Mrs. Hill, my grandmother, was, at the time of which I am now writing, a widow; her maiden name was Bradford. I know nothing more of her father than that he was a Herefordshire man, and must have been of respectable property and connections, as appears by his having married into one of the best families in the county, and sending a son to college. His wife’s name was Mrs. Margaret Croft.—I have it written in gold letters, with the date 1704, in a copy of Nelson’s Festivals and Fasts, which descended as a favourite devotional book to my mother. They had three children; Herbert, so named after the Croft family,—another son (William, I think, by name), who was deaf and dumb, and just lived to grow up,—and my grandmother Margaret.
My grandmother was very handsome: little
Georgiana Hill, my uncle says, reminds him strongly of
her; and I remember her enough to recognise a likeness in the shape of the
face, and in the large, full, clear, bright brown eyes. Her first husband,
Mr. Tyler, was of a good family in Herefordshire,
nearly related I know he was, and nephew, I think, to one of that name who was
Bishop of Hereford. He lived at Pembridge. The seat of the family was at
| 10 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE |
“Ye gods who gave to me a wife Out of your grace and favour, To be the comfort of my life, And I was glad to have her,” |
Edward Hill was the seventh in succession of that name.
His fathers had lived and died respectably and contentedly upon their own lands
in the beautiful vale of Ashton, the place of all others which I remember with
most feeling. You see it from Clifton, on the other side of the river Avon;
Warton has well characterized it in
one of his odes as Ashton’s elmy Vale. The
Hills are called gentlemen upon their tombstones in
Ashton churchyard, where my father, two of my brothers, my three sisters, and
my poor dear cousin Margaret, are deposited with them.
Edward Hill, the seventh, was a lawyer and a widower;
| OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 11 |
William Tyler, the second brother, was a remarkable
person. Owing to some defect in his faculties, so anomalous in its kind that I
never heard of a similar case, he could never be taught to read; the letters he
could tell separately, but was utterly incapable of combining them, and taking
in their meaning by the eye. He could write, and copy in a fair hand any thing
that was set before him, whether in writing or in print; but it was done letter
by letter without understanding a single word. As to self-government he was
entirely incompetent, so much so that I think
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Strange creature as he was, I think of him very often, often speak of him, quote some of his odd apt sayings, and have that sort of feeling for his memory, that he is one of the persons whom I should wish to meet in the world to come.
The man of whom he learnt the use, or rather the abuse, of tobacco, was a sottish servant, as ignorant as a savage of everything which he ought to have known; that is to say of everything which ought to have been taught him. My mother, when a very little girl, reproved him once for swearing. “For shame, Thomas,” she said, “you should not say such
* I have heard my father say, that this proverb was rendered into Greek by Mr. Coleridge.—Ed. |
| OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 13 |
| 14 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE |
Enough of Uncle William for the
present. Edward, the remaining brother of the
Tyler side, was a youth who, if he had been properly
brought up, and brought forward in a manner suitable to his birth and
connections, might have made a figure in life, and have done honour to himself
and his family. He had a fine person, a good understanding, and a sweet temper,
which made him too easily contented with any situation and any company into
which he was thrown. My grandfather has much to answer for on his account.
Except sending him to a common day-school, kept by a very uncommon sort of man,
| OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 15 |
My grandfather would have acquired considerable property, if he had not been cut off by an acute disorder. He had undertaken to recover some disputed rights for the church of which he was a parishioner, at his own risk and expense, on condition of receiving the additional tythes which might be eventually recovered during a certain number of years, or of being remunerated out of them in proportion to the cost and hazard and trouble of the adventure. The points were obstinately contested; but he carried them all, and died almost immediately afterwards, in the year 1765, aged sixty.
