Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/107

 and her memory was singularly accurate and tenacious; a few days before her death she repeated a great part of Gray's ‘Elegy.’ She never lost her interest in political and literary topics, or her sympathy with modern movements; did not think the past age better than the present, and met fears of the dangerous tendencies of modern science with the remark, ‘I am for inquiry.’ Among her friends were Sarah Austin [q. v.], William Whewell [q. v.], Adam Sedgwick [q. v.], and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley [q. v.] In the winter of 1873–4 she had a severe attack of bronchitis, but got quite well again; and till near the end of 1876 entertained her friends at table, and took almost daily drives in her carriage. Her strength was weakening, and in January 1877 she sank rapidly. On Saturday, 3 Feb. 1877, she asked to be carried down to her favourite room; the wish could not be gratified; half an hour later she passed calmly away. She was buried on 9 Feb. beside her husband, in her father's vault in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Lowestoft. In the church there is a window to her memory. She published ‘Memoir and Correspondence of the late Sir J. E. Smith,’ &c. (1832, 8vo, 2 vols.). Tradition ascribes to her a share in the composition of her husband's hymns.

[Times, 5 Feb. 1877; Christian Life, 10 Feb. 1877 p. 73, 17 Feb. 1877 p. 87; Spectator, 17 Feb. 1877, article on ‘The Ideal of Old Age;’ James's Memoir of Thomas Madge, 1871, p. 291; tombstones at Lowestoft; personal recollection.]

 SMITH, RICHARD, D.D. (1500–1563), described by Wood as ‘the greatest pillar for the Roman catholic cause in his time,’ was born in Worcestershire in 1500. In the title-page to his treatise, ‘De Missæ Sacrificio,’ he styles himself ‘Wigornensis, Anglus, sacræ theologiæ professor,’ and Bale, who knew him personally, numbers him among English writers. Stanihurst and Ussher erroneously assert that he was the son of a blacksmith, and that he was a native of Rathmacknee, a village in Ireland three miles from Wexford. He was elected a probationer fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1527, was admitted B.A. on 5 April in that year, and commenced M.A. 18 July 1530 (Oxford Univ. Register, i. 146). He became the public scribe or registrar of the university on 8 Feb. 1531–2, was appointed the first regius professor of divinity on the foundation of that chair by Henry VIII, was admitted B.D. 13 May 1536, and D.D. 10 July the same year. On 9 Sept. 1537 he was admitted master of Whittington College, London, and he was one of the divines who were commissioned in that year to compose ‘The Institution of a Christian Man.’ Archbishop Cranmer collated him to the rectory of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East (, Repertorium, i. 334). He was also rector of Cuxham, Oxfordshire, principal of St. Alban's Hall, and divinity reader in Magdalen College.

On the accession of Edward VI he complied with the change of religion, and on 15 May 1547 he made his recantation at St. Paul's Cross, declaring that the authority of the bishop of Rome had been justly and lawfully abolished in this realm (, Cranmer, p. 171, app. p. 84, fol.). This statement he repeated at Oxford on 24 July, but he maintained that, while retracting, he did not recant (, Memorials, ii. 39, seq.; Lit. Rem. of Edw. VI, p. 214). He was accordingly deprived of his regius professorship, being succeeded by Peter Martyr. Early in 1549 he had a famous disputation with Peter Martyr at Oxford (Orig. Letters, Parker Soc. ii. 478–9). A few days later Smith was imprisoned. He was released on finding security for good behaviour, but fled first to St. Andrews in Scotland, then to Paris, and afterwards to Louvain, where he was received with solemnity on 9 April 1549 (, Fasti Academici Studii Generalis Lovaniensis, 1650, p. 85); he was afterwards appointed public professor of divinity in Louvain university.

On Mary's accession he was not only restored to his professorship at Oxford and to the mastership of Whittington College, but appointed one of her majesty's chaplains and a canon of Christ Church (, Fasti, ii. 530). He was one of the witnesses against Archbishop Cranmer, his former friend, was the principal opponent of Ridley in the disputation held at Oxford on 7 April 1554, and took part in the disputations with Latimer (see, Actes). When those prelates were about to be burnt he preached a sermon before a large auditory near Balliol College on the text, ‘If I give my body to be burnt, and have no charity, it profiteth nothing.’

After the accession of Elizabeth he lost all his preferments, and was committed in 1559 to the custody of Archbishop Parker, who induced him to recant what he had written in defence of the celibacy of priests (cf., Church History, ii. 101). According to Jewel he was removed from his professorship owing to a charge of adultery being brought against him (Zurich Letters, i. 12, 45). Smith's attempt to take refuge in Scotland failed. Subsequently, ‘giving Matthew [Parker] the slip,’ he reached Douay,