Many estimates of the character of Hill have been put forward, the first of any authority being that of Johnson[91]:--"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[92], 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 better side of his nature and work. On the other hand the author--a grateful patient--of the short account of the life of Hill[93] went to the other extreme. This account is entirely laudatory, and describes Hill as being little short of a genius surrounded and continually attacked by "envious and malevolent persons" who "did not fail to make use of every engine malevolence could invent, to depreciate the character and the works of a man, whom they saw, with regret, every way so far their superior." Disraeli[94] speaks of Hill as the "Cain of Literature," and, whilst being fully alive to his "egregious egotism" and other defects of character, he appreciates his worth and recognizes that Hill was born fifty years too soon. Also he gives him credit for his moral courage in enduring "with undiminished spirit the most biting satires, the most wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations."