SMITH, John Thomas, keeper of the prints and drawings in the British Museum, was the son of Nathaniel Smith, formerly a sculptor, and afterwards a printseller, who had been an early friend of the artist Nollekens, was born on the 23d of June 1766. The younger Smith was engaged in his youth in the studio of Nollekens, and afterwards became a pupil of the eminent engraver, John Keyse Sherwin. He commenced the publication of his Antiquities of London and its Environs, illustrated by 96 plates, in 1791, and completed it in 1800. His next work was Remarks on Rural Scenery, 1797, and which was illustrated by 20 etchings. His Antiquities of Westminster was illustrated by 246 engravings, many of them consisting of representations of objects and of curious paintings, no longer in existence. Sixty-two additional plates were published in 1809, without any letterpress, forming volume second of the Antiquities. In 1815 appeared his best work, the Ancient Topography of London. It was illustrated by 32 boldly etched plates, accompanied by descriptions of the buildings represented. Smith received his appointment at the British Museum in 1816, and next year appeared his Vagabondiana, or Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the
Streets of London, illustrated with 30 portraits, and an introduction by Francis Douce. The last literary production of Smith was more amusing than honourable. This was a book on Nollekens and his Times, which was published in 1828, and though it attained to a considerable popularity, it was obviously the production of a disappointed man. Smith had been appointed an executor to Nollekens, and was mortified at not being made a legatee. He unfortunately wrote under the excitement of feeling occasioned by this circumstance, and took advantage of his intimate acquaintance with Nollekens and his affairs in dragging before the public much that was never intended for publicity. Smith had a considerable share of humour in his composition, as a small paragraph written by him in the album of his friend Upcott still testifies. "I can boast," he says, "of seven events, some of which great men would be proud of. I received a kiss, when a boy, from the beautiful Mrs Robinson; was patted on the head by Dr Johnson; have frequently held Sir Joshua Reynolds's spectacles; partook of a pot of porter with an elephant; saved Lady Hamilton from falling when the melancholy news arrived of Lord Nelson's death; three times conversed with King George III.; and was shut up in a room with Mr Kean's lion." Smith died in his sixty-seventh year, on the 8th of March 1833. (See Gentleman's Magazine for 1833.)