Upon Mr. Smith’s coming to town, no man was more surrounded by all those who really had, or pretended to wit, or more courted by the great men, who had then a power and opportunity of encouraging arts and sciences.  Mr. Smith’s character grew upon his friends by intimacy, and exceeded the strongest prepossessions which had been conceived in his favour.  A few years before his death, Mr. Smith engaged in some considerable Undertakings; in all which he raised expectations in the world, which he lived not to gratify.  Mr. Oldisworth observes, that he had seen about ten sheets of Pindar translated into English, which, he says, exceeded any thing of that kind, he could ever hope for in our language.  He had drawn out a plan for a tragedy of Lady Jane Grey, and had written several scenes of it:  a subject afterwards nobly executed by Mr. Rowe.  His greatest undertaking was Longinus, which he executed in a very masterly manner.  He proposed a large addition to this work, of notes and observations of his own, with an intire system of the art of poetry in three books, under the title of Thoughts, Action, and Figure; in this work he proposed to reform the art of Rhetoric, by reducing that confused heap of Terms, with which a long succession of Pedants had incumbered the world, to a very narrow compass; comprehending all that was useful and ornamental in poetry under each head, and chapter.  He intended to make remarks upon all the ancients and moderns, the Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, and Italian poets, and to anamadvert upon their several beauties and defects.

Mr. Smith died in the year 1710, in the 42d of his age, at the seat of George Ducket esq; called Hartham, in Wiltshire; and was buried in the parish church there.  We shall give the character of this celebrated poet in the words of Mr. Oldisworth:—­“He had a quickness of apprehension and vivacity of understanding, which easily took in, and surmounted, the most knotty parts of mathematics and metaphysics.  His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his manner of expressing his thoughts perspicuous, and engaging; an eager, but generous, emulation grew up in him, which push’d him upon striving to excel in every art and science, that could make him a credit to his college:  and it was his happiness to have several cotemporaries, and fellow students, who exercised and excited this virtue in themselves and others:  his judgment naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness, and distinguishing sagacity, which as it was active and busy, so it was vigorous and manly, keeping even pace with a rich and strong imagination, always on the wing, and never tired with aspiring; there are many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, elegy and epic, still handed about the university in manuscript, which shew a masterly hand, and though maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, make their way into our most celebrated miscellanies, where they mine with uncommon lustre.  As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal.