Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/409

 Snarlerus, or the Canine Appetite demonstrated in the persons of P—pe and Sw—t’ (London, 1728, folio), in verse, which rivals almost anything of Swift's in coarseness, and, finally, in his rancorous ‘Gulliveriana: or a Fourth Volume of Miscellanies, being a sequel of the three volumes published by Pope and Swift, to which is added Alexanderiana, or a comparison between the ecclesiastical and poetical Popes and many things in verse and prose relating to the latter’ (London, 1728, 8vo, with an insulting frontispiece containing caricatures of Pope and Swift), a curious manifesto of malignity, in which point is sacrificed to repetition. That it did not miss its aim, however, is evidenced by Smedley's being substituted for Eusden as the winner in the diving match in the authoritative version of the ‘Dunciad’ issued in 1729. In the meantime Smedley, who had resigned his impoverished deanery of Clogher in 1727, had determined to try his fortune in Madras. As a preliminary to sailing for Fort St. George in the summer of 1729, after which period nothing further is known of him, he indited a farewell character of himself in Latin, which Swift parodied in his lines on

Though there was but little occasion for their services, a number of obscure poetasters sprang up to vindicate Swift from the insults in ‘Gulliveriana,’ in which the campaign against ‘Wood's brass farthings’ had been stigmatised as a sham. In all of these Smedley was coarsely abused, and the resulting unpopularity may have determined his departure for India, which it is probable that he did not long survive.

A mezzotint portrait was executed by Faber, after R. Dellow, in 1723 (, Engraved Portraits, p. 228).



SMEE, ALFRED (1818–1877), surgeon, second son of William Smee, accountant-general to the Bank of England, was born in Camberwell on 18 June 1818. He entered St. Paul's School on 7 Nov. 1829 (St. Paul's School Reg. p. 280), and in October 1834 he became a medical student at King's College, London, where he carried off the silver medal and prize for chemistry in 1836, and the silver medals for anatomy and physiology in 1837. He then left King's College, and entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a dresser to (Sir) [q. v.], and obtained a prize in surgery. He lived the greater part of his student life in the official residence of his father within the Bank of England, and it was here that he carried out his work upon chemistry and electro-metallurgy which afterwards rendered his name famous. He received his diploma of member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 24 April 1840, and he began to practise as a consulting surgeon in Finsbury Circus, devoting his attention more especially to diseases of the eye. Much of his time at this period was occupied in the solution of chemical problems and in the study of electrical science. Smee's battery (zinc and silver in sulphuric acid) was the outcome of his labours. It was largely employed for trade purposes, and for it he was awarded the gold Isis medal at the Society of Arts. His volume on electro-metallurgy was published on 1 Dec. 1840. He was appointed surgeon to the Bank of England in January 1841, a post which had been especially created for him by the directors, upon the recommendation of Sir Astley Cooper, who thought that the bank could turn his scientific genius to good account. He invented a durable writing-ink in 1842, and in 1854, with Mr. Hensman, the engineer, and Mr. Coe, the superintendent of printing at the bank, perfected the present system of printing the cheques and notes. Certain modifications were introduced into the manufacture of the notes to prevent or render it impossible any longer to split them. His paper on ‘New Bank of England Note and the Substitution of Surface Printing from Electrotypes for Copperplate Printing’ was read before the Society of Arts in 1854. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 10 June 1841, and in February 1842 he became surgeon to the Royal General Dispensary in Aldersgate Street. He also lectured on surgery at the Aldersgate Street school of medicine, and he acted as surgeon to the Central London Ophthalmic Institution. He was much occupied with a work, ‘Elements of Electro-Biology,’ which appeared in 1849. It was a pioneer excursion into the territory of electrical physiology, and appeared in a more popular form in 1850 as ‘Instinct and Reason.’ Smee took a great interest in the welfare of the London Institution, and in 1854 he was instrumental in establishing there that system of educational