SMITH, James and Horace, the authors of the Rejected Addresses, were the sons of Robert Smith, Solicitor to the Board of Ordnance. James was born in London, on the 10th of February 1775, and Horace was born in the same place, on the 31st December 1779. James Smith was educated under the Rev. Mr Burford, at Chigwell in Essex, was articulated to his father on completing his education, was subsequently taken into partnership with him, and ultimately succeeded to his father's business. Horace, after receiving a similar education, became a stockbroker, acquired a fortune, and retired to Brighton. James, who lived and died single, was the author of several pieces in prose and verse, entirely of a comical description, which were collected after his death by his brother, and published under the title of Memoirs, Letters, and Comic Miscellanies, 2 vols., 1840. Besides contributing to various periodicals, he likewise wrote many of the amusing trifles for the "At Home" of the elder Mathews, and that comedian used to say of him, that he was the only man in London who could write good nonsense. After spending much of his time in society, for which both the Smiths were well suited, being men of fine appearance and possessing good conversational powers, he was ultimately confined to his house with gout. He died on the 24th December 1839, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
Horace Smith contributed short pieces to various periodicals, among which may be mentioned his papers in the New Monthly Magazine, then edited by Campbell the poet. He was likewise author of some twenty-three-volume novels,
1 Boswell mentions, that having told Johnson how much Smith preferred rhyme to blank verse, Johnson said, "Sir, I was once in company with Smith, and we did not take to each other; but had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have hugged him." (Boswell's Johnson, by Croker, p. 146.)
Smith, which were little known beyond the circulating libraries, if we except his Brambletye House, which was better received by the public. He died on the 12th of July 1849.
The work by which the brothers Smith are now best known, and by which they will long be remembered, is the Rejected Addresses, or the New Theatrum Poetarum, first published in 1812, and which has gone through upwards of twenty editions. The idea having been suggested by Mr Ward, secretary to the Drury Lane theatre, six weeks before the address was to be spoken, the brothers Smith eagerly set to work, and completed their delightful little volume within the required time. James supplied the imitations of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Crabbe, and Cobbett, and numbers 14, 16, 18, 19, and 20. The Byron was a joint effusion, James writing the first stanza, and Horace the remainder. Horace Smith supplied the rest of the volume. The copyright was purchased by Mr Murray, after the book had run through sixteen editions, for £131, although he originally declined giving £20 for it.