Chapter 16

See theUrkundenbuch der Stadt Hildesheim, edited by R. Döbner (Hildesheim, 1881-1901); theUrkundenbuch des Hochstifts Hildesheim, edited by K. Janicke and H. Hoogeweg (Leipzig and Hanover, 1896-1903); C. Bauer,Geschichte von Hildesheim(Hildesheim, 1892); A. Bertram,Geschichte des Bistums Hildesheim(Hildesheim, 1899 fol.); C. Euling,Hildesheimer Land und Leute des 16ten Jahrhunderts(Hildesheim, 1892); O. Fischer,Die Stadt Hildesheim während des dreissigjährigen Krieges(Hildesheim, 1897); A. Grebe,Auf Hildesheimschem Boden(Hildesheim, 1884); H. Cuno,Hildesheims Künstler im Mittelalter(Hildesheim, 1886);W. Wachsmuth,Geschichte von Hochstift und Stadt Hildesheim(Hildesheim, 1863); R. Döbner,Studien zur Hildesheimischen Geschichte(Hildesheim, 1901); Lachner,Die Holzarchitektur Hildesheims(Hildesheim, 1882); Seifart,Sagen, Märchen, Schwänke und Gebräuche aus Stadt und Stift Hildesheims(Hildesheim, 1889). For theHildesheimer Stiftsfehde, see H. Delius,Die Hildesheimische Stiftsfehde1519 (Leipzig, 1803). For theHildesheimer Silberfund, see Wieseler,Der Hildesheimer Silberfund(Göttingen, 1869); Holzer, Der Hildesheimer antike Silberfund (Hildesheim, 1871); and E. Pernice and F. Winter,Der Hildesheimer Silberfund der königlichen Museen zu Berlin(Berlin, 1901).

HILDRETH, RICHARD(1807-1865), American journalist and author, was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, on the 28th of June 1807, the son of Hosea Hildreth (1782-1835), a teacher of mathematics and later a Congregational minister. Richard graduated at Harvard in 1826, and, after studying law at Newburyport, was admitted to the bar at Boston in 1830. He had already taken to journalism, and in 1832 he became joint founder and editor of a daily newspaper, the Boston Atlas. Having in 1834 gone to the South for the benefit of his health, he was led by what he witnessed of the evils of slavery (chiefly in Florida) to write the anti-slavery novelThe Slave: or Memoir of Archy Moore(1836; enlarged edition, 1852,The White Slave). In 1837 he wrote for theAtlasa series of articles vigorously opposing the annexation of Texas. In the same year he publishedBanks, Banking, and Paper Currencies, a work which helped to promote the growth of the free banking system in America. In 1838 he resumed his editorial duties on theAtlas, but in 1840 removed, on account of his health, to British Guiana, where he lived for three years and was editor of two weekly newspapers in succession at Georgetown. He published in this year (1840) a volume in opposition to slavery,Despotism in America(2nd ed., 1854). In 1849 he published the first three volumes of hisHistory of the United States, two more volumes of which were published in 1851 and the sixth and last in 1852. The first three volumes of this history, his most important work, deal with the period 1492-1789, and the second three with the period 1789-1821. The history is notable for its painstaking accuracy and candour, but the later volumes have a strong Federalist bias. Hildreth’sJapan as It Was and Is(1855) was at the time a valuable digest of the information contained in other works on that country (new ed., 1906). He also wrote a campaign biography of William Henry Harrison (1839);Theory of Morals(1844); andTheory of Politics(1853), as well asLives of Atrocious Judges(1856), compiled from Lord Campbell’s two works. In 1861 he was appointed United States consul at Trieste, but ill-health compelled him to resign and remove to Florence, where he died on the 11th of July 1865.

HILGENFELD, ADOLF BERNHARD CHRISTOPH(1823-1907), German Protestant divine, was born at Stappenbeck near Salzwedel in Prussian Saxony on the 2nd of June 1823. He studied at Berlin and Halle, and in 1890 became professor ordinarius of theology at Jena. He belonged to the Tübingen school. “Fond of emphasizing his independence of Baur, he still, in all important points, followed in the footsteps of his master; his method, which he is wont to contrast asLiterarkritikwith Baur’sTendenzkritik, is nevertheless essentially the same as Baur’s” (Otto Pfleiderer). On the whole, however, he modified the positions of the founder of the Tübingen school, going beyond him only in his investigations into the Fourth Gospel. In 1858 he became editor of theZeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie. He died on the 12th of January 1907.

His works include:Die elementarischen Recognitionen und Homilien(1848);Die Evangelien und die Briefe des Johannes nach ihrem Lehrbegriff(1849);Das Markusevangelium(1850);Die Evangelien nach ihrer Entstehung und geschichtlichen Bedeutung(1854);Das Unchristentum(1855);Jüd. Apokalyptik(1857);Novum Testamentum extra canonem receptum(4 parts, 1866; 2nd ed., 1876-1884);Histor.-kritische Einleitung in das Neue Testament(1875);Acta Apostolorum graece et latine secundum antiquissimos testes(1899); the first complete edition of theShepherd of Hermas(1887);Ignatii et Polycarpi epistolae(1902).

HILL, AARON(1685-1750), English author, was born in London on the 10th of February 1685. He was the son of George Hill of Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, who contrived to sell an estate entailed on his son. In his fourteenth year he left Westminster School to go to Constantinople, where William, Lord Paget de Beaudesert (1637-1713), a relative of his mother, was ambassador. Paget sent him, under care of a tutor, to travel in Palestine and Egypt, and he returned to England in 1703. He was estranged from his patron by the “envious fears and malice of a certain female,” and again went abroad as companion to Sir William Wentworth. On his return home in 1709 he publishedA Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, a production of which he was afterwards much ashamed, and he addressed his poem ofCamillusto Charles Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough. In the same year he is said to have been manager of Drury Lane theatre and in 1710 of the Haymarket. His first play,Elfrid: or The Fair Inconstant(afterwards revised asAthelwold), was produced at Drury Lane in 1709. His connexion with the theatre was of short duration, and the rest of his life was spent in ingenious commercial enterprises, none of which were successful, and in literary pursuits. He formed a company to extract oil from beechmast, another for the colonization of the district to be known later as Georgia, a third to supply wood for naval construction from Scotland, and a fourth for the manufacture of potash. In 1730 he wroteThe Progress of Wit, being a caveat for the use of an Eminent Writer. The “eminent writer” was Pope, who had introduced him intoThe Dunciadas one of the competitors for the prize offered by the goddess of Dullness, though the satire was qualified by an oblique compliment. A note in the edition of 1729 on the obnoxious passage, in which, however, the original initial was replaced by asterisks, gave Hill great offence. He wrote to Pope complaining of his treatment, and received a reply in which Pope denied responsibility for the notes. Hill appears to have been a persistent correspondent, and inflicted on Pope a series of letters, which are printed in Elwin & Courthope’s edition (x. 1-78). Hill died on the 8th of February 1750, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The best of his plays wereZara(acted 1735) andMerope(1749), both adaptations from Voltaire. He also published two series of periodical essays,The Prompter(1735) and, with William Bond,The Plaindealer(1724). He was generous to fellow-men of letters, and his letters to Richard Savage, whom he helped considerably, show his character in a very amiable light.

The Works of the late Aaron Hill, consisting of letters ..., original poems.... With an essay on the Art of Actingappeared in 1753, and hisDramatic Worksin 1760. HisPoetical Worksare included in Anderson’s and other editions of the British poets. A full account of his life is provided by an anonymous writer in Theophilus Cibber’sLives of the Poets, vol. v.

HILL, AMBROSE POWELL(1825-1865), American Confederate soldier, was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, on the 9th of November 1825, and graduated from West Point in 1847, being appointed to the 1st U.S. artillery. He served in the Mexican and Seminole Wars, was promoted first lieutenant in September 1851, and in 1855-1860 was employed on the United States’ coast survey. In March 1861, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned his commission, and when his state seceded he was made colonel of a Virginian infantry regiment, winning promotion to the rank of brigadier-general on the field of Bull Run. In the Peninsular campaign of 1862 he gained further promotion, and as a major-general Hill was one of the most prominent and successful divisional commanders of Lee’s army in the Seven Days’, Second Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg campaigns. His division formed part of “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps, and he was severely wounded in the flank attack of Chancellorsville in May 1863. After Jackson’s death Hill was made a lieutenant-general and placed in command of the 3rd corps of Lee’s army, which he led in the Gettysburg campaign of 1863, the autumn campaign of the same year, and the Wilderness and Petersburg operations of 1864-65. He was killed in front of the Petersburg lines on the 2nd of April 1865. His reputation as a troop leader in battle was one of the highest amongst the generals of both sides, and both Lee and Jackson, when on their death-beds their thoughts wandered in delirium to the battlefield, called for “A. P. Hill” to deliver the decisive blow.

HILL, DANIEL HARVEY(1821-1889), American Confederate soldier, was born in York district, South Carolina, on the 12th of July 1821, and graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1842, being appointed to the 1st United States artillery. He distinguished himself in the Mexican War, being breveted captain and major for bravery at Contreras and Churubusco and at Chapultepec respectively. In February 1849 he resigned his commission and became a professor of mathematics at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), Lexington, Virginia. In 1854 he joined the faculty of Davidson College, North Carolina, and was in 1859 made superintendent of the North Carolina Military Institute of Charlotte. At the outbreak of the Civil War, D. H. Hill was made colonel of a Confederate infantry regiment, at the head of which he won the action of Big Bethel, near Fortress Monroe, Va., on the 10th of June 1861. Shortly after this he was made a brigadier-general. He took part in the Yorktown and Williamsburg operations in the spring of 1862, and as a major-general led a division with great distinction in the battle of Fair Oaks and the Seven Days. He took part in the Second Bull Run campaign in August-September 1862, and in the Antietam campaign the stubborn resistance of D. H. Hill’s division in the passes of South Mountain enabled Lee to concentrate for battle. The division bore a conspicuous part in the battles of the Antietam and Fredericksburg. On the reorganization of the army of Northern Virginia after Jackson’s death, D. H. Hill was not appointed to a corps command, but somewhat later in 1863 he was sent to the west as a lieutenant-general and commanded one of Bragg’s corps in the brilliant victory of Chickamauga. D. H. Hill surrendered with Gen. J. E. Johnston on the 26th of April 1865. In 1866-1869 he edited a magazine, The Land we Love, at Charlotte, N.C., which dealt with social and historical subjects and had a great influence in the South. In 1877 he became president of the university of Arkansas, a post which he held until 1884, and in 1885 president of the Military and Agricultural College of Milledgeville, Georgia. General Hill died at Charlotte, N.C., on the 24th of September 1889.

HILL, DAVID BENNETT(1843-1910), American politician, was born at Havana, New York, on the 29th of August 1843. In 1862 he removed to Elmira, New York, where in 1864 he was admitted to the bar. He at once became active in the affairs of the Democratic party, attracting the attention of Samuel J. Tilden, one of whose shrewdest and ablest lieutenants he became. In 1871 and 1872 he was a member of the New York State Assembly, and in 1877 and again in 1881, presided over the Democratic State Convention. In 1882 he was elected mayor of Elmira, and in the same year was chosen lieutenant-governor of the state, having been defeated for nomination as governor by Grover Cleveland. In January 1885, however, Cleveland having resigned to become president, Hill became governor, and in November was elected for a three-year term, and subsequently re-elected. In 1891-1897 he was a member of the United States Senate. During these years, and in 1892, when he tried to get the presidential nomination, he was prominent in working against Cleveland. In 1896 he opposed the free silver plank in the platform adopted by the Democratic National Convention which nominated W. J. Bryan; in the National Convention of 1900, however, the free-silver issue having been subordinated to anti-imperialism, he seconded Bryan’s nomination. After 1897 he devoted himself to his law practice, and in 1905 retired from politics. He died in Albany on the 30th of October 1910.

HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK NORMAN(1835-1903), English author, son of Arthur Hill, head master of Bruce Castle school, was born at Tottenham, Middlesex, on the 7th of June 1835. Arthur Hill, with his brothers Rowland Hill, the postal reformer, and Matthew Davenport Hill, afterwards recorder of Birmingham, had worked out a system of education which was to exclude compulsion of any kind. The school at Bruce Castle, of which Arthur Hill was head master, was founded to carry into execution their theories, known as the Hazelwood system. George Birkbeck Hill was educated in his father’s school and at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1858 he began to teach at Bruce Castle school, and from 1868 to 1877 was head master. In 1869 he became a regular contributor to theSaturday Review, with which he remained in connexion until 1884. On his retirement from teaching he devoted himself to the study of English 18th-century literature, and established his reputation as the most learned commentator on the works of Samuel Johnson. He settled at Oxford in 1887, but from 1891 onwards his winters were usually spent abroad. He died at Hampstead, London, on the 27th of February 1903. His works include:Dr Johnson, his Friends and his Critics(1878); an edition of Boswell’sCorrespondence(1879); a laborious edition ofBoswell’s Life of Johnson, including Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, and Johnson’s Diary of a Journey into North Wales(Clarendon Press, 6 vols., 1887);Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson(1888);Select Essays of Dr Johnson(1889);Footsteps of Dr Johnson in Scotland(1890);Letters of Johnson(1892);Johnsonian Miscellanies(2 vols., 1897); an edition (1900) of Edward Gibbon’sAutobiography; Johnson’sLives of the Poets(3 vols., 1905), and other works on the 18th-century topics. Dr Birkbeck Hill’s elaborate edition of Boswell’sLifeis a monumental work, invaluable to the student.

See a memoir by his nephew, Harold Spencer Scott, in the edition of theLives of the English Poets(1905), and theLettersedited by his daughter, Lucy Crump, in 1903.

HILL, JAMES J.(1838- ), American railway capitalist, was born near Guelph, Ontario, Canada, on the 16th of September 1838, and was educated at Rockwood (Ont.) Academy, a Quaker institution. In 1856 he settled in St Paul, Minnesota. Abandoning, because of his father’s death, his plans to study medicine, he became a clerk in the office of a firm of river steamboat agents and shippers, and later the agent for a line of river packets; he established about 1870 transportation lines on the Mississippi and on the Red River (of the North). He effected a traffic arrangement between the St Paul Pacific Railroad and his steamboat lines; and when the railway failed in 1873 for $27,000,000, Hill interested Sir Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona), George Stephen (Lord Mount Stephen), and other Canadian capitalists, in the road and in the wheat country of the Red River Valley; he got control of the bonds (1878), foreclosed the mortgage, reorganized the road as the St Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, and began to extend the line, then only 380 m. long, toward the Pacific; and in 1883 he became its president. He was president of the Great Northern Railway (comprehending all his secondary lines) from 1893 to April 1907, when he became chairman of its board of directors. In the extension (1883-1893) of this railway westward to Puget Sound (whence it has direct steamship connexions with China and Japan), the line was built by the company itself, none of the work being handled by contractors. Subsequently his financial interests in American railways caused constant sensations in the stock-markets. The Hill interests obtained control not only of the Great-Northern system, but of the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and proposed the construction of another northern line to the Pacific coast. Hill was the president of the Northern Securities Company, which in 1904 was declared by the United States Supreme Court to be in conflict with the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. (See Vol. 27, p. 733.) Among Hill’s gifts to public institutions was one of $500,000 to the St. Paul Theological Seminary (Roman Catholic).

HILL, JOHN(c.1716-1775), called from his Swedish honours, “Sir” John Hill, English author, son of the Rev. Theophilus Hill, is said to have been born in Peterborough in 1716. He was apprenticed to an apothecary and on the completion of his apprenticeship he set up in a small shop in St Martin’s Lane, Westminster. He also travelled over the country in search of rare herbs, with a view to publishing ahortus siccus, but the plan failed. His first publication was a translation of Theophrastus’sHistory of Stones(1746). From this time forward he was an indefatigable writer. He edited theBritish Magazine(1746-1750), and for two years (1751-1753) he wrote a daily letter, “The Inspector,” for theLondon Advertiser and Literary Gazette. He also produced novels, plays and scientific works, and was a large contributor to the supplement of EphraimChambers’sCyclopaedia. His personal and scurrilous writings involved him in many quarrels. Henry Fielding attacked him in theCovent Garden Journal, Christopher Smart wrote a mock-epic,The Hilliad, against him, and David Garrick replied to his strictures against him by two epigrams, one of which runs:—

“For physics and farces, his equal there scarce is;His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.”

“For physics and farces, his equal there scarce is;

His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.”

He had other literary passages-at-arms with John Rich, who accused him of plagiarizing hisOrpheus, also with Samuel Foote and Henry Woodward. From 1759 to 1775 he was engaged on a huge botanical work—The Vegetable System(26 vols. fol.)—adorned by 1600 copperplate engravings. Hill’s botanical labours wereundertakenat the request of his patron, Lord Bute, and he was rewarded by the order of Vasa from the king of Sweden in 1774. He had a medical degree from Edinburgh, and he now practised as a quack doctor, making considerable sums by the preparation of vegetable medicines. He died in London on the 21st of November 1775.

Of the seventy-six separate works with which he is credited in theDictionary of National Biography, the most valuable are those that deal with botany. He is said to have been the author of the second part ofThe Oeconomy of Human Life(1751), the first part of which is by Lord Chesterfield, and Hannah Glasse’s famous manual of cookery was generally ascribed to him (see Boswell, ed. Hill, iii. 285). Dr Johnson said of him that he was “an ingenious man, but had no veracity.”See aShort Account of the Life, Writings and Character of the late Sir John Hill(1779), which is chiefly occupied with a descriptive catalogue of his works; alsoTemple Bar(1872, xxxv. 261-266).

See aShort Account of the Life, Writings and Character of the late Sir John Hill(1779), which is chiefly occupied with a descriptive catalogue of his works; alsoTemple Bar(1872, xxxv. 261-266).

HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT(1792-1872), English lawyer and penologist, was born on the 6th of August 1792, at Birmingham, where his father, T. W. Hill, for long conducted a private school. He was a brother of Sir Rowland Hill. He early acted as assistant in his father’s school, but in 1819 was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. He went the midland circuit. In 1832 he was elected one of the Liberal members for Kingston-upon-Hull, but he lost his seat at the next election in 1834. On the incorporation of Birmingham in 1839 he was chosen recorder; and in 1851 he was appointed commissioner in bankruptcy for the Bristol district. Having had his interest excited in questions relating to the treatment of criminal offenders, he ventilated in his charges to the grand juries, as well as in special pamphlets, opinions which were the means of introducing many important reforms in the methods of dealing with crime. One of his principal coadjutors in these reforms was his brother Frederick Hill (1803-1896), whoseAmount, Causes and Remedies of Crime, the result of his experience as inspector of prisons for Scotland, marked an era in the methods of prison discipline. Hill was one of the chief promoters of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and the originator of thePenny Magazine. He died at Stapleton, near Bristol, on the 7th of June 1872.

His principal works arePractical Suggestions to the Founders of Reformatory Schools(1855);Suggestions for the Repression of Crime(1857), consisting of charges addressed to the grand juries of Birmingham;Mettray(1855);Papers on the Penal Servitude Acts(1864);Journal of a Third Visit to the Convict Gaols, Refuges and Reformatories of Dublin(1865);Addresses delivered at the Birmingham and Midland Institute(1867). SeeMemoir of Matthew Davenport Hill, by his daughters Rosamond and Florence Davenport Hill (1878).

HILL, OCTAVIA(1838- ) andMIRANDA(1836-1910), English philanthropic workers, were born in London, being daughters of Mr James Hill and granddaughters of Dr Southwood Smith, the pioneer of sanitary reform. Miss Octavia Hill’s attention was early drawn to the evils of London housing, and the habits of indolence and lethargy induced in many of the lower classes by their degrading surroundings. She conceived the idea of trying to free a few poor people from such influences, and Mr Ruskin, who sympathized with her plans, supplied the money for starting the work. For £750 Miss Hill purchased the 56 years’ lease of three houses in one of the poorest courts of Marylebone. Another £78 was spent in building a large room at the back of her own house where she could meet the tenants. The houses were put in repair, and let out in sets of two rooms. At the end of eighteen months it was possible to pay 5% interest, to repay £48 of the capital, as well as meet all expenses for taxes, ground rent and insurance. What specially distinguished this scheme was that Miss Hill herself collected the rents, thus coming into contact with the tenants and helping to enforce regular and self-respecting habits. The success of her first attempt encouraged her to continue. Six more houses were bought and treated in a similar manner. A yearly sum was set aside for the repairs of each house, and whatever remained over was spent on such additional appliances as the tenants themselves desired. This encouraged them to keep their tenements in good repair. By the help of friends Miss Hill was now enabled to enlarge the scope of her work. In 1869 eleven more houses were bought. The plan was to set a visitor over a small court or block of buildings to do whatever work in the way of rent-collecting, visiting for the School Board, &c., was required. As years went on Miss Octavia Hill’s work was largely increased. Numbers of her friends bought and placed under her care small groups of houses, over which she fulfilled the duties of a conscientious landlord. Several large owners of tenement houses, notably the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, entrusted to her the management of such property, and consulted her about plans of rebuilding; and a number of fellow-workers were trained by her in the management of houses for the poor. The results in Southwark (where Red Cross Hall was established) and elsewhere were very beneficial. Both Miss Miranda and Miss Octavia Hill took an interest in the movement for bringing beauty into the homes of the poor, and the former was practically the founder of the Kyrle Society, the first suggestion of which was contained in a paper read to a small circle of friends. Both sisters worked for the preservation of open spaces, and helped to promote the work of the Charity Organization Society, and for several years Miss Miranda Hill (who died on the 31st of May 1910) did admirable work in Marylebone as a member of the Board of Guardians.

HILL, ROWLAND(1744-1833), English preacher, sixth son of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart. (d. 1783), was born at Hawkstone, Shropshire, on the 23rd of August 1744. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Eton and St John’s College, Cambridge. Stimulated by George Whitefield’s example, he scandalized the university authorities and his own friends by preaching and visiting the sick before he had taken orders. In 1773 he was appointed to the parish of Kingston, Somersetshire, where he soon attracted great crowds to his open-air services. Having inherited considerable property, he built for his own use Surrey Chapel, in the Blackfriars Road, London (1783). Hill conducted his services in accordance with the forms of the Church of England, in whose communion he always remained. Both at Surrey Chapel and in his provincial “gospel tours” he had great success. His oratory was specially adapted for rude and uncultivated audiences. He possessed a voice of great power, and according to Southey “his manner” was “that of a performer as great in his own line as Kean or Kemble.” His earnest and pure purposes more than made up for his occasional lapses from good taste and the eccentricity of his wit. He helped to found the Religious Tract Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the London Missionary Society, and was a stout advocate of vaccination. His best-known work is theVillage Dialogues, which first appeared in 1810, and reached a 34th edition in 1839. He died on the 11th of April 1833.

SeeLifeby E. Sidney (1833);Memoirs, by William Jones (1834); andMemorials, by Jas. Sherman (1857).

HILL, SIR ROWLAND(1795-1879), English administrator, author of the penny postal system, a younger brother of Matthew Davenport Hill, and third son of T. W. Hill, who named him after Rowland Hill the preacher, was born on the 3rd of December 1795 at Kidderminster. As a young child he had, on account of an affection of the spine, to maintain a recumbent position, and his principal method of relieving the irksomeness of his situation was to repeat figures aloud consecutively until he had reached very high totals. A similar bent of mind was manifested when he entered school in 1802, his aptitude for mathematicsbeing quite exceptional. But he was indebted for the direction of his abilities in no small degree to the guidance of his father, a man of advanced political and social views, which were qualified and balanced by the strong practical tendency of his mind. At the age of twelve Rowland began to assist in teaching mathematics in his father’s school at Hilltop, Birmingham, and latterly he had the chief management of the school. On his suggestion the establishment was removed in 1819 to Hazelwood, a more commodious building in the Hagley Road, in order to have the advantages of a large body of boys, for the purpose of properly carrying out an improved system of education. That system, which was devised principally by Rowland, was expounded in a pamphlet entitledPlans for the Government and Education of Boys in Large Numbers, the first edition of which appeared in 1822, and a second with additions in 1827. The principal feature of the system was “to leave as much as possible all power in the hands of the boys themselves”; and it was so successful that, in a circular issued six years after the experiment had been in operation, it was announced that “the head master had never once exercised his right of veto on their proceedings.” It may be said that Rowland Hill, as an educationist, is entitled to a place side by side with Arnold of Rugby, and was equally successful with him in making moral influence of the highest kind the predominant power in school discipline. After his marriage in 1827 Hill removed to a new school at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, which he conducted until failing health compelled him to retire in 1833. About this time he became secretary of Gibbon Wakefield’s scheme for colonizing South Australia, the objects of which he explained in 1832 in a pamphlet onHome Colonies, afterwards partly reprinted during the Irish famine under the titleHome Colonies for Ireland. It was in 1835 that his zeal as an administrative reformer was first directed to the postal system. The discovery which resulted from these investigations is when stated so easy of comprehension that there is great danger of losing sight of its originality and thoroughness. A fact which enhances its merit was that he was not a post-office official, and possessed no practical experience of the details of the old system. After a laborious collection of statistics he succeeded in demonstrating that the principal expense of letter carriage was in receiving and distributing, and that the cost of conveyance differed so little with the distance that a uniform rate of postage was in reality the fairest to all parties that could be adopted. Trusting also that the deficiency in the postal rate would be made up by the immense increase of correspondence, and by the saving which would be obtained from prepayment, from improved methods of keeping accounts, and from lessening the expense of distribution, he in his famous pamphlet published in 1837 recommended that within the United Kingdom the rate for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight should be only one penny. The employment of postage stamps is mentioned only as a suggestion, and in the following words: “Perhaps the difficulties might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash which by applying a little moisture might be attached to the back of the letter.” Proposals so striking and novel in regard to a subject in which every one had a personal interest commanded immediate and general attention. So great became the pressure of public opinion against the opposition offered to the measure by official prepossessions and prejudices that in 1838 the House of Commons appointed a committee to examine the subject. The committee having reported favourably, a bill to carry out Hill’s recommendations was brought in by the government. The act received the royal assent in 1839, and after an intermediate rate of four-pence had been in operation from the 5th of December of that year, the penny rate commenced on the 10th of January 1840. Hill received an appointment in the Treasury in order to superintend the introduction of his reforms, but he was compelled to retire when the Liberal government resigned office in 1841. In consideration of the loss he thus sustained, and to mark the public appreciation of his services, he was in 1846 presented with the sum of £13,360. On the Liberals returning to office in the same year he was appointed secretary to the postmaster-general and in 1854 he was made chief secretary. His ability as a practical administrator enabled him to supplement his original discovery by measures realizing its benefits in a degree commensurate with continually improving facilities of communication, and in a manner best combining cheapness with efficiency. In 1860 his services were rewarded with the honour of knighthood; and when failing health compelled him to resign his office in 1864, he received from parliament a grant of £20,000 and was also allowed to retain his full salary of £2000 a year as retiring pension. In 1864 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L., and on the 6th of June 1879 he was presented with the freedom of the city of London. The presentation, on account of his infirm health, took place at his residence at Hampstead, and he died on the 27th of August following. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

He wrote, in conjunction with his brother, Arthur Hill, aHistory of Penny Postage, published in 1880, with an introductory memoir by his nephew, G. Birkbeck Hill. See alsoSir Rowland Hill, the Story of a Great Reform, told by his daughter (1907). To commemorate his memory the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund was founded shortly after his death for the purpose of relieving distressed persons connected with the post office who were outside the scope of the Superannuation Act. See alsoPost and Postal Service.

HILL, ROWLAND HILL,1st Viscount(1772-1842), British general, was the second son of (Sir) John Hill, of Hawkstone, Shropshire, and nephew of the Rev. Rowland Hill (1744-1833), was born at Prees Hall near Hawkstone on the 11th of August 1772. He was gazetted to the 38th regiment in 1790, obtaining permission at the same time to study in a military academy at Strassburg, where he continued after removing into the 53rd regiment with the rank of lieutenant in 1791. In the beginning of 1793 he raised a company, and was promoted to the rank of captain. The same year he acted as assistant secretary to the British minister at Genoa, and served with distinction as a staff officer in the siege of Toulon. Hill took part in many minor expeditions in the following years. In 1800, when only twenty-eight, he was made a brevet colonel, and in 1801 he served with distinction in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s expedition to Egypt, and was wounded at the battle of Alexandria. He continued to command his regiment, the 90th, until 1803, when he became a brigadier-general. During his regimental command he introduced a regimental school and a sergeants’ mess. He held various commands as brigadier, and after 1805 as major-general, in Ireland. In 1805 he commanded a brigade in the abortive Hanover expedition. In 1808 he was appointed to a brigade in the force sent to Portugal, and from Vimeira to Vittoria, in advance or retreat, he proved himself Wellington’s ablest and most indefatigable coadjutor. He led a brigade at Vimeira, at Corunna and at Oporto, and a division at Talavera (seePeninsular War). His capacity for independent command was fully demonstrated in the campaigns of 1810, 1811 and 1812. In 1811 he annihilated a French detachment under Girard at Arroyo-dos-Molinos, and early in 1812, having now attained a rank of lieutenant-general (January 1812) and become a K.B. (March), he carried by assault the important works of Almaraz on the Tagus. Hill led the right wing of Wellington’s army in the Salamanca campaign in 1812 and at the battle of Vittoria in 1813. Later in this year he conducted the investment of Pampeluna and fought with the greatest distinction at the Nivelle and the Nive. In the invasion of France in 1814 his corps was victoriously engaged both at Orthez and at Toulouse. Hill was one of the general officers rewarded for their services by peerages, his title being at first Baron Hill of Almaraz and Hawkstone, and he received a pension, the thanks of parliament and the freedom of the city of London. For about two years previous to his elevation to the peerage, he had been M.P. for Shrewsbury. In 1815 the news of Napoleon’s return from Elba was followed by the assembly of an Anglo-Allied army (seeWaterloo Campaign) in the Netherlands, and Hill was appointed to one of the two corps commands in this army. At Waterloo he led the famous charge of Sir Frederick Adams’s brigade against the Imperial Guard, and for some time it was thought that hehad fallen in the mêlée. He escaped, however, without a wound, and continued with the army in France until its withdrawal in 1818. Hill lived in retirement for some years at his estate of Hardwicke Grange. He carried the royal standard at the coronation of George IV. and became general in 1825. When Wellington became premier in 1828, he received the appointment of general commanding-in-chief, and on resigning this office in 1842 he was created a viscount. He died on the 10th of December of the same year. Lord Hill was, next to Wellington, the most popular and able soldier of his time in the British service, and was so much beloved by the troops, especially those under his immediate command, that he gained from them the title of “the soldier’s friend.” He was a G.C.B, and G.C.H., and held the grand crosses of various foreign orders, amongst them the Russian St George and the Austrian Maria Theresa.

TheLife of Lord Hill, G.C.B., by Rev. Edwin Sidney, appeared in 1845.

HILL(O. Eng.hyll; cf. Low Ger.hull, Mid. Dutchhul, allied to Lat.celsus, high,collis, hill, &c.), a natural elevation of the earth’s surface. The term is now usually confined to elevations lower than a mountain, but formerly was used for all such elevations, high or low.

HILLAH,a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the pashalik of Bagdad, 60 m. S. of the city of Bagdad, in 32° 2′ 35″ N., 44° 48′ 40½″ E., formerly the capital of a sanjak and the residence of a mutasserif, who in 1893 was transferred to Diwanieh. It is situated on both banks of the Euphrates, the two parts of the town being connected by a floating bridge, 450 ft. in length, in the midst of a very fertile district. The estimated population, which includes a large number of Jews, varies from 6000 to 12,000. The town has suffered much from the periodical breaking of the Hindieh dam and the consequent deflection of the waters of the Euphrates to the westward, as a result of which at times the Euphrates at this point has been entirely dry. This deflection of water has also seriously interfered with the palm groves, the cultivation of which constitutes a large part of the industry of the surrounding country along the river. The bazaars of Hillah are relatively large and well supplied. Many of the houses in the town are built of brick, not a few bearing an inscription of Nebuchadrezzar, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, which lie less than an hour away to the north.

Bibliography.—C. J. Rich,Babylon and Persepolis(1839); J. R. Peters,Nippur(1857); H. Rassam,Asshur and the Land of Nimrod(1897); H. V. Geere,By Nile and Euphrates(1904).

(J. P. Pe.)

HILLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN(1808-1879), American lawyer and author, was born at Machias, Maine, on the 22nd of September 1808. After graduating at Harvard College in 1828, he taught in the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts. He graduated at the Harvard Law School in 1832, and in 1833 he was admitted to the bar in Boston, where he entered into partnership with Charles Sumner. He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1836, of the state Senate in 1850, and of the state constitutional convention of 1853, and in 1866-70 was United States district attorney for Massachusetts. He devoted a large portion of his time to literature. He became a member of the editorial staff of theChristian Register, a Unitarian weekly, in 1833; in 1834 he became editor of TheAmerican Jurist(1829-1843), a legal journal to which Sumner, Simon Greenleaf and Theron Metcalf contributed; and from 1856 to 1861 he was an associate editor of the BostonCourier. His publications include an edition of Edmund Spenser’s works (in 5 vols., 1839);Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor(1856);Six Months in Italy(2 vols., 1853);Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan(1864); a part of theLife, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor(1876); besides a series of school readers and many articles in periodicals and encyclopaedias. He died in Boston on the 21st of January 1879.

HILLEBRAND, KARL(1829-1884), German author, was born at Giessen on the 17th of September 1829, his father Joseph Hillebrand (1788-1871) being a literary historian and writer on philosophic subjects. Karl Hillebrand became involved, as a student in Heidelberg, in the Baden revolutionary movement, and was imprisoned in Rastatt. He succeeded in escaping and lived for a time in Strassburg, Paris—where for several months he was Heine’s secretary—and Bordeaux. He continued his studies, and after obtaining the doctor’s degree at the Sorbonne, he was appointed teacher of German in theÉcole militaireat St Cyr, and shortly afterwards, professor of foreign literatures at Douai. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War he resigned his professorship and acted for a time as correspondent toThe Timesin Italy. He then settled in Florence, where he died on the 19th of October 1884. Hillebrand wrote with facility and elegance in French, English and Italian, besides his own language. His essays, collected under the titleZeiten, Völker und Menschen(Berlin, 1874-1885), show clear discernment, a finely balanced cosmopolitan judgment and grace of style. He undertook to write theGeschichte Frankreichs von der Thronbesteigung Ludwig Philipps bis zum Fall Napoleons III., but only two volumes were completed (to 1848) (2nd ed., 1881-1882). In French he publishedDes conditions de la bonne comédie(1863),La Prusse contemporaine(1867),Études italiennes(1868), and a translation of O. Müller’sGriechische Literaturgeschichte(3rd ed., 1883). In English he published his Royal Institution Lectures onGerman Thought during the Last Two Hundred Years(1880). He also edited a collection of essays dealing with Italy, under the titleItalia(4 vols., Leipzig, 1824-1877).

See H. Homberger,Karl Hillebrand(Berlin, 1884).

HILLEL,Jewish rabbi, of Babylonian origin, lived at Jerusalem in the time of King Herod. Though hard pressed by poverty, he applied himself to study in the schools of Shemaiah and Abtalion (Sameas and Pollion in Josephus). On account of his comprehensive learning and his rare qualities he was numbered among the recognized leaders of the Pharisaic scribes. Tradition assigns him the highest dignity of the Sanhedrin, under the title of nasi (“prince”), about a hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem,i.e.about 30B.C.The date at least can be recognized as historic; the fact that Hillel took a leading position in the council can also be established. The epithetha-zaḳen(“the elder”), which usually accompanies his name, proves him to have been a member of the Sanhedrin, and according to a trustworthy authority Hillel filled his leading position for forty years, dying, therefore, aboutA.D.10. His descendants remained, with few exceptions, at the head of Judaism in Palestine until the beginning of the 5th century, two of them, his grandson Gamaliel I. and the latter’s son Simon, during the time when the Temple was still standing. The fact that Josephus (Vita38) ascribes to Simon descent from a very distinguished stock (γένους σφόδρα λαμπροῦ), shows in what degree of estimation Hillel’s descendants stood. When the dignity ofnasibecame afterwards hereditary among them, Hillel’s ancestry, perhaps on the ground of old family traditions, was traced back to David. Hillel is especially noted for the fact that he gave a definite form to the Jewish traditional learning, as it had been developed and made into the ruling and conserving factor of Judaism in the latter days of the second Temple, and particularly in the centuries following the destruction of the Temple. He laid down seven rules for the interpretation of the Scriptures, and these became the foundation of rabbinical hermeneutics; and the ordering of the traditional doctrines into a whole, effected in the Mishna by his successor Judah I., two hundred years after Hillel’s death, was probably likewise due to his instigation. The tendency of his theory and practice in matters pertaining to the Law is evidenced by the fact that in general he advanced milder and more lenient views in opposition to his colleague Shammai, a contrast which after the death of the two masters, but not until after the destruction of the Temple, was maintained in the strife kept up between the two schools named the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. The well-known institution of the Prosbol (προσβολή), introduced by Hillel, was intended to avert the evil consequences of the scriptural law of release in the seventh year (Deut. xv. 1). He was led to this, as is expressly set forth (M. Giṭṭin, iv. 3), by a regard for the welfare of the community. Hillel lived in thememory of posterity chiefly as the great teacher who enjoined and practised the virtues of charity, humility and true piety. His proverbial sayings, in particular, a great number of which were written down partly in Aramaic, partly in Hebrew, strongly affected the spirit both of his contemporaries and of the succeeding generations. In his Maxims (Aboth,i. 12) he recommends the love of peace and the love of mankind beyond all else, and his own love of peace sprang from the tenderness and deep humility which were essential features in his character, as has been illustrated by many anecdotes. Hillel’s patience has become proverbial. One of his sayings commends humility in the following paradox: “My abasement is my exaltation.” His charity towards men is given its finest expression in the answer which he made to a proselyte who asked to be taught the commandments of the Torah in the shortest possible form: “What is unpleasant to thyself that do not to thy neighbour; this is the whole Law, all else is but its exposition.” This allusion to the scriptural injunction to love one’s neighbour (Lev. xix. 18) as the fundamental law of religious morals, became in a certain sense a commonplace of Pharisaic scholasticism. For the Pharisee who accepts the answer of Jesus regarding that fundamental doctrine which ranks the love of one’s neighbour as the highest duty after the love of God (Mark xii. 33), does so because as a disciple of Hillel the idea is familiar to him. St Paul also (Gal. v. 14) doubtless learned this in the school of Gamaliel. Hillel emphasized the connexion between duty towards one’s neighbour and duty towards oneself in the epigrammatic saying: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am for myself alone, what then am I? And if not now, then when?” (Aboth, i. 14). The duty of working both with and for men he teaches in the sentence: “Separate not thyself from the congregation” (ib.ii. 4). The duty of considering oneself part ofcommonhumanity, of not differing from others by any peculiarity of behaviour, he sums up in the words: “Appear neither naked nor clothed, neither sitting nor standing, neither laughing nor weeping” (Tosef. Ber.c. ii.). The command to love one’s neighbour inspired also Hillel’s injunction (Aboth, ii. 4): “Judge not thy neighbour until thou art in his place” (cf. Matt. vii. 1). The disinterested pursuit of learning, study for study’s sake, is commended in many of Hillel’s sayings as being what is best in life: “He who wishes to make a name for himself loses his name; he who does not increase [his knowledge] decreases it; he who does not learn is worthy of death; he who works for the sake of a crown is lost” (Aboth, i. 13). “He who occupies himself much with learning makes his life” (ib.ii. 7). “He who has acquired the words of doctrine has acquired the life of the world to come” (ib.). “Say not: When I am free from other occupations I shall study; for may be thou shalt never at all be free” (ib.4). One of his strings of proverbs runs as follows: “The uncultivated man is not innocent; the ignorant man is not devout; the bashful man learns not; the wrathful man teaches not; he who is much absorbed in trade cannot become wise; where no men are, there strive thyself to be a man” (ib.5). The almost mystical profundity of Hillel’sconsciousnessof God is shown in the words spoken by him on the occasion of a feast in the Temple—words alluding to the throng of people gathered there which he puts into the mouth of God Himself: “If I am here every one is here; if I am not here no one is here” (Sukkah53a). In like manner Hillel makes God say to Israel, referring to Exodus xx. 24: “Whither I please, thither will I go; if thou come into my house I come into thy house; if thou come not into my house, I come not into thine” (ib.).

It is noteworthy that no miraculous legends are connected with Hillel’s life. A scholastic tradition, however, tells of a voice from heaven which made itself heard when the wise men had assembled in Jericho, saying: “Among those here present is one who would have deserved the Holy Spirit to rest upon him, if his time had been worthy of it.” And all eyes turned towards Hillel (Tos. Soṭah, xiii. 3). When he died lamentation was made for him as follows: “Woe for the humble, woe for the pious, woe for the disciple of Ezra!” (ib.)

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