Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/43

 belonged to the other section, in consecrating Thomas Mawman. Again, in 1741, he joined the younger Brett and Mawman in consecrating Robert Gordon, the last bishop of the regular nonjurors. He died on 4 Nov. 1756, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Oswald's, Durham, an English inscription being placed on his tomb and a Latin inscription on a monument to him in the south aisle of the church. He was a man of learning and high character.

By his wife Christian, who died on 23 July 1781, aged 79, and who was the eldest daughter of Hilkiah Bedford, Smith had a numerous family, twelve of his children dying in infancy, and his eldest son being John Smith, M.D., of Burn Hall, who married Anne, daughter of Nicholas Shuttleworth of Elvet in St. Oswald's parish in 1750, and died in 1752, aged 29, leaving a son named George, who bought Piercefield, Monmouthshire, became a lieutenant-colonel, and was father of Sir Charles Felix Smith [q. v.] and of Elizabeth Smith [q. v.]

Besides his edition of Bede, Smith wrote some anonymous pamphlets, of which are known: 1. ‘An Epistolary Dissertation addressed to the Clergy of Middlesex … by way of Reply to Dr. Waterland's late Charge to them, by a Divine of the University of Cambridge,’ London, 8vo, 1739. 2. ‘A Brief Historical Account of the Primitive Invocation,’ &c., London, 8vo, 1740. 3. ‘A Defence of the Communion Office of the Church of England,’ &c., ‘in a Letter to a Friend,’ Edinburgh, 1744; published with a preface by another writer. 4. ‘Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery’ (Smith MSS.) 5. ‘Remarks upon the Life of the Most Rev. Dr. John Tillotson, compiled by Thomas Birch, D.D.,’ London, 8vo, 1754. He gave Thomas Carte [q. v.] some help in writing his ‘History of England;’ and also aided his brother-in-law, Thomas Bedford (d. 1773) [q. v.], in preparing his edition of Symeon of Durham's ‘Libellus de exordio … Dunhelmensis Ecclesiæ.’ No portrait is in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, as has been alleged.

 SMITH, GEORGE (1713–1776), landscape-painter, was born in 1713 at Chichester, where his father, William Smith, was a tradesman and baptist minister. He was the second and most gifted of three brothers, who all practised painting and were known as ‘the Smiths of Chichester.’ When a boy he was placed with his uncle, a cooper, but, preferring art, became a pupil of his brother William, whom he accompanied to Gloucester; there and in other places he spent some years, painting chiefly portraits, and then returned to his native city, where, under the patronage of the Duke of Richmond, he settled as a landscape-painter. He depicted the rural and pastoral scenery of Sussex and other parts of England in a pleasing but artificial manner, based on the study of Claude and Poussin, which appealed to the taste of the day, and he was throughout his life a much-admired artist. His reputation extended to the continent, where he was known as the ‘British Gessner.’ In 1760 Smith gained from the Society of Arts their first premium for a landscape, and repeated his success in 1761 and 1763. He exhibited with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1760, but in 1761 joined the Free Society, of which he was one of the chief supporters until 1774; in that year only he was a contributor to the Royal Academy. Smith's works, which are now chiefly met with at Goodwood and other country houses of Sussex and Hampshire, were largely engraved by Woollett, Elliott, Peake, Vivares, and other able artists; a series of twenty-seven plates from his pictures, with the title ‘Picturesque Scenery of England and Wales,’ was published between 1757 and 1769. A set of fifty-three etchings and engravings by him and his brother John, from their own works and those of other masters, was published in 1770. George Smith was a good performer on the violoncello and also wrote poetry; in 1770 he printed a volume of ‘Pastorals,’ of which a second edition, accompanied by a memoir of him, was issued by his daughters in 1811. He died at Chichester on 7 Sept. 1776.

(1717–1764), younger brother of George, was his pupil, and painted landscapes of a similar character; the two frequently worked on the same canvas. John exhibited with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1760 and with the Free Society from 1761 to 1764. In 1760, again in 1761, he was awarded the second premium of the Society of Arts, and in 1762, when his brother George was not a candidate, the first; his ‘premium’ landscape of 1760 was engraved by Woollett. He died at Chichester on 29 July 1764.

(1707–1764), the eldest of the brothers, born at Guildford in 1707, was placed by the Duke of Richmond with