William Godwin's Diary

Smith, Horatio (Horace)

  • Name: Smith, Horatio (Horace)
  • Gender: Male
  • Birth Date: 31  December  1779
  • Death Date: 12  July  1849
  • Occupation: writer
  • Occupation: humorist

Smith was a successful businessman, rising to become a member of the stock exchange in the 1810s. He moved in literary circles and wrote novels and plays and was a regular contributor to the Monthly Mirror. He also wrote, with his brother James, parodies of a series of rejected odes that were invtied to mark the reopening of Drury Lane after the 1809 fire. Rejected Addresses, or, The New Theatrum poetarum (1812) contained parodies of Thomas Moore, Matthew Lewis, and Walter Scott and established the fame of the brothers. He met John Keats, and Percy Shelley at Leigh Hunt's house in 1816 and became close to Shelley: a competition between the two produced 'Ozymandius' and he acted as Shelley's agent when he was abroad.

The identification can be confirmed by the entry for 19 June 1821 where Horace appears with Leonard Smith, his elder brother.

  • DNB.

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.

Name Number of Meetings
Longman, Thomas Norton 1
Mulready, William 1
Knowles, John 1
Hayward, Richard 1
Alderson, Dr James 1
Boswell, Sir Alexander (first baronet) 1
Poole, John 1
Peacock, Thomas Love 1
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (née Godwin) 1
Shelley, Percy Bysshe 1
Hammond, Elton (Hamond) 1
Turner, Thomas 1