Horace (born Horatio) Smith (1779-1849) is, today, an obscure Romantic poet, dramatist, and novelist, although he was fairly well-known in his own lifetime, largely as a comic/parodic poet. He was a friend (and financial advisor) of Percy Bysshe Shelley's; the two met through their involvement with the radical circle of artists associated with the poet Leigh Hunt, although Smith, oddly, was a very successful stockbroker as well as writer. (Indeed, in a letter to Leigh Hunt Percy Shelley once wrote "is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker?") Although best-known today for writing, in a friendly competition with Percy Shelley, a poem on Ozymandias, Smith also produced at least one Gothic parody.
