A versatile but only moderately successful playwright, theater manager, and essayist, Hill was one of Alexander Pope’s targets in The Dunciad. As a business man, Hill not only managed the Drury Lane and the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket for brief periods, but was involved in concerns as varied as lumber for Navy ships, potash production, beech nut oil, winemaking, and more. As an author, he began with A full and just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1709), the account of his impromptu solo journey as a teenager from Britain to his uncle's ambassadorial post in Turkey. After that, he ranged from a libretto for George Frederic Handel's Rinaldo (1711) through subjects as varied as plays, poetry, theatrical reporting, history, biography, financial speculation, and business. His periodical miscellany The Plain Dealer ran from March 1724-May 1725, while the theatrical periodical The Prompter ran from November 1734-July 1736. His plays, to mention only the more successful, include The Fatal Extravagance (1721), a one-act play that deals with the South Sea bubble, The Tragedy of Zara (1735), which was translated from Voltaire’s play Zaïre, Alzira (1736), also an adaptation from Voltaire, and Merope (1749) from Voltaire's play of the same title.