of Johnson's rank, who was contemporary with Hill, might have biassed the judgment of smaller and later men.
According to Fitzgerald[2], Hill was a "quack and blustering adventurer," the "Holloway of his day," endowed with "cowardice that seemed a disease." This author is, I think, prejudiced, and his estimate appears to be based upon the least creditable of Hill's performances without giving a proper value to the
- ↑ Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. by Fitzgerald, London, 1897.
- ↑ Ibid.; Life of Garrick, loc. cit.
