Born in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, on the 2nd of August, 1776, was the grandson of Thomas Assheton, Esq., of Ashley Hall, near Bowden, in Cheshire, who assumed the name of Smith on the death of his uncle, Captain William Smith, son of the Right Honourable John Smith, Speaker of the House of Commons in the first two Parliaments of Queen Anne, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the preceding reign.
As Shakespeare, in his immortal history of the Seven Ages of Man, briefly described the first as "the infant,174 mewling, &c., in its nurse's arms," so of the childhood of Tom Smith the only occurrence we are enabled to record is that his mother, one day, found him lying on his nurse's lap, gasping like a tench just landed from a pond.
"What's the matter with the child?" she eagerly inquired.
"Nothin," replied the calm nurse; "he's doing nicely."
As regarded the present tense, this answer was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Had, however, the question been "What has been the matter with him?" with the same grammatical accuracy the reply would have been, "If you please, Ma'am, he has just thrown up a large pin," which, unperceived, he had managed to swallow.
On his reaching the second age of man—that is to say, when he was but seven years old—he was sent "with his satchel and shining morning face" to Eton, where, on his arrival, he found himself the youngest boy in the school.
The busy hive of the United Kingdom, we all know, is divided into cells, in each of which, at this moment, a raw material is being converted by labour into some particular description of manufactured goods. In one cell, a Minister of State is concocting, from crude175 evidence, a speech, a budget, or a despatch. In another cell, a young woman, with a protuberant cushion on her lap, covered by an intricate pattern, marked by pins with heads of various colours, is as indefatigably labouring for the welfare of her country by twirling, twisting, and twiddling innumerable bobbins of fine thread into Honiton lace. In other cells, workpeople are converting broadcloth into clothes, leather into shoes, horse-hair into wigs, medicine into pills, lead into bullets, brass and tin into cannon, iron into rifles, alkali and grease into soap. Within what is called a "scrap-mill," by the power of steam, controlled by a single man, broken bolts, bars, nuts, nails, screw-pins, &c., are made to revolve, until by rumbling, tumbling, rubbing, scrubbing, bruising, beating, hustling, and jostling each other, all are turned out clean and bright, fit to be welded together for any purpose that may be required.
At Eton, by a similar process, about 600 boys of all sizes and shapes—red-haired, white-haired, black-haired; long-legged, short-legged, bandy-legged; splay-footed, pigeon-toed; proud, humble, noisy, silent, good-humoured, spiteful, brave, timid, pale-faced, sallow-faced, freckled and rosy-cheeked, weak and strong, clever and stupid, pliable and pigheaded—yet all controlled by that unwritten, immutable, imperishable code of honour which, like a halo, has always illuminated their play-ground and176 their school, are hustled together on water, in water, under water, and out of water, until, when the door of their scrap-mill is opened—although their minds and bodies are as dissimilar as ever—they all turn out polished gentlemen, prepared to encounter those hardships, dangers, vicissitudes, difficulties, and, above all, base temptations in life, which high-bred principles are so especially well adapted to resist.
For eleven years Tom Smith remained at this school, where he acquired a taste for classical literature, which characterised him through life. Pope, Shakespeare, and Horace, from which he used to quote long passages, were his favourite authors; he could also, without pressure, spout out the whole of the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard. But what reigned at the back of his head and in the citadel of his heart was an ardent love for athletic exercises of any description, especially for cricket and boating. He was also, throughout his whole life, affectionately attached to fighting; and Etonians, old and young, to this day, record, as one of the severest contests in the history of youthful pugilism, the desperate battle he fought with Jack Musters, a kindred spirit, of whom it has been said that he could do seven things—namely, ride, fence, fight, swim, shoot, play at cricket and at tennis—as well as any man in Europe. His pugilistic propensity, which appeared so early, was conspicuous throughout 177his life. While hunting in Leicestershire he was prevailed upon to stand for the borough of Nottingham. On proceeding to the poll, he found not only the town placarded with "No foxhunting M.P.," but a guy in a red coat, tailed by a fox's brush, burning in effigy of him before the hustings. His appearance there elicited tremendous yells and hootings, which apparently no authority could subdue, until, with a stentorian voice, heard above the uproar, Tom Smith exclaimed, "Gentlemen! as you refuse to hear my political principles, be so kind as to listen to these few words: I'll fight any man among ye, little or big, and will have a round with him now for love!" In an instant, as if by magic, yells and groans were converted into rounds of cheers, demonstrating the strange stuff, be it good, bad, or indifferent, that Englishmen are made of.
On another occasion, while riding down the Gallowtree Gate, in Leicester, he struck the horse of a coal-heaver, who, in return, cut him sharply across the face. Smith jumped immediately from his horse, and the driver from his cart, the latter doffing his smock-frock, the former buttoning his coat and turning up his sleeves. The conflict was desperate; and from a fellow weighing fourteen stone, and standing six feet high, he was receiving severe punishment, when, by constables and a crowd of people, the combatants were separated. "You shall hear from me178 again!" said Smith to his gallant smutty antagonist. True to his word, the next morning the squire's groom was seen inquiring where the coal-heaver lived. On finding the man, whose face, like his master's, had received some heavy bruises, he said to him, "Mr. Smith has sent me to give you this sovereign, and to tell you you're the best man that ever stood before him." "God bless his honour!" replied the man, "and thank him a thousand times."
When Tom Smith was at Eton, fighting had not cropped to the surface of a schoolfellow and friend who in after life, known by the name of Wellington, greatly distinguished himself in this world by seeking and by gaining pitched battles. "I suppose, Smith," said the old silver-haired Duke to him, one day, in London, "you've done now with fighting?" "Oh, yes," replied Smith, then in his sixtieth year, "I've quite given that up; but——" suddenly correcting himself, he added, "I'll fight yet any man of my age."
At Chapmansford, when upwards of seventy, a rough country fellow, before a large field of sportsmen, threw a stone at one of the hounds of the old squire, who instantly struck him with his hunting whip. "You daren't do that if you were off your horse," said the man. The words were hardly out of the clodhopper's mouth when (in the seventh age of man) Smith stood before him, with a pair179 of fists clenched in his face, in so pugilistic an attitude that the fellow took to his heels, and, amidst the jeers of his comrades, ran away.
In 1794 Tom Smith quitted Eton to become a gentleman commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, where, with great diligence and assiduity, he hunted regularly in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire,—became a fearless swimmer,—learnt to pull a sturdy oar on the Isis,—was a good shot and billiard-player,—and excelled as a batsman in the cricket-field on Cowley Marsh and Bullingdon. On leaving the University he became a member of the Marylebone Club and a regular attendant at Lord's during the summer; he was also a member of the Royal Yacht Club. Mr. Smith's love for science and shipbuilding induced him to build several sailing and steam yachts. He considered himself to be the practical originator of the wave line, and, by the advice of the Duke of Wellington, he submitted to the First Lord of the Admiralty some important hints for improving the construction of gunboats. In autumn, winter, and spring, he instinctively "went to the dogs," or, as in sporting phraseology it is termed, "took to hunting," so eagerly, that in 1800, when only twenty-four years old, he was signalized in song as a daring rider in that celebrated run from Billesden Coplow, in which but four gentlemen, with Jack Raven the Whip, were able to live with the hounds.
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In 1806 he succeeded Lord Foley at Quorn, and for ten years hunted Leicestershire with first-rate hounds, for a portion of which he had paid to Mr. Musters 1000 guineas, until, in 1816, he took the place of Mr. Osbaldiston in Lincolnshire, where he hunted the Burton country for eight years. He then, ceasing for two years to be a master of hounds, hunted with the Duke of Rutland and in the neighbouring counties until 1826, when, taking up his residence at Penton Lodge, he created for himself a new country between Andover and Salisbury. In 1830—two years after the death of his father, from whom he inherited a very large fortune—he removed to Tedworth, which he had lately rebuilt with magnificent kennels, and stables in which every hunter had a loose box. In these stables he had often as many as fifty horses, all in first-rate condition. For thirty-two years he hunted the Tedworth country without ever asking for subscriptions of any sort or kind. All he begged of the landowners and of those who hunted with him was to preserve foxes to enable him to kill them. At his meets his friend and guest the late Duke of Wellington often attended. In stature Mr. Smith was about 5 feet 10 inches high, athletic, well-proportioned, muscular, but slight. His weight was between eleven and twelve stone. With a highly-intelligent but resolute countenance, containing (as was observed of it) "a dash of the bulldog," he had plain features.181 "That fellow Jack Musters," Tom Smith used to say, "spoilt my beauty." For several years, though his name was seldom found in the debates, he represented in Parliament Carnarvonshire and Andover; and in 1832, in consequence of the riots which took place in that year, he raised, at his own expense, a corps of yeomanry cavalry, reviewed by the Duke of Wellington, the troopers of which were chiefly his own tenants or farmers of the neighbourhood. For upwards of fifty seasons he continued to be the master of hounds, until, after having been in his saddle for seventy years, the boy who in 1783 went to Eton when he was seven years old, died at Vaenol on the 9th of September, 1858, aged eighty-two.
At the earnest request of his widow, Sir John E. Eardley-Wilmot (assisted by extracts from the 'Field' newspaper), with considerable spirit and ability, has lately compiled a series of graphic incidents and sketches, forming altogether a memoir—or, as he terms them, 'Reminiscences'—of the life of one whom Napoleon I. addressed as "le premier chasseur d'Angleterre," and who was also called by the Parisians "le grand chasseur Smit." From this volume we shall now submit to our readers a few extracts.
"Lord Foley," wrote 'Nimrod,' "was succeeded in the possession of the Quorn hounds by that most conspicuous sportsman of modern182 times, Thomas Assheton Smith. As combining the character of a skilful sportsman with that of a desperate horseman, perhaps his parallel is not to be found; and his name will be handed down to posterity as a specimen of enthusiastic zeal in one individual pursuit, very rarely equalled. From the first day of the season to the last he was always the same man, the same desperate fellow over a country, and unquestionably possessing, on every occasion and at every hour of the day, the most bulldog nerve ever exhibited in the saddle. His motto was, 'I'll be with my hounds;' and all those who have seen him in the field must acknowledge he made no vain boast of his prowess. His falls were countless; and no wonder, for he rode at places which he knew no horse could leap over; but his object was to get, one way or the other, into the field with his hounds. As a horseman, however, he has ever been super-excellent. He sits in his saddle as if he were part of his horse, and his seat displays vast power over his frame. In addition to his power his hand is equal to Chifney's, and the advantage he experiences from it may be gleaned from the following expression. Being seen one day hunting his hounds on Radical, always a difficult, but at that time a more than commonly difficult, horse to ride, he was asked by a friend why he did not put a martingale on him, to give him more power over his mouth. 'Thank ye,' he replied, 'but my left hand shall be my martingale.'"
His fame and success in Lincolnshire were as great as at Quorn. The Melton men followed him, knowing they were sure of good sport wherever he went, although scarcely one of them was quite prepared for the formidable drains or dykes in the Burton Hunt. Shortly after their arrival there, they found a fox near the kennels that crossed a dyke called the Tilla. Tom Smith, the only one who rode at it, got in, but over, leaving behind him fourteen of the Meltonians floundering in the water at183 the same time, which so cooled their ardour that, excepting Sir H. Goodricke, gallant David Baird, and one or two others, they soon returned to Melton.
Mr. Delmé Ratcliffe, in his work on the 'Noble Science of Fox-hunting,' describes Tom Smith as follows:—
"I could nowhere find a more fitting model for the rising generation of sportsmen.... He was an instance of the very rare union of coolness and consummate skill as a huntsman, combined with the impetuosity of a most desperate rider; and not only was he the most determined of all riders, but equally remarkable as a horseman.
"Now I am not going to give merely my own opinion of Mr. Thomas Assheton Smith, as a horseman and rider to hounds, but shall lay before my readers that of all the sporting world, at least all who have seen him in the field; which is, that, taking him from the first day's hunting of the season to the last, place him on the best horse in his stable or on the worst, he is sure to be with his hounds, and close to them too. In fact, he has undoubtedly proved himself the best and hardest rider England ever saw, and it would be vain in any man to dispute his title to that character."
Again, says Mr. Apperley—
"Let us look at him in his saddle. Does he not look like a workman? Observe how lightly he sits! No one could suppose him to be a twelve-stone man. And what a firm hand he has on his horses! How well he puts them at their fences, and what chances he gives them to extricate themselves from any scrape they may have gotten into! He never hurries them then; no man ever saw Tom Smith ride fast at his fences, at least at large ones (brooks excepted), let the pace be what it may; and what a treat it is to see him jump water! His falls, to be sure, have been innumerable; but what very hard-riding man does not get falls? Hundreds of Mr. Smith's falls may be accounted for:184 he has measured his horses' pluck by his own, and ridden at hundreds of non-feasible places, with the chance of getting over them somehow."
Again: "No man," says Dick Christian, "that ever came into Leicestershire could beat Mr. Smith—I do not care what any of them say;" while "The Druid," in 'Silk and Scarlet,' after giving some very interesting anecdotes of Tom Smith, says of him, "However hasty in temper and action he might be in the field or on the flags, he was the mightiest hunter that ever 'rode across Belvoir's sweet vale' or wore a horn at his saddle-bow."
"His wonderful influence," he adds, "over his hunters was strongly exemplified at another time, but in rather a different manner. He had mounted a friend, who complained of having nothing to ride, on his celebrated horse Cicero. The hounds were running breast-high across the big pasture lands of Leicestershire, and Cicero was carrying his rider like a bird, when a strong flight of rails had almost too ugly an aspect of height, strength, and newness for the liking of our friend on his 'mount.' The keen eye of Assheton Smith, as he rode beside him, at once discerned that he had no relish for the timber, and seeing that he was likely to make the horse refuse, he cried out, 'Come up, Cicero!' His well-known voice had at once the desired effect; but Cicero's rider, by whom the performance was not intended, left his 'seat' vacant, fortunately without any other result than a roll upon the grass."
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