LIFE OF ASSHETON SMITH 



0?i Reading in the " T'ijnes" April 9, 1 860, 

 a Critique on the Life of Assheton 

 Smith 



THE mighty Hunter taken to his rest, 

 His cherish'd sport now points the critic's jest, 

 Fleas'd of a sect facetiously to tell 

 A " meet " their heaven and a frost their hell. 

 Who blindly follow, clad in coats of pink, 

 A beast whose nature is to run and stink ; 

 When view'd,with shoutsof frantic joy they greet him. 

 Forbearing still, when they have kill'd, to eat him. 

 His head enshrin'd within a crystal case. 

 His " brush," a relic, on their walls they place. 

 In mad devotion to this beast unclean. 

 Encountering " Bullfinches " (whate'er that mean) 

 They ride to fall and rise again forthwith, 

 A sect whose great high-priest was Assheton Smith. 



Let him who laughs our noble sport to scorn, 

 Meet me next year at Melton or at Quorn ; 

 Let the first train by which his bolts are sped 

 Bring down the Thunderer himself instead. 

 My cover hack (not Stamford owns a finer) 

 Can canter glibly like a penny-a-liner ; 

 Free of my stable let him take the pick. 

 Not one when mounted but can do the trick ; 

 Fast as his pen can run, if he can ride. 

 The foremost few will find him at their side ; 

 His leader left unfinished on the shelf. 

 To prove a leading article himself ! 



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