Horace in London: Consisting of Imitations of the First Two Books of The Odes of Horace. ; by the authors of Rejected Addresses, or the New Theatrum Poetarum

Format is approximately 4 inches by 6.5 inches. viii, 173, [5] pages. Footnotes. Front board weak and has been restrengthened with glue. Top edge gilt. Bookplate of George A. Zabriskie inside front cover. This is believed to be the same person who was President of the New-York Historical Society from 1939-1947. Pasted in at the front is a letter to Henry Colburn from Horatio Smith dated 25 June 1829. The recipient it believed to be the Henry Colburn (1784 - 16 August 1855) who was a British publisher. The letter discussed the upcoming submission of Smith's new novel. The letter has been folded several times and has some tears at the folds but it intact. Given the handwriting style of the time, some parts may be difficult to read. Horace (born Horatio) Smith (31 December 1779 - 12 July 1849) was an English poet and novelist, perhaps best known for his participation in a sonnet-writing competition with Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was of Smith that Shelley said: "Is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew who had money enough to be generous with should be a stockbroker? He writes poetry and pastoral dramas and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous." Smith was born in London, the fifth of eight children, son of Robert Smith (1747-1832) F.R.S. and his wife Mary Bogle. He was educated at Chigwell School with his elder brother James Smith, also a writer. Horace first came to public attention in 1812 at the time of the rebuilding of the Drury Lane Theatre, after it had burnt down; the managers offered a prize of £50 for an address to be recited at the Theatre's reopening in October. The Smith brothers wrote parodies of poets of the day, supposedly their failed entries in the competition, and sold the collection under the title Rejected Addresses. James parodied Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge and Crabbe, while Horace parodied Byron, Moore, Scott and Bowles. Smith went on to become a prosperous stockbroker. After making his fortune, Horace Smith produced a series of historical novels: Brambletye House (1826), Tor Hill (1826), Reuben Apsley (1827), Zillah (1828), The New Forest (1829), Walter Colyton (1830), among others. Three volumes of Gaieties and Gravities, published by him in 1826, contain many clever essays both in verse and prose, but the only piece that remains much remembered is the " Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition." The Rejected Addresses, with seven editions within three months, still stands the most widely popular parodies ever published in the country. The book was written without malice; none of the poets caricatured took offence, while the imitation is so clever that both Byron and Scott claimed that they could scarcely believe they had not written the addresses ascribed to them. The only other collaboration by the two brothers was Horace in London (1813). James Smith (10 February 1775 - 24 December 1839) was an English writer. He is best known as co-author of the Rejected Addresses, with his younger brother Horace. Smith entered his father's office and succeeded him as solicitor to the Board of Ordnance in 1812. He died, unmarried, at his house in Craven Street, Strand, London, and was buried in the vaults of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The other joint undertaking of the two brothers was Horace in London (1813). James Smith made another hit in writing Country Cousins, A Trip to Paris, A Trip to America, and other skits for Charles Mathews, who said he was "the only man who can write clever nonsense.".…