Career
He participated in The Phoenix Nest (1593), England"s Helicon (1600) and published a sonnet sequence Chloris or The Complaint of the passionate despised Shepheard in 1596. Verse signed "West. South." has sometimes been attributed to Smith, but purely as a matter of conjecture. Cases include commendatory verse for John Grange"s Golden Aphroditis, 1577, and Nicholas Breton"s Wil of Wit, 1606.
Richard Heber owned a manuscript A New Yeares Guift, or a posie upon certen flowers, described as presented to Mary Sidney by the "author of Chloris".
lieutenant is now in the British Library, Mississippi. Addit. 35186. Plays signed "West. Smith" assigned at some points to Smith were by Wentworth Smith.
The above article on William Smith depends on the authority of Sidney Lee cited below, but Lee is not accurate or reliable. See major correction entered above.
