Hill wrote reams of rhymes, but few of them are poetry and fewer have any power of entertaining. In 1728 he travelled in Scotland, and there--it is an experience not unmatched nowadays--he encountered, while staying at an inn in the Highlands, bad weather. Happily, not all who are weatherbound in those latitudes scrawl their thoughts on windows, or poetic congestion must long since have ensued. At that inn--_what_ inn or _where_ we are not told, he accomplished his one excellent epigram, his solitary perfect quatrain: Scotland! thy weather’s like a modish wife; Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife; So Termagant a while her thunder tries, And when she can no longer scold--she cries. Other specimens of his quality do not exhibit the inspiration of those lines, and indeed he is found to be too concerned with moral analogies to please greatly, even in the best of them. Thus: Where’er the diamond’s busy point could pass, See! what deep wounds have pierced the middle glass! While partial and untouching, all the rest, Highest and lowest panes, shine, unimpressed: No wonder, this!--for, e’en in life, ’tis so; High fortunes stand, unreached--unseen the low, But middle states are marks for every blow. And again: Whig and Tory scratch and bite, Just as hungry dogs we see: Toss a bone ’twixt two, they fight, Throw a couple, they agree. There is some just observation in that last, although how you are to give a bone apiece, and at the same time, to Whig and Tory, would, as I conceive the situation, be a difficult, not to say an impossible, matter in our scheme of politics. When a Government comes into power, be it Whig or Tory, or any other fancy label you please, it takes _all_ the bones, and the other dog merely does the growling, until the times do alter. With two more specimens we practically exhaust Hill’s well of fancy: Tender-handed, stroke a nettle, And it stings you, for your pains: Grasp it, like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. ’Tis the same with common natures, Use ’em kindly, they rebel: But be rough on Nutmeg-graters, And the rogues obey you well. * * * * * Here, in wet and windy weather, Muse and I, two mopes together, Far from friends and short of pleasure, Wanting everything but leisure: Scarce content, in any one sense, Tell the showers, and scribble nonsense. How true that last admission! INDEX Adelphi Hotel, Adelphi, i. 212, 264 Ale-stakes, i. 14-17 Anchor, Ripley, ii. 212, 242 Angel, Basingstoke, ii. 279 -- Bury St. Edmunds, i. 238 -- Colchester, i. 90 -- Ferrybridge, ii. 81 -- Grantham, i. 118-123 -- Guildford, ii. 57 -- Islington, i. 119 -- Stilton, ii. 48 Ass-in-the-Bandbox, Nidd, ii. 203 Barge Aground, Brentford, ii. 203 -- Stratford High Road, ii. 203 Battle, Pilgrims’ Hostel at, i. 97 Bay Tree Tavern, St. Swithin’s Lane, ii. 290