Smith

s. (pmiS, Saxen; smeth, Germ.) 1, One who forges with his hammer; one who works in metals (Tate). 2. He tha makes or effects any thing (Dryden). SmirH (George), a landscape painter, bora at Chi chester 1714. His abilities gained some prizes at the society of arts. He died 1776. He had two brothers, William and John. William the eldest excelled as a portrait painter, and in his fruit pieces, and died 1764; and John, whose landscapes were much admired, died the same year. SmMiTH (William), of Worcester, was educated at Winchester and New college, and became rector of Trinity church, Chester. He. was for one year at the head of Brent wood school, E ex, but resigned in 1749, and in. 1758 was made dean of Chester, and in 1756, rector of Handley. His life was spent in the service of literature, and of the church, aud he published an elegant translation of Thucy~ -dides, and of Long in us, besides a volume of sermons on the Beatitudes. He died 1787, Situ (Adam), LL.D. was born the 5th of June, 1723, at Kirkaldy, where his father, who died a few months before his birth, was comptroller of the customs. At the age of three he was stolenjby some vagrants, and with difficulty recovered, He was educated at Kirkaldy and Glasgow university, but as his friends destined him for the church of England, he removed in 1740, to Baliol college, Oxford. Not wishing, however, to embrace the ecclesiastical profe ion, he left Oxford after seven years’ residence, and returned to Scotland, and in 1751 was elected profe or of logic in the university of Glasgow, and the next year of moral philosophy. In 1759 he published his Theory of moral Sentiments, and in 1763 he quitted: his profe orship to accompany the duke of Buccleugh in his travels, He visited during three years Toulouse, Geneva, and the south of France, and became acquainted with the wits and learned men of the capital. He then retired to the domestic seclusion of Kirkaldy with his mother for 10 years. Hume and his friends in vain expostulated against it, but in 1771 he convinced them that his mind had been actively employed, by the publication of his celebrated work, an Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. 4i0. This excellent book often republished in 3 vols, 8vo. procured him the appointment of commi ioner of the customs in Scotland, — and after being some time in London, he in 1778 retired to Edinburgh, where he enjoyed the rest of life in honourable independence... He occasionally devoted himself to study,. but not with that zeal which might have enabled him to add fresh celebrity to his fame; and when infirmities came upon him, he found it was too late to think of completing the works which he had meditated. He died J uly 1790, of a chronic obstruction in his bowels, and. after his death some e ays and other miscellanies were published in 4to, 1795. Of the powers of his mind, and of his comprehensive - information, his works will~be a lasting memorial to the latest posterity..He did not however po e that Lnomcibe of the world which might have adorned a more active life, and though admired for his talents, he was carele and absent to an extraordinary degree. It is to be lamented that his great qualities were disgraced by a decided infidelity. When _he published the life of David Hume, written by himself, he added remarks which showed to the world how determined a foe he was to christianity: this, however, proved ultimately a ble ing to the world; as it led first to the _ publication of bishop Horne’s admirable letter to him, and afterwards to that prelate’s valuable series of Letters on Infidelity. Smiru (Charlotte), daughter of Mr. Turner, a man of property in Surry and Su ex, when very young married Mr. Smith, whose father po e ed some estates in the West In- dies. ‘The affairs of her husband not proving prosperous, she after various persecutions from ereditors, and after pa ing some time in the ‘gloom of a prison with her consort, retired to a chateau in Normandy. Here the chicanery ef the lawyers, and the ingratitude of her friends, reduced her to indigence, yet the exer- tion of her mind administered to her wants. She wrote several novels which gained her a comfortable subsistence, and the Romance of Real Life, Emmeline, Ethe linda, Celestina, Desmond, the Old Manor House, Poems, Son- nets, . procured her the public esteem, and a respectable income. She died at Thetford, near Farnham, Surry, 1806. Her novels display great powers of invention, and it is remarkable that in all of them she has inter- woven much of her own personal misfortunes, and painted every where, in strong colours, the character of those rapacious lawyers, to whose dishonesty she ascribed all her sorrows. Her descriptions are interesting, and her style is elegant. Her sonnets po e peculiar beauty, aaa all her writings every where display the powers of a fine imagination, correct taste, and strong judgment. 825