The period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is known as the time in which there was a "shift of sensibility," the time when the Augustan Age gave way to the new voices of the Romantic period. This era is marked not only by the arrival of strong new poetic voices but also by a considerably larger reading public. This period also saw the rise of the literary amateurs, authors for whom literature was less a central concern than a by-product of their social and professional lives. The lives and works of most of these writers are largely forgotten today, but the study of a representative writer, such as Horatio (Horace) Smith, can provide both a broader perspective on the major literature of his time and an index to the tastes of the new reading public.

Baptized Horatio, Horace Smith was the son of Mary Bogle...