Aaron Hill, unlike Rowe, was not distinguished as a dramatist, and succeeded only in two or three adaptations from the French. His claims as a poet are also insignificant. He was born in London in 1684, with expectations that were not destined to be realized, but Fortune was not unkind to him. His uncle, Lord Paget, Ambassador at Constantinople, gave the youth a warm welcome, supplied him with a tutor, and sent him to travel in the East. On Lord Paget's return to England, Hill accompanied him, and together they are said to have visited a great part of Europe. Some time later Hill went abroad again, and was absent two or three years. For awhile--it could not have been long--he was secretary to the Earl of Peterborough, and at the age of twenty-six, his good star being still in the ascendant, he married a young lady 'of great merit and beauty, with whom he had a very handsome fortune.' Hill was then appointed manager of Drury Lane, and he wrote a number of plays, the very names of which are now forgotten. Few men indeed so well known in his own day have sunk into such insignificance in ours. He wrote eight books of a long and unfinished epic called _Gideon_, which I suppose no one in the present century has had the hardihood to read; like Young he wrote a poem on _The Judgment Day_, a theme attempted also, shortly before his death, by John Philips, and that, after his kind, he produced a Pindaric ode goes without saying. A long poem called _The Northern Star_, a panegyric on Peter the Great, is said to have passed through several editions. The poem does not prove Hill to be a poet, but it shows his command of the heroic couplet. The style of the poem, which is an indiscriminate panegyric, may be judged from the following lines: 'Transcendent prince! how happy must thou be! What can'st thou look upon unblessed by thee? What inward peace must that calm bosom know, Whence conscious virtue does so strongly flow! * * * * * Such are the kings who make God's image shine, Nor blush to dare assert their right divine! No earth-born bias warps their climbing will, No pride their power, no avarice whets their skill. They poise each hope which bids the wise obey, And shed broad blessings from their widening sway; To raise the afflicted, stretch the healing hand, Drive crushed oppression from each rescued land, Bold in alternate right, or sheath or draw The sword of conquest, or the sword of law; Spare what resists not, what opposes bend, And govern cool, what they with warmth defend.'