Some two or three years later is the following entry:—
“At Christmas I had an attack of my old complaint—the ear-ache—which confined me to the house for a fortnight. However, I turned the time to advantage by reading French with such industry that, although I knew but little of the language when I began, yet at the end of the fortnight I could read it with sufficient ease as to be amused by it. I recollect that in one day I read a hundred pages of ‘Gil Blas,’ closely printed in small type.”
His efforts at self-improvement were—as he recorded in his old age—to some extent at least, misdirected. When he was a boy of thirteen he won the first of three prizes for original landscape-drawings, which had been offered by the proprietor of “The School Magazine”[34] to all candidates under sixteen. In the number of the Magazine for September, 1807, appeared the following announcement:—
“We have received several beautiful drawings in different styles, which do great credit to the talents of the young persons by whom they are sent, and to the exertions of the gentlemen under whom they have studied the pleasing art.
“The principal prize is awarded to Master Rowland Hill, who has given us a view of St. Philip’s Church, Birmingham, and the surrounding objects, as taken from the playground of Hill Top School.
“Master Hill is thirteen years and eight months only, and his performance is attested by his father, Mr. Thomas Wright Hill, and his drawing-master, Mr. Samuel Lines. To him is awarded—
“‘A Drawing-Box, value Three Guineas.’”
“What,” he wrote in his Journal a few years later, “was my surprise and delight to find that I had obtained the first prize! The whole family participated in my joy, and I believe this was the happiest day of my life.” But his success, as he himself has pointed out, had its drawback:—
“This, and the éclat I obtained a year or two later by painting the scenes for our little theatre, caused my parents and myself to assume that nature intended me for an artist. I accordingly employed the greater part of my spare time in practising drawing from patterns, from nature, from plaster-casts of the human frame, and, eventually, from life. Sketching from nature I found a most agreeable occupation, especially as it fell in with my love of visiting ancient ruins and fine scenery. I continued to pursue drawing with great earnestness for several years, and some of my drawings obtained the honour (undeserved, I fear) of appearing in the Birmingham Exhibitions. At length, however, I discovered that I possessed no natural aptitude for the artistic profession, and, consequently, directed my efforts to other matters.”