only too well known; the custom of "bundling" and of courting at unseemly hours has not yet died out. A stalwart youth thought he would try it on at Gumfreston Rectory. Smith caught him in the kitchen when the family were thought to be at rest; so he took him by the shoulders and pushed him into a cupboard, where he locked him up and kept him in durance vile till the morning. The next Sunday the banns were published, and the sermon was on what would now be called "social morality."

His preaching was sometimes beautiful and even sublime, though always quaint. It was like a necklet of pearls ill-set, or jewels strung with pebbles. He was apt at illustration, and would take a flower-pot, or a bird's-nest, or a piece of old pottery, or an Eastern lamp, or even a fossil bone into the pulpit, and then hand it round to the congregation.

He had a considerable acquaintance with Rabbinical lore, and used to tell stories and legends from the Talmud, besides illustrating his expositions of Scripture from oriental customs and the researches of travellers. In telling anecdotes and using any common incident which struck him, he was as quaint and graphic as Master Hugh Latimer himself. He had a way of picking up ideas younger preachers might follow with advantage, for he used to fix on his subjects early in the week, think them over, and then discuss them openly with friends. He was never dry or tedious; you might smile, but you could not fall asleep under his preaching. His thoughts seemed to flow more freely in the open air, and his intense enjoyment of life made him at once a genial and a profitable companion. I never had much talk with him on his geological pursuits, for I should only have exposed my ignorance and brought on a well-merited snub.

One day he was delving with a scientific friend, when somehow the conversation turned on the being of Satan. I do not know what suggested it; possibly the weird traditions for which Pembrokeshire is noted. Thus there is on the coast two mighty fissures in which the sea bubbles and boils, which go by the names of "the devil's cauldron " and "the devil's punch-bowl." Then there are a number of monolithic stones called the "Harold stones." Giraldus tells us that Harold raised them on the western coast after he had ravaged it, and inscribed on each one "Hic Haroldus Victor fuit;" but the Pembrokeshire folk say that they were the quoits or bowls with which Harold, magnified by popular superstition into a puissant giant, used to play with the devil. As they went on in their strange unearthly diversion, first the devil flung a stone, then Harold, till the devil picked up a church and flung it clean into the sea, where you may see it, they say, for yourself at Broadhaven. This was called the devil's last throw, and certainly the rock is wonderfully like a ruined church. He must have

been fond of stone-throwing, and, I fear, taught the Welsh boys their naughty habit of stoning dogs and cats. They say that he was once crossing a valley near Pendine, on the coast, when his apron, filled with stones, broke, and they fell to the ground, where they may still be seen; and also the marks of his club foot as he stepped from one mountain to another, a distance of some ten or twelve miles.* When Smith's scientific friend suggested his doubts as to the being of the enemy of souls, Smith replied: "Oh, if I had not believed in the devil's existence, what a life I should have led at twenty-five!" People came from a distance to interview him, as the Americans One fine summer's day two clerics from the East of England went out from Tenby. They missed the way to the Rectory, and so got away into the kitchen garden. Nearing the house, they observed a striking figure approaching in a white straw hat (was it the hat in which he shot the hare in the snow ?), a white waistcoat, and grey trousers. It turned out to be Smith. "Gentlemen," said he, "you are trespassing." The friends, moved by his majestic bearing, begged to be forgiven.

say.

"No," answered the outraged Parson, "I won't forgive you."

As he said this, he eyed the trespassers from head to foot, till his gaze rested on their head-gear,-broad-brimmed soft felt hats, then rather affected by those whom the world called "Puseyites," but now common enough. This was what excited his wrath quite as much as the trespass. So bringing his survey into full focus on their heads, he burst out, "Oh, what hats! Do you ever expect to get to heaven in such hats as those? The friends might have retorted; but they only suggested a hope to find a place there, after all.

"No," said he, "you won't in those hats;" which was true enough, no doubt.

On entering the church they were joined by a clergyman and a lady, apparently his wife, who had come with a view of getting some amusement out of the Pembrokeshire parson. Smith detected this at once, and whilst showing the various interesting features of the church, kept asking the stranger whether he knew this, that, or the other, in order to test him, or more likely to pose him. He got little in return for his pains-no answers came. All at once Smith broke off in his description of the church, and said most solemnly, "Let us pray!" and then he went through the Lord's Prayer in Greek. It looked a somewhat unusual interruption, yet he went through it seemingly as a matter of course, and then resumed his explanations.

After leaving the church he led the party to see the objects of * Similar traditions are to be found in Brittany, "Rocher du pied du Diable."

interest outside, in describing which, he showed a knowledge of all kinds of "ologies," which he had at his finger ends. His listeners seemed amused: but now was Smith's time to turn the tables on the flippant cleric. So after plying him with question after question, he stormed out with withering scorn, "I have talked to you about astronomy, geology, botany and zoology, and I know not what beside. I have asked you about things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, and you seem to know nothing. "Pray, sir, what do you know?"-The gentleman addressed was speechless; ashamed, no doubt, of being exposed before the lady and the strangers. Let us hope that he went home a wiser man. Smith hated pretentiousness in any form, and could detect a charlatan in an instant.

He was an enthusiastic angler, and used to go to the river-side with his neighbour Birkitt, of St. Florence, of whom I have already made mention. Of this "auld acquaintance," one who knew him well says, "he always reminded me in some respects of Charles Lamb-so simple, so scholarly, so loving."

Both the good old men could have said with Izaak Walton, "When I would beget content and increase confidence in the power and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other various little living creatures that are not only created, but fed (man knoweth not how) by the goodness of the God of nature, and therefore trust in Him."

I think they would have sympathised with the last words of Frank Buckland: "God is so good, so very good to the little fishes, I do not believe He would let their inspector suffer shipwreck at last. I am going a long journey, where I think I shall see a great many curious animals. This journey I must go alone."

"Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their deaths they were not divided." When Mr. Birkitt came to see his ancient friend on his death-bed, Smith said, "Dear friend, let us say the Lord's Prayer together once more, as we have so often said it. We shall soon not need it at all." One soon followed the other, and both are now at rest in their quiet churchyards.

Such as Smith was, we shall never see his like again. He belonged to a past order of things; one of those whose youth was spent before railways invaded the seclusion of out-of-the-way places. All his surroundings helped to intensify his strong individuality.

"Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place."

Simple in an age of ever-growing luxury, primitive in an age of

pretentiousness, endowed with the power of digesting and assimilating stores of knowledge, when others skip or skim the surface of some of the numerous shallow works with which the lighter literature of the day is flooded, he never named a book he had not read, nor a subject he did not understand. No doubt he was a little tiresome, but what clever man is not? Dr. Johnson was, Carlisle was, Whewell was, Sedgwick was, Thirlwall was. You or I, gentle reader, may be tiresome, without their cleverness, their wit, or their originality.

"Smith of Gumfreston " was not as other men are, and I venture to think it is something to rescue his name from oblivion, ere we ourselves take our journey to "the place where all things are forgotten."

GEO. HUNTINGTON.

Horace, Book i. Ode 35.

TO FORTUNE.

By SIR STEPHEN E. DE VERE, Bart.

I.

FORTUNE! fair Antium's Queen august!
Strong to uplift the lowly from the dust,

Or change the pomps that crown the conqueror's head
For the cold trappings of the dead :

II.

Mistress of winds and waves, to thee
The anxious rustic bends the knee;
To thee the sailor makes his vow

Lashing Carpathian foam with keen Bithynian prow;
The Dacian hordes, the Scythians of the North,
Cities and nations-Rome herself-pour forth
Their prayers into thine ear:

Thee Barbarous Queens, thee purple despots fear,
Lest thou with ruthless foot prostrate*
The standing pillar of the State;

Or lest the frenzied crowd

"To arms! to arms!" should shout aloud, And crush beneath their feet the empire of the proud.

III.

Fate moves before thee darkly, silently,

In brazen hand the nails and wedges folding,
The cruel hook, and liquid lead upholding;
But Hope abides, and white-robed Honour clings
Close to thy side, when with inconstant wings,
Changed robe, and angry aspect, thou dost fly
From homes of power and palaces of Kings.
The false, the coward, and the vain.
Forsake the fallen; like th' ungrateful guest
The cask that's on the lees disdain,

And shun the sorrow where they shared the feast.

*

A storm that all things doth prostrate.'

SPENSER