# Aaron Hill (writer)

Aaron Hill (10 February 1685 – 8 February 1750) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer.

## Quotes

* Yours is the guilt of all, who, judging wrong, Mistake tuned nonsense for the poet's song! Provoking dulness!—what a soul has he Who fancies rhyme, and measure, poetry!— He thinks, profanely, that this generous art Stops at the ear—with power to shake the heart.
** Advice to the Poets (1731), p. 32
* O'er Nature's laws, God cast the veil of night, Out blaz'd a Newton's soul — and all was light.
** Preserved in Hill's Works (1753), Vol. IV, p. 92, and mentioned as probably derived from Alexander Pope's "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! — and all was light" in The Epigrammatists: A Selection from the Epigrammatic Literature of Ancient, Mediæval, and Modern Times (1875) by Henry Philip Dodd, p. 329.
* Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.
** As quoted in The Golden Treasury of Thought: A gathering of quotations from the best ancient and modern authors (1873) edited by John Camden Hotten.
* But me no buts.
** Snake in the Grass, sc. 1.
* 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 as nutmeg-graters, And the rogues obey you well.
** Verses Written on a Window in Scotland.

### Zara (1735)

* You talk no more of that gay nation now, Where men adore their wives, and woman's power Draws reverence from a polished people's softness, Their husbands' equals, and their lovers' queens; Free without scandal; wise without restraint; Their virtue due to nature, not to fear.
** Selima, Act I, Sc. 1.
* Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.
** Zara, Act I, Sc. 1.
* Can my fond heart, on such a feeble proof, Embrace a faith, abhorred by him I love? I see too plainly custom forms us all; Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief, Are consequences of our place of birth: Born beyond Ganges, I had been a Pagan; In France, a Christian; I am here a Saracen: 'Tis but instruction, all! Our parents' hand Writes on our heart the first faint characters, Which time, re-tracing, deepens into strength, That nothing can efface, but death or Heaven.
** Zara, Act I, Sc. 1.
* First, then, a woman will or won’t, depend on ’t; If she will do ’t, she will; and there ’s an end on ’t. But if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is, Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice.
** Epilogue (1735). Note: The following lines are copied from the pillar erected on the mount in the Dane John Field, Canterbury:
    Where is the man who has the power and skill To stem the torrent of a woman’s will? For if she will, she will, you may depend on ’t; And if she won’t, she won’t; so there ’s an end on ’t. The Examiner, (31 May 1829).

### Alzira: A Tragedy (1736)

* Reason gains all men, by compelling none. Mercy was always Heaven's distinguished mark: And he, who bears it not, has no friend there.
** Don Alvarez in Act I, Sc. 1; also misquoted as "Reason gains all people by compelling none."
* Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, And lose the medium in the wild extreme, Do not repent, but regulate your passion: Though love is reason, its excess is rage. Give me, at least, your promise to reflect, In cool, impartial solitude, and still. No last decision till we meet again.
** Don Alvarez in Act IV, Scene 1.

## External links

* Works by Aaron Hill at Project Gutenberg