James Hill’s wife was the grand-daughter of a medical practitioner at Shrewsbury of the name of Symonds, who had married Miss Millington, the only sister of a wealthy lawyer of that town. An election for the borough came on. The doctor refused to place his vote at the disposal of his rich brother-in-law, the attorney. “The consequence is,” writes Thomas Hill “that Millington’s Hospital now stands a monument of my great-grandfather’s persistence and his brother-in-law’s implacability. Of this privation,” he adds, “my mother used to speak with very good temper. She said the hospital was a valuable charity, and she believed that no descendant of her grandfather’s was the less happy for having missed a share of the fortune bestowed upon the hospital.” Through this lady Rowland Hill was related to the Rev. Joshua Symonds, the friend and correspondent of Howard and Wilberforce.[9] Such were the worthies he could undoubtedly boast of on his father’s side. There is no man among them whom the world would reckon as famous; and yet I remember how proud I felt as a mere child when my father first told me of the “honest juror,” and of the forefather who had lost a fortune by his vote. To such feelings as these Rowland must have been susceptible in a singular degree. The story of his mother’s ancestors is more romantic, but, perhaps, even more affords a just cause for honest pride. Her grandmother’s name was Sarah Simmons. She had been left an orphan at an early age, and was heiress to a considerable fortune. She was brought up by an uncle and aunt, who were severe disciplinarians, even for the time in which they lived. They tried to force her to marry a man for whom she had no liking, and, when she refused, subjected her to close confinement. She escaped from their house in the habit of a countrywoman, with a soldier’s coat thrown over it. In those days, and much later also, poor women in wet weather often wore the coats of men. She set out to walk to Birmingham, a distance of some fifteen miles. On the road she was overtaken by one of her uncle’s servants, mounted on horseback, who asked of her whether she had been passed by a young lady, whose appearance he described. She replied that no such person had passed her, and the man rode away, leaving her rejoicing at the completeness of her disguise. She reached Birmingham, and there supported herself by spinning. To her fortune she never laid claim. At the end of two years she married a working man named Davenport. For thirteen years they lived a happy life, when a fever broke out in the town, and carried off a great number of people. One of her neighbours died among the rest. The alarm was so great that no one was found daring enough to go near the dead man’s house. Mrs. Davenport, fearful that his unburied body might spread the pestilence still more widely through the neighbourhood, herself ordered his coffin, and with her own hands laid him in it. Her devotion cost her her life. In