Volume 1

HIS FATHER.
had had too heavy a burthen of care thrown on her when
she was still a child, and her health broke down almost
before she had reached middle life. She died when
her daughter Sarah, Rowland Hill's mother, was but
fifteen. The young girl
had for some years, during
her mother's long illness, taken upon herself the chief
part of all the household duties. At the same time she
had been a most devoted nurse. For most of her life
she was troubled with wakefulness. She had, she said,"
formed the habit when she was a mere child, and used to
lie awake in the night fearing that her sick mother might
require her services. She had a brother not unworthy
of her. He settled in Haddington, where the name of
When the cholera
Bailie Lea was long held in respect.
visited that town in 1832 he was found "fearlessly assist-
all
ing who stood in want of aid."
In the houses on both
sides of him the dreadful disorder raged, and at length
his own servant was struck down. The old man showed
no signs of fear,
but bore himself as became the grand-
her devotion
son of the woman who had lost her life
by
to the public good when the fever raged in Birmingham.
In the short account that I
of Row-
have thus given
land Hill's kindred, there is seen much of that strong
sense of duty, that integrity, that courage, and that
persistency which in so high a degree distinguished him
even from his very childhood. There are but few signs
shown, however, of that boldness of thought and fertility
of mind which were no less his mark. These he inherited
from his father. Thomas Wright Hill was, indeed,
as his son said of him, a man of a very unusual
character. I have never come across his like, either
in the world of men or books. He had a simplicity
which would have made him shine even in the pages of
Goldsmith. He had an inventiveness, and a disregard
for everything that was conventional, that would have