Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/54

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he held until 30 June 1859. He died without issue on 12 Oct. 1860, at his residence in Eaton Place West, London. His widow died on 10 Oct. 1872. Both he and his wife were buried in the cemetery at Whittlesea, his native place. By way of memorial to him the chancel aisle of St. Mary's, Whittlesea, was restored in 1862, and a marble monument with his bust was placed there. The aisle is known as ‘Sir Harry's Chapel’ (cf. Sweeting, Churches of Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire). The sabre Smith wore from 1835 to 1857 is now the property of Queen Victoria. The South African towns Harrismith (Orange Free State), Ladysmith (Natal), Whittlesey, and Aliwal commemorate Smith's connection with Cape Colony.

Smith was not devoid of the self-assertion characteristic of men who fight their own way in the world and owe their successes solely to their own energy and ability; but he was popular with his colleagues and subordinates, who were fascinated by his daring energy and originality, and admired his rough and ready wit.

A crayon portrait by Isabey belongs to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts; another, in olis, belongs to Mrs. Waddelow of Whittlesea. Smith is a prominent figure in W. Taylor's picture ‘The Triumphal Reception of the Seikh Guns,’ engraved by F. C. and C. G. Lewis. A photograph of Smith was engraved.

[War Office Records; Obituary Notices in the Annual Register and Gent. Mag. 1860; Despatches; Alison's Hist. of Europe; Cope's Hist. of the Rifle Brigade; Napier's War in the Peninsula; Siborne's Hist. of the Waterloo Campaign; Alexander's Excursions in Western Africa and Narrative of a Campaign in Kaffirland in 1835–6; Hough's Political and Military Events in India; Trotter's Hist. of India, 1844–1862; Theal's Compendium of the Hist. and Geography of South Africa; King's Campaigning in Kaffirland, 1851–2; Ward's Five Years in Kaffirland, with Sketches of the late War, 1848.]

R. H. V.


SMITH, HENRY (1550?–1591), puritan divine, known as ‘silver-tonged Smith,’ eldest son and heir of Erasmus Smith of Somerby and Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire, by his first wife, widow of one Wye and daughter of one Baiard, was born about 1550 at Withcote, Leicestershire, the seat of his grandfather, John Smith (d. 1546). Erasmus Smith [q. v.] was his nephew. He was admitted a fellow-commoner of Queens' College, Cambridge, on 17 July 1573, but does not appear to have matriculated, and soon left the university (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 103). He continued his studies with Richard Greenham [q. v.], rector of Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire, who imbued him with puritanic principles. On 15 March 1575–6 he was matriculated at Oxford as a member of Lincoln College, and graduated B.A. on 16 Feb. 1578–9 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, iv. 1372). He cannot be identified with either of two students of the same names of Hart Hall, who proceeded M.A. in 1579 and 1583 respectively. The puritan divine terms himself ‘theologus’ (never M.A.), and is so described by others.

Although he was heir-apparent to a large patrimony, he resolved to enter the ministry, but, owing to conscientious scruples with regard to subscription, he determined not to undertake a pastoral charge and to content himself with a lectureship. Thomas Nash relates that Smith, before entering into the ‘wonderful ways’ of theology, ‘refined, prepared, and purified his wings with sweet poetry’ (Pierce Pennilesse, ed. Collier, p. 40), none of which, however, is now known. For some time he officiated in the church of Husbands Bosworth, but it is uncertain whether he obtained the rectory, which was in his father's patronage. In 1582 he brought to his senses one Robert Dickins of Mansfield, a visionary, who pretended to be the prophet Elias; and on this occasion he preached a sermon, afterwards published under the title of ‘The lost Sheep is found.’ Subsequently he preached in London and its vicinity with great success, and in 1587 he was elected lecturer of St. Clement Danes, without Temple Bar, by the rector and congregation. Smith's father had married, as his second wife, Lord Burghley's sister Margaret, widow of Roger Cave, esq., and Burghley, who resided in the parish of St. Clement Danes, aided his candidature. He soon obtained unbounded popularity, and came to be regarded as the ‘prime preacher of the nation.’ Wood says he was ‘esteemed the miracle and wonder of his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his fluent, eloquent, and practical way of preaching’ (Athenæ Oxon. i. 603); and Fuller states that he was commonly called ‘the silver-tongued Smith, being but one metal in price and purity beneath St. Chrysostom himself’ (Church Hist. bk. ix. cent. xvi. p. 142). Fuller remarks that ‘persons of quality brought their own pues with them—I mean their legs to stand there upon in the allies.’

In 1588 Aylmer, bishop of London, was informed that Smith had spoken in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer, and had not subscribed the articles. Nor did he hold a license from Aylmer, his diocesan. The