best elegies which our language can show; an elegant mixture of fondness and admiration, of dignity and softness.’
Anxious to try his fortune again on the stage, Smith designed a tragedy on the subject of Lady Jane Grey, and his friend, George Duckett [q. v.], invited him to his house at Hartham, Wiltshire, in order that he might concentrate his attention on the work. But indulgence in strong ale ‘rendered him plethoric,’ and prescribing for himself a purge, of the dangers of which an apothecary warned him, he defiantly drank it off with fatal effects. He was buried at Hartham in July 1710.
Duckett inaccurately told Oldmixon that Smith was employed by Aldrich, Smalridge, and Atterbury to garble Clarendon's history before it was published. He is said to have left MS. translations from Pindar and Longinus. ‘Two quires of hints’ which he had gathered for his tragedy of Lady Jane Grey were examined by Nicholas Rowe [q. v.], but Rowe did not use them in his play on the same theme. His works—his poem on Philips, his tragedy, and his ‘Oratio Bodleiana,’ with some odes—were issued in 1719, with a life by William Oldisworth [q. v.] Another edition, including the poems of John Armstrong, appeared in 1781. Smith's poems also appear in Dr. Johnson's and in Chalmers's ‘Collections.’
In 1751 F. Newbery published in quarto ‘Thales, a Monody, sacred to the memory of Dr. Pococke. In imitation of Spenser. From an authentic Manuscript by Mr. Edmund Smith, formerly of Christ's Church, Oxon.’ This poem, which is not in the Spenserian stanza, but in stanzas of eight lines (ababbccc), is a paraphrase in English, apparently by another hand, of Smith's Latin ode on the same theme. In the advertisement prefixed the editor states that he ‘has several other very valuable pieces of Mr. Smith in his possession which he intends shortly to communicate to the public.’
Smith's writings justify a very moderate estimate of his abilities. But his fame, owing to the praises of his friends, survived throughout the eighteenth century. Johnson described him as ‘one of those lucky writers who have, without much labour, attained high reputation, and who are mentioned with reverence rather for the possession than the exertion of uncommon abilities.’
[Oldisworth's Life, prefixed to Phædra and Hippolitus, 1719, 3rd edit.; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, ii. 41 et seq.; Welch's Alumni Westmon. pp. 211–12; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
SMITH or SMYTH, EDWARD (1665–1720), bishop of Down and Connor, born at Lisburn in Antrim in 1665, was the son of James Smyth of Mountown, co. Down, by his wife Francisca, daughter of Edward Dowdall of Mountown. He became a scholar at Dublin University in 1678, and graduated B.A. in 1681. In 1684 he proceeded M.A. and was elected a fellow. He afterwards obtained the degrees of LL.B. in 1687, B.D. in 1694, and D.D. in 1696. In 1689, when Dublin was in possession of James II, he fled to England, where he was recommended to the Smyrna Company, and made chaplain to their factory at Smyrna. He returned to England in 1693 with a considerable private fortune, and was appointed chaplain to William III, whom he attended for four years during the war in the Low Countries. On 3 March 1695–6 he was made dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. In 1697 he became vice-chancellor of Dublin University, and on 2 April 1699 he was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor. He died at Bath on 4 Nov. 1720. He was twice married. By his first wife, his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of William Smyth, bishop of Kilmore, he had Elizabeth, who married James, first earl of Courtown. By his second wife Mary, daughter of Clotworthy Skeffington, third viscount Massereene [q. v.], he had two sons, Skeffington Randal and James.
Smyth was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1695. He was also a member of the Philosophical Society of Dublin. He was the author of several sermons, and contributed various papers to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of the Royal Society, chiefly relating to oriental usages.
[Ware's Irish Bishops, ed. Harris, p. 214; Ware's Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, p. 273; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc. App. iv.; Pearson's Chaplains to the Levant Company, 1883, p. 34; Burke's Landed Gentry, 6th edit. ii. 1482.]
SMITH, EDWARD (1818?–1874), physician and medical writer, born at Heanor, Derbyshire, about 1818, was educated at Queen's College, Birmingham, and graduated at London University, M.B. in 1841, M.D. in 1843, and B.A. and LL.B. in 1848. Next year he visited north-east Texas, to examine its capacity as a place of settlement for emigrants, and published an account of the journey and a report with charts of temperature and the new constitution of the state (London, 1849, 12mo). In 1851 he passed the examination for the diploma of fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; in 1854 he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and in 1863 was elected a fellow of the college.
Physiological chemistry occupied much of his attention. In 1856 he read his first
