Tom Hills 37 



Prevented by illness from being present on that occasion, 

 Sir Francis Head sent an interesting letter expressing his 

 admiration of the benejiciare. We can only spare space 

 for the following anecdote culled from that letter : — 



" Fifty-one years ago I was at a covertside in Scotland, 

 when there cantered up to it, on a thoroughbred hack, a 

 very handsome, hard-riding lad, dressed for the first time 

 in a red coat. His name was Frank Grant. Ten years 

 afterwards — that is, forty-one years ago — on my first 

 residence in Surrey, I saw before me on Godstone Green 

 a pack of foxhounds surrounding a hale, honest, and good- 

 looking young man whom I had never met before. His 

 name was Tom Hills. Some months ago, when both had 

 turned into old men, when Sir Francis Grant had become 

 the first portrait painter in England, and when Sir 

 Thomas — I mean Tom Hills — had also, as an artist, risen 

 to the tip-top of his profession, they had the mutual 

 pleasure of a few private interviews, and the picture which 

 you so hospitably exhibit this morning is the result." 



Verses galore have been written in honour of Tom 

 Hills ; they are the work of ardent admirers, if not of 

 Heaven-inspired poets. No useful purpose would be 

 served by quoting them freely ; but, in the course of our 

 researches, we found in the scrap-book of an old sportsman 

 some lines which were instinct with a genuine enthusiasm. 

 We venture, therefore, to reproduce the following 

 extracts, which indicate the admiration in which Hills 

 was held by his contemporaries : — 



