When Rowland Hill, on one of his early visits to London, first saw Guildhall, he wrote in his Journal: “Much to the disgrace of the City of London, the monument of Pitt remains there still.” In some later year he placed opposite the word _disgrace_ a mark of interrogation. Such feelings as these, which had been nursed in the worst days of Tory rule, began to die out with the dawn of happier times. With the passing of the great Reform Bill, all bitterness passed away from him and his brothers. Nay even, into such good heart had they been put by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Roman Catholic Emancipation, and the Battle of Navarino, that, though the King was George IV., yet at a small supper-party at Hazelwood one of them struck up, “The King: God bless him,” and all joined heartily in the refrain. Their enthusiasm was partly due to some spirited political verses composed and recited by Sheridan Knowles, who happened to be one of the guests. “It was not without considerable feeling,” wrote one of the brothers, “that we afterwards learnt that, while this loyal effusion was pouring forth, the poor King was dying.” The removal to the neighbourhood of London at once opened to Rowland Hill a wider world:— “In November, 1826 [he wrote], I assisted in founding the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which, commencing public operation in the following year, took so active and important a part in the creation of cheap literature. Though as a member of the committee[70] I took some share in the duty, I fear, upon reflection, that such aid as I was enabled to give was scarcely equivalent to the benefit which I derived from association with the able and eminent men with whom I was thus brought in contact.” His residence at Bruce Castle he but briefly described in the Prefatory Memoir to “The History of Penny Postage.” It was, to a great extent, the life of a schoolmaster; and that life in the earlier part of the narrative had been set forth at considerable length. The following is the account he gave of these years:—