S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
James Smith
[An English humorist; born in London, 1775; wrote with his brother Horace for different periodicals, and brought out with him in 1812 the “Rejected Addresses,” being imitations of popular poets of the day; died 1839.]
A man of the same name, living in the same house, constantly received Smith’s letters, who finally told him it was intolerable, and he must quit. When asked why, Smith replied, “Because you are James II., and must abdicate.”
When Bentley, the publisher, proposed calling his magazine “The Wits’ Miscellany,” Smith objected that it promised too much: when “Bentley’s Miscellany” was suggested, Smith asked, “Isn’t that going a little too far the other way?”
