THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 291 



shire, that his renown had reached even to the ears of 

 Napoleon, by whom, on reception at the French court, 

 he was saluted as " Le j)remie7' chasseur d'Angleterre" 

 All are familiar with a series of prints from the pencil of 

 Mr. " Smith of Loraine," descriptive of a celebrated 

 run, where Dick Knight, the huntsman of the old Pytch- 

 ley, is represented accomplishing, in most enviable style, 

 a very difficult egress from a park, over a pahng beneath 

 the boughs of a tree ; with which print appear the fol- 

 lowing lines : — 



" Now Egmont, says Assheton — now Contract, says Dick, 

 By Jove, we will shew these damned Quornites the trick." 



The Assheton here mentioned refers to the father 

 of my present subject, also a great professor in his day, 

 and a distinguished member of the old Pytchley Club, 

 which is all that need be here stated, as to the gene- 

 alogy of his son and heir, the present Squire of Ted- 

 worth, and which is noticed only as another instance of 

 hereditary qualities. About the period that Lord Al- 

 thorp reigned at Pytchley, Mr. Thomas Assheton Smith 

 was in the zenith of his glory at Quorn, hunting his 

 own hounds with the highest possible satisfaction to all 

 parties. Possessed of adamantine nerves, encased in a 

 frame of iron, he would, with dauntless courage, " ride 

 at anything;" and although, in speaking of Leicester- 

 shire, he has himself since remarked, that he had a fall 

 in every field of it, he would always contrive to be, by 



