The Hill, like the older home of the family at the Heath, had been distinguished as a centre of intellectual life, of active religious thought, and practical philanthropy. Here Wilberforce and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton discussed their scheme for the suppression of that long-existing blot upon the Christianity and civilization of England, the dreadful slave-trade, and the ever-to-be-honoured Elizabeth Fry found abundant sympathy in her labour of love for the hitherto uncared-for female criminals in Newgate and other prisons. A letter from Lucy Aikin to her niece, November, no date of day or year, but probably in 1826, gives a glimpse of a social evening at Hill House: ‘Yesterday I dined at the S. Hoares’; enjoyed it much. There was no great party, but all were kind and friendly, and we talked of the days of our youth. Mr. Crabbe came in the evening, and we made him tell us of Johnson, whom he had met with Burke at the house of the Reynolds. Then we spoke of modern poets, Burns and Montgomery.’ She calls Mrs. Inchbald a charming writer, and says that Miss Edgeworth has just come to town. In October, 1826, she writes that Hampstead is almost a desert, ‘the Earls away, Mrs. Greaves away, the Misses Baillie not expected till to-morrow.’[163] In Augustus Hare’s ‘Memorials of the Gurneys of Earlham,’ we get another peep of society at Hill House in 1830, in a letter of J. G. Gurney, who there first met Dr. Chalmers: ‘I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Chalmers at Hill House, Hampstead. We walked in the garden ... at dinner an interesting party. Sumner, Bishop of Chester, Dr. Lushington, Buxton (Sir Fowell), and my sister, Elizabeth Fry.[164] In the evening Joanna Baillie joined our party. Next morning my brother Samuel Hoare took Dr. Chalmers and me to Wilberforce’s at Highwood, beyond Hendon (Mill Hill). Our morning passed delightfully; a stream of conversation flowed between ourselves and the ever-lively Wilberforce. I have seldom observed a more amazing contrast than between Chalmers and Wilberforce. Chalmers is stout and erect; Wilberforce minute and singularly twisted. Chalmers, both in body and mind, moves with a deliberate step; Wilberforce flies about with astonishing activity, while his mind flits from object to object with astonishing versatility. Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion; Wilberforce like a bee, and, except when fairly asleep, is never latent.’ These extracts afford an interesting glance at persons and associations connected with the Hoare family and Hill House. Earlier in the century we might have met Hannah More, Young of the ‘Night Thoughts,’ Mrs. Barbauld, and subsequently the banker-poet, Rogers, Coleridge and many more of the fraternity of letters.