William Smith is the only Elizabethan poet to dedicate a collection of his verse to fellow-poet Edmund Spenser. This dedication and one to Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, seem to place Smith in exalted literary circles. But, as many poets used dedications to attract the attention of influential contemporaries or to gain places in great households, Smith's do not prove acquaintance with Spenser or the Sidneys. Smith's works provide the sole evidence for conjectures about his life, and the only reliable biographical detail that they provide is that he desired patronage. Smith likely resembled such contemporary poets as Michael Drayton and Nicholas Breton, who wrote to win preferment or at least small monetary gifts. The fathers of these men were merchants, guildsmen, or lesser gentry; their sons had been educated at grammar school and often at university. Like these writers, Smith probably held some position of full-time employment...