circuit, and as a special pleader and equity draughtsman, and was one of Daniel Isaac Eaton's counsel on his trial for blasphemous libel on 6 March 1812. He was appointed in 1817 second fiscal in Demerara and Essequibo, and died at Demerara in 1822, leaving a son (see below) and a daughter.
Among Smith's works were:
- ‘Elements of the Science of Money founded on the Principles of the Law of Nature,’ London, 1813, 8vo.
- ‘Practical Summary and Review of the Statute 53 Geo. III, or Law for the Surrender of Effects, and for the Personal Liberation of Prisoners for Debt,’ London, 1814, 8vo.
- ‘Advice for the Petitioners against the Corn Bill,’ London, 1815, 8vo.
Smith edited:
- ‘The Law Journal,’ London, 1804–6, 3 vols. 8vo;
- ‘An Abridgment of the Public General Statutes, 44–6 Geo. III,’ London, 1804–7, 3 vols. 8vo;
- ‘Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Court of King's Bench, 44–6 Geo. III,’ London, 1804–7, 3 vols. 8vo.
John Prince Smith, the younger (1809–1874), political economist, son of the preceding, born at London on 20 Jan. 1809, accompanied his father to Demerara, and was placed at Eton in 1820. On his father's death he entered the employ of Messrs. Daniel, merchants, of 4 Mincing Lane, which he quitted in 1828. After two years of irregular occupation as banker's clerk, parliamentary reporter, and journalist, in London and Hamburg, he obtained on 5 April 1831 the place of English and French master in Cowle's Gymnasium at Elbing. Resigning this post in 1840, he remained at Elbing, and, resuming journalistic work, gained no little celebrity by his able advocacy of free-trade principles in the ‘Elbinger Anzeigen.’ Removing to Berlin in 1846, he married Auguste, daughter of the eminent banker, Sommerbrod, and was elected a member of the Free Trade Union in the same year, and common councillor in 1848. He took an active part in the proceedings of the economic congresses at Gotha (1858), Hanover (1862), and Brunswick (1866), was deputy for Stettin in the Prussian House of Representatives (1862–6), and president of the Berlin Economic Society from 1862, and of the standing committee of the Lübeck Economic Congress from 1870 until shortly before his death. In 1870 he was returned to the Reichstag for Anhalt-Zerbst. He died at Berlin on 3 Feb. 1874. His ‘Gesammelte Werken,’ ed. Braun, Wiesbaden, and Michaelis, with ‘Lebensskizze’ by Wolff, appeared at Berlin, 1877–80, 3 vols. 8vo. His only English work is ‘System of Political Economy by Charles Henry Hager, LL.D. Translated from the German,’ London, 1844, 8vo.
[‘Lebensskizze’ by Wolff, above mentioned; Gray's Inn. Reg.; Law List, 1802; Rider's British Merlin, 1818–22; Gent. Mag. 1822, ii. 646; Howell's State Trials, xxxi. 953; Dict. Living Authors, 1816; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
SMITH, JOHN PYE (1774–1851), nonconformist divine, only son of John Smith, bookseller, of Angel Street, Sheffield, by Martha, daughter of Joseph Sheard, and sister-in-law of Matthew Talbot of Leeds [see Baines, Edward, (1774–1848)], was born in Sheffield on 25 May 1774. Without regular school education he picked up a considerable knowledge of the classics, and of English and French literature, by desultory reading in his father's shop. As he evinced no precocious piety, it was not until 21 Nov. 1792 that he was admitted to membership in the congregational church to which his parents belonged. Meanwhile (April 1790) he was apprenticed to his father's business, and in 1796 he served his literary apprenticeship as editor of the ‘Iris’ newspaper during the imprisonment of his friend, James Montgomery [q. v.] He appears also to have had transient relations with Coleridge and William Roscoe [q. v.] On the expiry of his indentures he gave up business, and, after studying for nearly four years under Dr. Edward Williams at the Rotherham Academy, was appointed in September 1800 resident tutor at Homerton College, where, besides the literæ humaniores, he lectured on Hebrew, the Greek Testament, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, and the more modern branches of science. Ordained on 11 April 1804, he was advanced in the summer of 1806 to the theological tutorship, which he held until shortly before his death, on 5 Feb. 1851. He was buried in Abney Park cemetery (15 Feb.). Pye Smith was D.D. of Yale College, LL.D. of Marischal College Aberdeen, F.R.S. and F.G.S.
Pye Smith married twice: first, at Tunbridge, on 20 Aug. 1801, a daughter of Thomas Hodgson of Hackney, who died on 23 Nov. 1832; secondly, at Islington, on 12 Jan. 1843, Catherine Elizabeth, widow of the Rev. William Clayton. By his first wife he had four sons and two daughters; by his second wife no issue.
Without brilliance or metaphysical depth, Pye Smith had no small learning, industry, and versatility. Though ignorant of German until he was past middle life, and though much of his time was frittered away in ephemeral controversies, he made in his ‘Scripture Testimony to the Messiah’ (Lon-
