William Smith reaped the ambiguous reward of the person who straddles two cultures. Loyal to the literary and political traditions of his native British Isles and a dedicated Anglican, Smith was responsive to the opportunities and challenges of the New World. He wished to establish in the colonies a base of learning and letters that both drew on the British heritage and tapped the resources, energies, and talents of the new land. His efforts appear in retrospect to have been doomed to failure, and there is ample evidence that he never achieved all he intended. Yet even his partial successes are important and deserve both understanding and credit as they reflect the efforts to create a native literary tradition in early America.

Churchman, educator, poet, and promoter of the arts, Smith was an active--and frequently quarrelsome--man, sometimes called by historians a "minor Franklin" in recognition of his wideranging...