Horatio Smith, 1779–1849. Born, in London, 1779. Stockbroker by profession. Contrib., with his brother James, to “The Pic-nic,” 1802; “The Monthly Mirror,” 1807–10; “New Monthly Mag.,” etc. Married. In later years of life resided at Brighton. Died, at Tunbridge Wells, 12 July 1849. Works: “The Runaway,” 1800; “Trevanion,” 1801; “Rejected Addresses” (anon.; with his brother James), 1812 (8th edn. same year); “First Impressions,” 1813 (2nd edn. same year); “Horace in London,” 1813 (4th edn. same year); “Amaranthus the Nympholept” (anon.), 1821; “Gaieties and Gravities” (anon.; 3 vols.), 1825; “Brambletye House” (anon.), 1826; “The Tor Hill” (anon.), 1826; “Reuben Apsley” (anon.), 1827; “Tales of the Great St. Bernard,” 1828; “Zillah” (anon.), 1828; “The New Forest” (anon.), 1829; “Walter Colyton” (anon.), 1830; “Midsummer Medley for 1830,” 1830; “Festivals, Games and Amusements,” 1831; “Tales of the Early Ages” (anon.), 1832; “Gale Middleton” (anon.), 1833; “The Involuntary Prophet” (anon.), 1835; “The Tin Trumpet” (under pseud. “Paul Chatfield, M.D.”), 1836; “Jane Lomax” (anon.), 1838; “The Moneyed Man,” 1841; “Adam Brown” (anon.), 1843; “Arthur Arundel” (anon.), 1844; “Love and Mesmerism,” 1845; “Poetical Works” (2 vols.), 1846. He edited: James Smith’s “Memoirs,” 1840; “Oliver Cromwell,” 1840; J. Smith’s “Comic Miscellanies,” 1841; Dr. Macarthy’s “Massaniello,” 1842.

Personal

  Mr. Shelley said to me once, “I know not what Horace Smith must take me for sometimes: I am afraid he must think me a strange fellow; but is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! and he writes poetry too,” continued Mr. Shelley, his voice rising in a fervour of astonishment—“he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous.”

  All contemporary testimony respecting Horace Smith is unanimous as regards the beauty of his character, which was associated not only with wit, but with strong common-sense and justness of perception. His is a remarkable instance of a reputation rescued from undue neglect by the perhaps excessive applause bestowed upon a single lucky hit. Thackeray wrote warmly of Smith’s truth and loyalty as a friend and, after his death, he frequently visited his daughters at Brighton; after the youngest of them he named his Laura in “Pendennis.”

General

  I think the “Rejected Addresses” by far the best thing of the kind since the “Rolliad,” and wish you had published them. Tell the author “I forgive him, were he twenty times over a satirist;” and think his imitations not at all inferior to the famous ones of Hawkins Browne. He must be a man of very lively wit, and less scurrilous than wits often are: altogether, I very much admire the performance, and wish it all success.

  Horace Smith is a very clever writer in light verse. I do not think we have a better.

  Your goodness about Horace Smith rebukes me, though you do not, for my spitefulness; but really I bore “Zillah” in silence, having my heart full of wrath against that hard measure in the Quarterly Review, and would not have breathed one word of my secret thoughts, though he had gone on cockneyfying all antiquity; but when he invaded mine own territory, mine own dear Forest, where he dared get up a lion hunt in one of its quiet glades, which never echoed to any sound more terrible than “Come home, Willy poor Willy” (the beautiful deer call), I could bear it no longer.

  But his imitations in the “Rejected Addresses,” his parodies of Horace, and his lyrical contributions to the literary magazines, show him to be not only an admirable versifier, but a possessor of the sense of beauty and a most poetical fancy. His powers are versatile, and he has shown himself able to master any style with which he has chosen to grapple.

  The crowning triumph of his skill, the piece which outweighs all else that he ever wrote, is the surprising “Tale of Drury Lane, by W. S.” The verse has the energy, the vividness, the very turn and rhythm of Sir Walter’s. The genius of parody could not farther go; Calverley has, indeed, done as well, but no man has done better. Horace, however, was not always successful in his bantering. His lines after the manner of “Childe Harold” lack vigour and point; his attempted reproduction of Johnsonese English is singularly flat; and “Drury’s Dirge, by Laura Matilda,” provokes a comparison which it cannot sustain with Swift’s “Verses by a Lady of Quality.” Worst of all is the closing piece, “Punch’s Apotheosis,” apparently written in imitation of Theodore Hook’s rattling and careless rhymes. This essay in doggerel is, indeed, so vulgar and inane,—the words which the author places in the mouths of Othello and Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, are such an outrage on good taste, that it is hard to conceive how Horace Smith could have lowered himself to writing it—harder still to understand how, having written it, he allowed it to remain in its present place.

  The familiar volume of “Rejected Addresses” is usually regarded as a storehouse of wit. As a collection, however, it suffers rather from the limitation of its subject-matter, which is strictly dramatic, and of belonging to a particular period. There is perhaps not much in it which can rank as first-rate humorous writing. Most of us know more brilliant lines and classical phrases from the book, than complete poems which we care to quote.