126 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



was made, " if" you disliked him, would wish to be with you 

 for five minutes." 



As has been already i-emarked, the son was hasty and 

 excitable } impiger, iracundus, et acer, like Achilles, but not 

 inexorabilis. He was of a liberal and benevolent disposi- 

 tion, and as his means enabled him to gratify his inclination 

 in this respect, he gave without ostentation, not unfre- 

 quently in quarters where his liberality could never be 

 s23oken of abroad, and where the situation in life of the 

 parties precluded their asking for assistance. To the poorer 

 classes he was always open-handed. 



About the year 1847, after a severe frost, so sudden and 

 rapid a thaw succeeded that a whole line of villages in the 

 valley of Salisbury Plain was inundated, and the poor in- 

 habitants were exposed to the greatest dangers and priva- 

 tions. Mr. Smith was the first to ride down, and leave 

 £100 with the clergyman for the immediate relief of the 

 sufferers. The noble example thus set was so successfully 

 followed, that in a short time funds were raised, not only 

 sufficient for the purpose intended, but a surplus remained, 

 which was handed over to Salisbury Infirmary. At another 

 time an old colonel, broken down by years and misfortune, 

 was reduced to the last climax of distress by having an 

 execution in his house, and all his little property put up to 

 auction. Mr. Smith desired his agent, Mr. Northeast, who 

 always most effectually carried out his master's generous 

 impulses, and well repaid the confidence placed in him, to 

 buy the whole and return it to the late owner ; not as a 

 gift, but as a loan, lest it should again be seized and sold. 



" I was one day riding not far from Tedworth," writes 

 the Rev. Henry Fowle — the friend and fellow-sportsman 

 to whom the author is indebted for many of the in- 

 teresting anecdotes related in these pages, — " in a contrary 

 direction to where the hounds were fixed to meet, when I 

 met the squire, and the following conversation occurred. 

 * Why are you not going out with me to-day ? ' said he 



