HORACE SMITH, joint author with his brother James of the famous “Rejected Addresses,” was born at London, December 31st, 1779. The “Rejected Addresses” made the brothers so celebrated that Horace found a field for indulging his inclination towards humorous essay writing. His “Gayeties and Gravities,” published in three volumes in 1826, deserve to be read much more frequently than they have been since his death in 1849. The occasion of the “Rejected Addresses” was the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812, and the offer of a prize of £50 for an address to be recited at the dedication in October of that year. On noticing the advertisement of the prize, the Smith brothers conceived the idea of writing and publishing as having been rejected by the managers a volume of addresses which they imputed to Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Crabbe, Byron, Moore, Scott, and Bowles. The parodies were so clever and the idea which inspired them so attractively comic that the “Rejected Addresses” at once took the hold on English literature which the passage of time has shown to be a permanent one.