SMITH (John), an excellent mezzotinter, flourished about 1700; but neither the time of his birth nor death are accurately known. He united softness with strength, and finished with freedom. He served his time with one Tillet a painter in Moorfields; and as soon as he became his own master, learned from Becket the secret of mezzotinto, and being farther instructed by Van der Vaart, was taken to work in Sir Godfrey Kneller's house; and as he was to be the publisher of that master's works, doubtless received considerable hints from him, which he amply repaid. "To posterity perhaps his prints (says Mr Walpole) will carry an idea of something burlesque; perukes of an enormous length flowing over suits of armour, compose wonderful habits of Engl. It is equally strange that fashion could introduce the one, and establish the practice of representing the other, when it was out of fashion. Smith excelled in exhibiting both, as he found them in the portraits of Kneller,
ler, who was less happy in what he substituted to armour. In the Kit-cat club he has poured full bottoms chiefly over night-gowns. If those streams of hair were incommodate in a battle, I know nothing (he adds) they were adapted to that can be done in a night-gown. Smith composed two large volumes, with proofs of his own plates, for which he asked £50. His finest works are duke Schomberg on horseback; that duke's son and successor Maynard; the earls of Pembroke, Dorset, and Albemarle; three plates with two figures in each, of young persons or children, in which he shone; William Cowper; Gibbons and his wife; Queen Anne; the duke of Gloucester, a whole length, with a flower-pot; a very curious one of Queen Mary, in a high head, fan, and gloves; the earl of Godolphin; the dachels of Ormond, a whole length, with a black; Sir George Rooke, &c. There is a print by him of James II. with an anchor, but no inscription; which not being finished when the king went away, is so scarce that it is sometimes sold for above a guinea. Smith also performed many historic pieces; as the loves of the gods, from Titian, at Blenheim, in ten plates; Venus standing in a shell, from a picture by Correggio, and many more, of which perhaps the most delicate is the holy family with angels, after Carlo Maratti.