When Hill came over to receive the reward of his patriotism in England, he would naturally have revived his acquaintance with an old Cambridge don, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, with whom he had many tastes in common. Seaman had been Master of Peterhouse and Vice-Chancellor of the University. He had written pamphlets endeavouring to keep the Presbyterians in the Church by minimising the importance of episcopal orders, and was just on the right side of the line which shut Hill out from the proffered bishopric. Both were book collectors, both were classical scholars, and when Seaman died during Hill's stay in London, we may be quite sure that Hill was among his mourners.
Seaman's funeral was no small affair. Two broadsides of not wholly despicable verse are still extant to attest his popularity. One is entitled 'An Elegie to the endeared Memory of that Learned and Reverend Minister of the Gospel, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, who died on Friday, the 3rd of September, 1675, and was carried from Drapers' Hall to be interred, with a numerous train of Christian friends bewailing his Death.' The other broadside, which contains the better verse, is more simply inscribed 'An Elegy on the Reverend and Learned Divine, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, sometime Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Master of Peterhouse, and late Minister of the Gospel in All Hallows, Bread Street.' Even of this, however, the first six lines may suffice as a specimen:
'What! Seaman dead! and did no blazing star, No comet béforehand his Death declare? What, Merlin, not a word of this in thee? Lilly's but half a prophet now I see: For had he known it, he'd have quickly said, This year Presbýtery shall lose its head.'
In no less conceited a vein, but more successful, is the proposed epitaph, the last line of which is really an inspiration:
'Reader, if that thou learned art O do not urge me to impart What 'tis I cover; for I fear Thou'lt be so eager to lie here, And wish thy life might straight expire. Then ask no more, but away go And send th' unlearned, they may know. I'll tell none else, for here does lie Entomb'd a University.'
Thus was the worthy doctor bewailed and buried, and soon his executors were busy realising his effects. What was to be done with his five or six thousand books? He had bequeathed them to no library, and to sell them to the booksellers was to give them away. It was here, then, that Dr. Hill stepped in and 'advised and effectually set on foot that admirable and universally approved of way of selling libraries by auction,' which had long been the practice in Holland, but as yet was quite unknown in this country. The arrangements were soon made, and a catalogue duly printed, for whose title-page no less learned a language than Latin would serve, though we regret to have to note that the worthy William Cooper who compiled it was a sufficiently poor scholar to head one of his sections 'Bibliae Variae,' as if 'Biblia' were a feminine singular of the first declension. The Latin of the title-page is of a kind which every one can read, so that for the sake of completeness we quote it as it stands:--