Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hill, Nicholas
HILL, NICHOLAS (1570?–1610), philosopher, born in London about 1570, entered Merchant Taylors' School about 1578, and in 1587 was elected scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated 21 July 1587, when he was aged 17. He graduated B.A. 27 May 1592, and became fellow of his college. He was for some time secretary to Edward de Vere, ‘the poetical and prodigal earl of Oxford’ (Wood), and afterwards lived under the patronage of Henry, earl of Northumberland, and shared in his philosophic studies. Wood mentions a gossiping story to the effect that he was concerned in a plot against James I, and being obliged to flee the country, settled at Rotterdam, where, through grief at the death of his son Laurence, he poisoned himself about 1610. His death abroad seems well established, although Wood dismisses the story of its cause with the remark, ‘I shall only say that our Author Hill was a person of good parts, but humorous; that he had a peculiar and affected way, different from others in his writings, that he entertained fantastical notions in his philosophy, and that as he had lived most of his time in the Romish persuasion, so he died, but cannot be convinced that he should die the death of a fool or a madman.’ He left in the hands of his widow many papers upon the essence of God, the eternity and infinity of matter, and the like. Copies of these essays appear to have been made by several hands, but his only printed work was a treatise on philosophy, dedicated to his son Laurence, and entitled ‘Philosophia Epicurea, Democritiana, Theophrastica, proposita simpliciter non edocta,’ Paris, 1601, 8vo; another edition, Geneva, 1619, 12mo. Ben Jonson mentions Hill in his ‘Epigrams’ (No. 134) thus:
… those Atomi ridiculous,
Whereof old Democrite and Hill Nicholis,
One said, the other swore, the world consists.
[Wilson's Hist. of Merchant Taylors' School; Oxf. Univ. Reg. II. ii. 160, iii. 171 (Oxford Hist. Soc.); Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 86.]