Essex, on the 12th of August, 1577.—(Life by Strype, Oxford, 1820; for list of works see Loundes' Manual.)—R. H.
SMITH, Thomas, a learned English divine, was born in London, June 3, 1638, and studied at Queen's college, Oxford, where he took his degrees, and early obtained great repute as a scholar. In 1663 he was appointed master of the free school adjoining Magdalen college. Being known as a skilled oriental linguist he was selected to attend upon Sir Daniel Harvey, ambassador to Constantinople in 1668, in the capacity of chaplain, and returned thence three years after. In 1683 he took the degree of D.D. and was nominated to the rectory of Stanlake, which he speedily resigned. In 1687, he was collated to a prebend in the church of Heytesbury, Wiltshire. In August, 1688, he was deprived of the latter by Dr. Giffard, the president of Magdalen college, because he refused to associate with the Roman catholic fellows of that college. In the November following his fellowship was restored to him, but was again taken away in July, 1692, in consequence of his refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. He afterwards lived in Sir John Cotton's family, until his death in 1710. His works were "Diatriba de Chaldaicis Paraphrastis;" "Syntagma de Druidum moribus ac institutis;" "Remarks upon the Religion &c., of the Turks," originally published in Latin, as also his "Account of the Greek church," and his "De Causis et Remediis Dissidiorum;" two volumes of "Miscellanea" in Latin; a translation of Pazzi's life of Mary Magdalen; a Latin life of Camden prefixed to Camden's Epistolæ in 1691; a catalogue of the Cotton MSS. with a life of Sir Robert Cotton; "Inscriptiones Græcæ Palmyrenorum," in 1698; the lives of Bishop Huntington, and Dr. E. Bernard, and some brief memoirs of Usher, Cosius, Briggs, Bainbridge, Greaves, Young, and Dee. He contributed three papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and left his MSS. to Hearne, with whom he frequently corresponded.—F.
SMITH, Thomas Southwood, was born at Martock in Somersetshire, on the 21st of December, 1788. He was educated for the dissenting ministry, but afterwards turned his attention to medicine, which he studied at Edinburgh, where he took his degree. Having accepted the invitation of a body of dissenters at Yeovil, he here united the double duties of physician to the body and physician to the soul. In his visits to the poor he sorrowed over their sorrows; but he saw that much of their misery sprang from causes easily preventible. It was plain that fever and most of the diseases of the poor arose from the neglect of certain sanitary conditions; and it was in pondering how he could best grapple with these that Dr. Smith became the originator of sanitary reform. It was natural that the discoverer, the propagator, the applier of a great principle should find his way to the metropolis. It was equally natural that in London he should seek rather to be active as a reformer, than to promote his own interests. His fame, his influence, rose unsought, and through the power of merit alone. One of Dr. Smith's earliest works was on the "Divine Government." Though admirable in intention, and able in execution, this discourse has no value as an attempt to solve the problem of the universe. In 1824 Dr. Smith was appointed physician to the London Fever hospital, a situation which he held for many years. One fruit of his immense experience was his "Treatise on Fever," generally admitted to be the best on the subject. He had been introduced to Bentham; and he contributed to the first and to subsequent numbers of the Westminster Review, which was established to expound and to vindicate Benthamite doctrines. Bentham died in June, 1832. Dr. Smith attended him in his last illness. The body of Bentham was dissected in accordance with his will. Dr. Smith delivered a lecture over the body at the Webb Street School of Anatomy. This strange scene was made stranger by a violent thunder-storm which burst forth at the moment. In 1837 Dr. Smith presented two reports to the poor law commissioners on sickness among the poor; in 1839 was formed, through his zeal, the Health of Towns Association; and in 1842 he was instrumental in founding the Metropolitan Association for improving the dwellings of the industrious classes. Two of his triumphs were the Public Health act and the Nuisances act, passed in 1848. When the board of health was created. Dr. Smith's services were at first gratuitous, but subsequently he was remunerated, though in the most inadequate fashion. Long before his connection with the board of health he had served on the children's employment commission, which heralded the memorable Factory act. Dr. Smith's reports on quarantine have been regarded as sufficient of themselves to establish his claims to the gratitude of the nation. Without exaggerating, we may say that all sanitary movements and improvements for the last quarter of a century were so many victories of Southwood Smith. Besides his numerous and valuable reports. Dr. Smith wrote for the Penny Encyclopædia and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1834 he published an elaborate book entitled the "Philosophy of Health," which has gone through ten editions. After an illness of six days Dr. Southwood Smith died of bronchitis, at Florence, on the 10th December, 1861. Amended and augmented editions of the "Philosophy of Health" and of the "Divine Government" were ready for publication. We believe that Dr. Smith had at the time of his death a pension of £300 a year; but this was a scanty pittance to bestow on a man who had been a public benefactor so eminent, and who had sacrificed professional success to devote himself to philanthropic toils. His schemes besides were thwarted or mutilated by the timidity or the factious spirit of successive governments; and what was no less hard to bear, those far inferior to him gained the profit and the praise of his noble strivings and renouncements. But Smith had the calmness, the cheerfulness, the resignation of the philosopher, as he had the persistent enthusiasm of the reformer. He was satisfied with having demonstrated that a huge amount of human disease is preventible—that physical comfort and cleanliness, a sufficiency of wholesome food, airy and healthy abodes, are indispensable as precursors and accompaniments of moral and religious elevation. But though he murmured not, the people should keep fresh the memory of one to whom they owe so much. As the improver of prison discipline Howard is immortal; but if Howard was the friend of the criminal, Southwood Smith was the friend of the poor.—W. M—l.
SMITH, William, antiquary and herald, died in 1618. His description of Cheshire was published by Sir Randolph Crew, and forms part of King's Vale-royal, published in 1656, and reprinted at Chester, in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1778.
SMITH, William, an English divine, was the son of the Rev. Richard Smith, of All Saints, Worcester, where he was born in 1711. He studied at New college, Oxford, and took his M.A. degree there in 1737. He subsequently became rector of Trinity church, Chester, and then dean of Chester, and a doctor of divinity. His chief literary productions were a translation of Longinus on the Sublime, a very valuable work, which has gone through several editions since its publication in 1739; a translation of Thucydides, also reprinted; and of Xenophon's History of Greece. He was author of a volume of nine sermons on the Beatitudes, and a volume of poems which appeared after his death. He died January 12, 1787.—F.
SMITH, Sir William Sydney, a famous English admiral, was descended from a common ancestor with Viscount Strangford, and Lord-chief-baron Sir Sydney Stafford Smithe. His father, Sir John Smith, was a veteran officer of the Seven Years' war. Sydney was the second of three sons, and was born at Westminster in 1764. He was educated at a private academy, and before he was twelve years of age became a midshipman on board the Sandwich, under Lord Rodney. He was made a lieutenant in 1781, and served in several of the naval actions of the American war. He shared in Rodney's glorious victory over the French on the 1st of April, 1782; a few weeks later obtained his commission as commander; and was made post-captain in the following year, at the early age of nineteen. Captain Smith then entered the Swedish service, and took a distinguished part in the war which was waged in 1788-90 between Sweden and Russia. He was honoured by the Swedish king with the grand cross of the order of the sword, but quitted his service at the peace of Reichenbach. We next find him in 1793 serving as a volunteer in the Turkish marine; but when war broke out with France he hastened home, bringing with him a number of British seamen from Smyrna, in a vessel which he purchased at his own risk for the purpose. He signalized his courage and skill in the defence of Toulon, under Lord Hood, and succeeded in destroying the magazines, and great part of the shipping, when the town was evacuated by the allies. In the commencement of 1794 Captain Smith was appointed to the command of the Diamond frigate in the Channel fleet, and by the daring and arduous enterprises which he undertook excited the greatest apprehensions along the French coast. On the 8th of March, 1796, while engaged in a hazardous attempt to cut out a privateer which was lying at Havre de Grace, he was taken prisoner by the French. He was
