HILL, AARON

born Feb. 10, 1685, London died Feb. 8, 1750, London English poet, dramatist, and essayist whose adaptations of Voltaire's plays Zare (The Tragedy of Zara, 1736) and Mrope (1749) enjoyed considerable success. An optimistic speculator who engaged in various ambitious commercial enterprises, all without success, Hill was a kindly man who bored his friends and irritated them with unsolicited advice. After leaving school he travelled in the Near East, afterward publishing A Full Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1709). He married an heiress, produced Handel's opera Rinaldo (having himself translated the Italian libretto) at London's Haymarket Theatre, and in 1718 wrote The Northern Star, dedicated to Peter the Great of Russia, which the Tsar acknowledged by ordering a gold medal for Hill (the medal never arrived). Alexander Pope satirized Hill in The Dunciad, to which Hill retorted with The Progress of Wit (1730). His letters to Pope and others were published in 1751.