To contradict these and similar aspersions, his widow put all of Mr. Smith’s correspondence into the hands of his warm friend, Sir J.E.  Eardley-Wilmot, and left to him the task of defending the name and fame of her husband.  These memoirs are the result, and we are of opinion, that, with the exception of the superabundant cricketing and hunting technicalities before mentioned, the work has been exceedingly well performed.  The book is written in an unambitious, straightforward, gentlemanly style, that carries conviction with it; and as we rise from a perusal of it, with occasional stoppings, we feel that the “Times” correspondent has now at least no excuse for harsh judgment of Mr. Smith, and that, if he was a reckless rider and a mighty hunter, he was also very much more and better.

Thomas Assheton Smith was born of sturdy and right English stock, as the following anecdote makes patent.  His father opposed the building of the Menai Bridge, did not believe, in fact, that it could be built, considered the ferry good enough, and declared, that, if it should be finished, he for one would never set foot upon it.  The possibility of building a bridge having been demonstrated to Mr. Smith by the completed structure, he, for the remainder of his life, when his occasions took him across the strait, made use of a boat.  Other such anecdotes are told of him, setting forth his obstinacy and courage in a strong light, so that we are not surprised when we are informed that his son had a stern temper and was somewhat dictatorial in the field.  We could have accounted for Tom Smith’s severe countenance, though we had never heard of that two hours’ battle at Eton, of which the school-traditions yet speak, when he fought a drawn fight with Jack Musters, who, the Squire always declared, spoiled his beauty for him.  Neither do we wonder when we hear that he fought a six-foot carter in the street and beat him, or that, when nearly eighty years of age, he jumped off his horse and put up his hands to a farm-laborer who had insulted him, or that, when he ran as candidate for Parliament, for Nottingham, and was hissed and groaned in that radical city, he stepped down from the hustings and proposed a set-to with any voter in the crowd.  This was good crowing, but the old cock had taught him.

From Eton young Smith was removed to Oxford, where we are told he often rode out with the hounds and began his practice of keeping close up to them at the risk of his own and his horse’s neck.  Clearly the subject of these memoirs was not intended to shine in the schools and wisely did not make the attempt.  Leaving college, Mr. Smith for a few years devoted himself to the improvement of his horses and hounds, and, as the author says, to “creating a new country near Salisbury Plain.”  The thread of his life is then followed down to the death of his father and his entrance upon the manifold duties of a large landed proprietor, owner of immense quarries, and landlord of some hundreds of tenants,—­the