CXXli. THE LATE REGINALD fcOSWORTH SMITH, M.A. 



Count v Chronicle for October 22nd, 1908, "he was wise enough 

 not to allow his school work and the oversight of his house to 

 absorb all his attention. He always had many wide outside 

 interests. These years were years of great literary activity ; and, 

 when one contemplates the number of the books, pamphlets, 

 occasional articles, and letters to the public Press upon current 

 topics that issued from his pen, one cannot but wonder how so 

 busy a man found time to produce so much, and of such quality, 

 and one recalls the paradoxical observation that ' the busy man 

 has the time 'or makes it." 



One of his old pupils writes that he might be called " one of 

 the greatest of modern historians. His works, ' Mohammed and 

 Mohammedanism,' 'Carthage and the Carthaginians,' and 'The 

 Life of Lord Lawrence,' are classics." 



A few years before leaving Harrow he purchased the romantic 

 old house in which he ended his days, Bingham's Melcombe. 

 Here in "the rambling old Plantagenet and Tudor building, with 

 its lovely oriel in mellow Hani Hill stone, its ancient bowling 

 green with the immemorial yew hedges and culver," he made a 

 new home for himself and his family a home that with the 

 passage of every year became dearer. How great was his 

 delight in Bingham's Melcombe those can judge who have read 

 that charming chapter of " Bird Life and Bird Lore," entitled 

 " The Old Manor House." 



This book on birds was one of the principal fruits of his 

 retirement, and the writing of it afforded him the keenest interest 

 and enjoyment. It was the result of most careful and minute 

 observation, and was, like all his literary work, clothed in that 

 rhythmical and euphonious language which gives his style such a 

 unique and striking character. His intense pleasure in watching 

 the flight of birds was vividly brought home to me in a walk to 

 Bagber Wood, a copse which lies between Bingham's Melcombe 

 and Milborne S. Andrew, in which thousands of starlings were 

 wont at that time of year to settle for the night. This walk bore 

 fruit in his admirable description of the graceful evolutions of 

 these homing birds. And his account of how he took his first 



