favourite place of worship, of which he continued minister during the long period of fifty years. But it was only during the winter and spring of each year that he officiated in London; the rest of the year he spent in the provinces, and more than once he extended his preaching peregrinations to Scotland and Ireland, drawing immense crowds of listeners wherever he went. He was one of the honoured founders of the Bible Society, the Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society. He was also one of the earliest and most effective promoters of Sunday schools, and a powerful advocate of Dr. Jenner's new method of inoculation. In 1806 he published a tract entitled "Cowpock inoculation vindicated and recommended from matters of fact," and for some time wherever he went to preach, he offered also to the poor his services as a vaccine inoculator. One of the most effective vaccine boards in London was established at Surrey chapel; and between town and country he is said to have inoculated no less than forty thousand persons. The Sunday school attached to the same chapel was the first institution of the kind established in London, and many received lessons there who became useful christian ministers and missionaries. His preaching was in a style peculiarly his own. Dr. Milner, dean of Carlisle, exclaimed, just after hearing him on one occasion, "Say what they will, it is this slap-dash preaching that does all the good!" Southey heard him in 1823, when he was seventy-nine years old, and after speaking of his animation, and his powerful voice, he adds, "The manner was that of a performer as great in his line as Kean or Kemble." His disposition for drollery was so strong that he was often unable to restrain it in the pulpit; although many of the anecdotes which are told of his eccentricities are without foundation. The great secret of the amazing success of his preaching was perhaps, as one of his biographers remarks, its being all nature. It savoured nothing of art, nothing of the schools, hardly anything of the study. He died April 11, 1833, and was buried under his own pulpit at Surrey chapel.—P. L.
HILL, Rowland, Viscount, a distinguished English general, second son of Sir John Hill of Hawkstone, Shropshire, and a nephew of the celebrated preacher his namesake, was born in the vicinity of Hawkstone on the 11th August, 1772. His early education was chiefly a private one, and during childhood and boyhood he was noted for a keen sensibility, and a fondness for quiet rustic pursuits, while a delicacy of physical constitution was the source of much anxiety to his friends. In spite of all this, when the time came for the choice of a profession, the career of arms was that selected by himself. Entering the army as an ensign in the 36th, and after various changes of scene, he proceeded in 1793 to Toulon, then in possession of the English, and acted as aid-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave, General O'Hara, and Sir David Dundas, successively. The bravery and skill which he displayed during that famous siege were admired by Mr. Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, among others; and early in 1794 he offered young Hill a majority on raising a certain quota of men. This was done; and when the 90th was increased to its full strength he became Lieutenant-colonel Hill. On the 1st of January, 1800, he was appointed full colonel, and was despatched with his regiment to do active service in the operations in Egypt conducted by Sir Ralph Abercromby. In the first engagement after the landing of the English forces (13th March, 1801), Hill highly distinguished himself, and was severely wounded and disabled. On his return home he was sent to Ireland, where he was appointed a brigadier-general on the staff. He commanded the force sent to the Weser at the close of 1805. In 1808 he was ordered to join Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal. At Rolica Major-general Hill and brigade did most effective service actively, and at Vimiera as a reserve. After Corunna it was Hill who protected the embarkation of the troops. Returning to England, he was made colonel of the third garrison battalion; and in the February of 1809 was appointed to the command of the regiments sent from Cork to the peninsula. Commanding the third division of infantry, he rendered the most signal service at the passage of the Douro, and shortly afterwards at Talavera. He now received the colonelcy of the 94th, and was complimented by Mr. Perceval in the house of commons. In 1810 Wellington became marshal-general of Portugal, and, dividing his army into two corps, reserved one for himself, and gave the command of the other to Hill. At Busaco he covered Wellington's right. For the brilliant surprise of a French corps at Arroyo de Molinos he received the order of the bath; and the battle of Almarez—a victory entirely his own—afterwards contributed to the title of his peerage. He commanded the right wing at Vittoria; and, doing his duty conspicuously and daringly in the closing conflicts of the war at the passage of the Nive, at Orthez, and Toulouse, he was one of the five of Wellington's generals who were rewarded by elevation to the peerage, taking his seat in the house of lords on the 1st of June, 1814, as Baron Hill of Almarez and Hawkstone After Napoleon's escape from Elba, Lord Hill was stationed at Grammont, where he kept up communications with the duke of Wellington at Brussels. On the morning of the day of Waterloo, Lord Hill's corps was on the slope of Merke-Braine, to the right of the Nivelle road, covering the right wing of the general line; later in the day it advanced and contributed to the victory of the British. As the whole army moved to the left. Lord Hill's division came up, and was engaged in the thickest of the fight. At the head of a brigade he aided in the final repulse of the French, charging the flank of the imperial guard as they advanced. In the mélee his horse was shot under him, and he narrowly escaped with life. After the peace of 1815, Lord Hill withdrew to the country, from which he was not allured by the offer in 1827 of the chief command in India. When however, in 1828, the duke of Wellington, on becoming premier, resigned the command-in-chief of the army. Lord Hill consented at the duke's invitation to become, not commander-in-chief, but general-commanding-in-chief—a distinction with a difference. Under successive ministries Lord Hill presided at the horse guards until the August of 1842, when failing health compelled him to offer his resignation, and her majesty, in recognition of his long and faithful services, raised him to the rank of viscount. He died at his seat of Hardwicke Grange, Shropshire, on the 10th December, 1842. A well-written life of him was published in 1845 by the Rev. Edwin Sidney, the biographer of his uncle the preacher.—F. E.
* HILL, Sir Rowland, K.C.B., founder of the system of penny postage, was born at Kidderminster in the December of 1795. He was the third son of Mr. Thomas Weight Hill, and with his brothers (see Hill, Matthew Davenport) assisted his father in the duties of their educational establishment at Birmingham. On the removal of the school to Bruce castle, Tottenham, Rowland Hill continued his connection with it until 1833, when ill health forced him to retire. His educational "speciality" had been mathematics; and from an early age he had been distinguished for his skill in the manipulation of figures, and his fondness for developing projects of practical invention. It was in 1832, the last year of his connection with the establishment at Bruce castle, that he published his first pamphlet of note, entitled "Home Colonies; sketch of a plan for the gradual extinction of pauperism, and for the diminution of crime." In it was broached the scheme, often resuscitated since, for the settlement of able-bodied paupers on waste lands, by the cultivation of which the expense of their support would be saved to the state; and the theory was supported by references to the success of a similar experiment in the case of the paupers of Holland and Belgium. After his withdrawal from Bruce castle, Rowland Hill was appointed secretary of the South Australian commission, and aided in founding the colony of South Australia. It was in 1837 that he first developed those fruitful views of postal and post-office reform, which he had been forming for some time. Early that year he printed for private circulation his celebrated pamphlet, "Post-office Reform, its importance and practicability," and after gathering opinions and suggestions, he gave it to the public. That something was wrong in our postal system was evident from the fact, clearly brought out by Rowland Hill, that in spite of greatly increased population, wealth, commercial activity and education, the net revenue obtained from the post-office was actually less in 1835 than it had been in 1815. The reforms proposed in the pamphlet included in their results increased speed in the delivery of letters, greater facilities for their despatch, and a simplification of the operations of the post-office. But their chief feature was the establishment of a uniform rate of a penny for each half ounce, whatever might be the distance traversed by the letter. He predicted that by the adoption of his suggestions, not only would enormous advantages be bestowed upon the public, but a net revenue of more than a million sterling would be procured from the post-office, and this prediction has been abundantly verified, although the railway-system has increased fourfold the
