HILDRETH, Richard (1807–1865), an American journalist and author, was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, June 28, 1807. He was educated at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1826; and after studying law at Newburyport, he was called to the Boston bar in 18390, Ile had, however, already conceived a predilection for literature, and in 1832 he became joint founder and editor of a daily newspaper, Zhe Boston Atlas. Waving in 1834 gone to the south for the benefit of his health, he was led by what he witnessed of the evils of slavery to write the anti-slavery novel Archy Moore, which, chiefly on account of its subject, met with considerable success in America and England. <An enlarged edition of it appeared in 1852 under the title of the White Slave. In 1837 he wrote Bunks, Banking, and Paper Currency, a work which had some influence in fostering the growth of the free banking system in America. In 1838 he resumed his editorial duties on the At/as, but in 1840 he found it necessary on account of his health to remove to British Guiana, where he was editor of two weekly newspapers in succession at Georgetown. He published in the same year Despotism tw Americt, and he also mide the columns of his newspapers the medium for the dissemination of anti- slavery opinions. In 18{£9 he published the first three volumes of a Llistory of the United States, a work which, if its narrative is rather bald and tame, is characterized by perfect fairness and candoutr, and displays great industry and cars in th2 representation of facts. Other three volumes, completing the work, appeared in 1855. His Japan as tt was and is is & valuable digest of the informa- tion contained in other works on that country. Ie also wrote Theory of Morals (i844), and Theory of Politics (1853), as well as Lives of Atrocious Judyes, compiled from Lord Campbell’s two works. For some time Hildreth was on the editorial staff of the Vew York Tribune, and he was also a frequent contributor to periodicals. In 1861 he was appointed United States consul at Trieste, but ill health compelled him to resign his office aud remove to Florence, where he died July 11, 1865.
HILL, Aaron (1685–1749 or 1750), an English poet and miscellaneous writer, was born in London, 10th February 1685. Though left by his father in necessitous circumstances, he was educated first at Barnstaple and then till his fourteenth year at Westminster School, after which he went out to Constantinople, where Lord Paget, a rela- tive of his mother, was British ambassador. Under the care of a tutor h2 then travelled through Palestine, Egypt, and a great part of the Kast, returning to England about 1703. Having subsequently quarrelled with his patron, he again went abroad as travelling companion tu a Yorkshire baronet. On returning home he published in 1709 his History of the Ottoman Empire, which, according to his own admission, had far more success than it deserved. About the sam2 time appeared his poem of Camillus, in honour of the famous Charles Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough ; and in the same year he was made manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and afterwards of the Haymarket. Both those offices he soon after Jost through his indiscretion, and the remainder of his life was spent partly in literary pursuits and partly in commercial speculations, which were all unlucky. One of these schemes called him to the Highlands of Scotland, and while there he wrote The Progress of Wit, being a Caveat for the use of an eminent Writer. The “eminent writer” was Pope, who had introduced Hill into the Dunciad, though in a way that was in fact complimentary. Hill died in 1749 or 1750, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Two only of his seventeen dramas are now remembered, Zara and Merope, both adaptations from the French of Voltaire. His poetry is stilted and commonplace, and even the Progress of Wit never rises above a flippant smartness. Though a poor and tasteless poet, and afflicted with an overwhelming sense of his own importance, Hill was an honourable man, and his letters to Savage, on whom he con- ferred many benefits, show his character in a very amiable light. The Jftscellaneous Works of Hill were published in 1753 in 4 vols. 8vo, and his Dramatic Works, to which a Life was prefixed, appeared in 1759 in 2 vols. 8vo.
HILL, Matthew Davenport (1792–1872), was born August 6, 1792, at Birmingham, where his father, T. W. Hill, was at that time assistant in a charity school. He made such rapid progress in his education that in his thirteenth year he rendered his father efficient assistance in conducting a private school in Birmingham, and in his seventeenth year became the principal teacher. Tesolving, however, to adopt the legal profession, he in 1814, while still continuing his scholastic duties, became a student of Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1816 began to devote his uninter- rupted attention to legal studies. Ile was called to the bar in 1819, and went upon the Midland circuit, where his ability was soon generally recognized, although for various reasons his acquisition of a profitable practice was not so rapid. 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 in the course of his profes- sional duties had his interest excited in questions relating to the treatment of criminal offenders, he in his charges to the grand jurizs, as well as in special pamphlets, ventilated opinions which have been 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, whose Amount, Causes, and Remedies of Crime, the result of his experience as in- spector of prisons for Scotland, may be said to mark 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 the Lenny Magazine. He died 7th June 1872.
His principal works are Practical Suggestions to the Founders of Iteformatory Schools, 1855; Suggestions for the Repression of Crime, 1857, consisting of charges addressed to the grand juries of Bir- mingham; Aettray, 1855; Papers on the Penal. Scrritude Aets, 1864; Journal of a Third Visit to the Convict Gaols, Refuges, and Leformatorics of Dublin, 1865; Addresses delivercd at the Birming- ham and Midland Institute, 1867. See Menoir of Matthew Davenport Hill, by his daughters Rosamond and Florence Daven- port Ifill, 1878.
