Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/148

Smith rare volume are now known: one is in the Bodleian Library; the other, in the Huth Library, formerly belonged successively to Narcissus Luttrell and to Thomas Park. It was reprinted in Mr. Edward Arber's ‘English Garner,’ viii. 171 sqq.

There is no means of determining whether the writer is identical with the ‘W. S.’ who prefixed verses ‘in commendation of the author’ to Grange's ‘Golden Aphroditis,’ 1577, or with the ‘W. S.’ who paid Breton a like compliment in his ‘Wil of Wit,’ 1606.

Heber owned a manuscript entitled ‘A New Yeares Guift, or a posie upon certen flowers presented to the Countesse of Pembrooke by the author of “Chloris, or the passionate despised Shepherd;”’ it is now in the British Museum, MS. Addit. 35186.

‘A booke called Amours by J. D., with certein other Sonnetes by W. S.,’ was licensed for publication by Eleazar Edgar, 3 Jan. 1599–1600 (, Transcript, iii. 153). Collier suggested that ‘J. D.’ was a misprint for ‘M. D.,’ and that this entry implied an intention on the part of the publisher to reissue Michael Drayton's ‘Sonnets’ which the poet had entitled ‘Amours’ in the first edition of 1594, in conjunction with a collection of sonnets by ‘W. S.’—initials which Collier identified as those of Drayton's friend, Shakespeare. Shakespeare's ‘Sonnets’ were not published till 1609. It seems more likely that the publisher Edgar contemplated a republication of Smith's collection of sonnets with some work (since lost) by Sir John Davies [q. v.], but the point cannot be decided positively. Edgar does not seem to have actually published any book which can be identified with the description given in the Stationers' ‘Registers.’ Nine years later Edgar published a prose treatise of a different calibre by an author signing himself ‘W. S.’ It was entitled ‘Instructions for the increasing of Mulberie Trees and the breeding of Silk-wormes’ (London, 1609, 4to, with illustrations).

Smith appears to have usually signed his name ‘W. Smith,’ and some plays bearing that signature have been assigned to William Smith, but these were in all probability the work of Wentworth Smith [q. v.]

[Collier's Bibliographical Account; Ritson's Bibliographia Anglo-Poetica; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. MS. Addit. 24489, p. 78.]

 SMITH, WILLIAM (1550?–1618), herald, born about 1550 at Warmingham in Cheshire, was a younger son of Randle Smith of Oldhaugh in Warmingham, by his wife Jane, daughter of Ralph Bostock of Norcroft in Cheshire. The Smiths of Oldhaugh were a branch of the Smiths of Cuerdley in Lancashire. William is said to have been educated at Oxford. He may be the William Smith who graduated B.A., 8 Feb. 1566–7, at Brasenose College, which was founded by a collateral ancestor, William Smith or Smyth (1460?–1514) [q. v.] In March 1561–2 his mother died, and in July 1568 he paid a visit to Bristol. About 1575 Smith became a citizen of London and a member of the Haberdashers' Company. He proceeded to Germany about 1578, and for some years kept an inn at Nürnberg with the sign of the Goose. On the death of his father, on 6 Oct. 1584, he returned to England, and in 1585 took up his residence in Cheshire. On 23 Oct. 1597 he was created rouge dragon pursuivant on the recommendation of Sir George Carey, knight marshal. He never attained higher office, owing partly to a lack of amiability and a sharp tongue. He died on 10 Oct. 1618, and was buried, as Wood thinks, in the churchyard of St. Benedict, near Paul's Wharf. About 1580 he married Veronica, daughter of Francis Altensteig of Nürnberg. By her he had two sons—William, born in 1581; and Paul, born in 1588—and three daughters, Jane, Frances, and Hester.

Smith was the author of: 1. ‘The Vale Royall of England, or Countie Palatine of Chester; containing a Geographicall Description of the said Countrey or Shyre, with other things thereunto appertayning. Collected and written by William Smith,’ 1585 (Ashmolean MS. 765; Rawlinson MSS. B. Nos. 282–3), which was published in 1656 by Daniel King [q. v.], together with another work with a similar title by William Webb, under the title ‘The Vale Royall of England … with maps and prospects, performed by W. Smith and W. Webb,’ London, fol. 2. ‘The Particuler Description of England, with Portratures of certaine of the cheifest Citties and Townes.’ The manuscript, which is among the Sloane MSS. (No. 2596) in the British Museum, was published by Henry B. Wheatley and Edmund W. Ashbee, London, 1879, 8vo.

Smith also wrote the following unpublished manuscripts: 1. ‘Genealogical Tables of the Kings of England and Scotland, and the Sovereigns of Europe, to the years 1578–9, with their arms, in colours,’ 1579 (Rawlinson MS. B. No. 141). 2. ‘1580 Angliæ Descriptio,’ dedicated: ‘Amplissimo Viro, D. Christophoro Fhurero, Reipub. Noribergenss. senatori Prudentiss.’ (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 10620). 3. ‘How Germany is devyded into 10 Kreises, that is to say Cir-