Thomas Henshawe, of Kensington, esq., R. Soc. Soc., hath a treatise of his in manuscript, which he will not print, viz. 'Of the Essence of God, &c. Light.' It is mighty paradoxicall:—That there is a God; What he is, in 10 or 12 articles: Of the Immortality of the Soule, which he does demonstrate παντουσία and ὀντουσία.
[Fabian Philips, the cursiter, remembers him[1199].]
He was, as appeares by A. Wood's Historie, of St. John's Colledge in Oxford, where he mentions him to be a great Lullianist.
In his travells with his lord, (I forget whither Italy or Germany, but I thinke the former) a poor man begged him to give him a penny. 'A penny!' said Mr. Hill, 'what dost say to ten pound?' 'Ah! ten pound!' (said the beggar) 'that would make a man happy.' N. Hill gave him immediately 10 li. and putt it downe upon account,—'Item, to a beggar ten pounds, to make him happy.'
[1200]He printed 'Philosophia Epicurea Democritiana,' dedicated 'filiolo Laurentio.'—There was one Laurence Hill that did belong to the queen's court, that was hangd with[1201] Green and Berry about Sir Edmund-Berry Godfrey. According to age, it might be this man, but we cannot be certain.
[1202]Mr. Thomas Henshaw bought of Nicholas Hill's widow, in Bow lane, some of his bookes; among which is a manuscript de infinitate et aeternitate mundi. He finds by his writings that he was (or leaning) a Roman Catholique. Mr. Henshaw believes he dyed about 1610: he dyed an old man. He flourished in queen Elizabeth's time. I will search the register of Bowe.
[1203]I have searched the register of Bow, ubi non inventus Nicolas Hill.
[1204]Vide tom. 1 of Ben: Johnson's workes, pag. 48, epigram CXXXIV, title 'The famous voyage'....
Here sev'rall ghosts did flitt,
About the shore, of ..., but late departed;
White, black, blew, greene; and in more formes out-started
Than all those Atomi ridiculous
Wherof old Democrite and Hill Nicholas,
One sayd, the other swore, the world consists.