530 APPENDIX. 



of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, with the fond hope that he may 

 some day have a great-grandson to edit them and give them to the public. 

 James Reese, Esq. ("Colley Gibber"), in his "Life of Edwin For- 

 rest," the tragedian, speaking of my father, says: 



There are numerous anecdotes related of Richard Tenn Smith, all of which display 

 the most ready wit and sarcastic humor. Indeed, he was so celebrated for repartee 

 and off-hand sayings that he was actually dreaded in company, and very few had the 

 courage to measure lances with him when wit was the prize. A few we give here: 



Richard Penn Smith avowedly wrote for money, and he required something more 

 substantial than the blandishments of the Muses to tempt him to put his pen to paper. 

 If Green Room anecdotes are to be depended upon, he was blessed with a thicker skin 

 than usually falls to the lot of the genus irrilabile vatum. It is told of him that upon 

 one occasion he happened to enter the theatre during the run of one of his pieces, just 

 as the curtain was falling, and met with an old school-fellow, who had that day ar- 

 rived in Philadelphia, after an absence of several years. The first salutation was 

 scarcely over when the curtain fell, and the author's friend innocently remarked : 

 "Well, this is really the most insufferable trash that I have witnessed for some time." 

 " True," replied Smith, " but as they give me a benefit to-morrow night as the author, 

 I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you here again." 



At another time a. friend met him in the lobby, as the green curtain fell on one of 

 his progeny, and, unconscious of its paternity, asked the author, with a sneer, what the 

 piece was all about. *' Really," was the grave answer, " it is now some years since I 

 wrote that piece, and though I paid the utmost attention to the performance, I confess 

 I am as much in the dark as you are." 



When Mr. Smith was a young man, he was introduced by his father to a well- 

 known Philadelphian by the name of Wharton, who, from the fact of having a very 

 large nose with a wart on it, was called " Big-nosed Wharton," to distinguish him 

 from another gentleman of the same name. When out of hearing, the father said to 

 the son: "They call that gentleman Big-nosed Wharton." The son quickly replied : 

 "They have made a mistake; they should call him IVarton Big nose." 



Upon going one day into a hotel in which some of his friends were holding an argu- 

 ment about the city of Dumfries, Scotland, they made an appeal to him to decide the 

 question. " I know nothing of the Dumfries of Scotland, but I know a Dunib-freas 

 of Germantown." Mr. Freas, of the Germantown Telcg7-aph, an excellent gentleman, 

 who was deaf and talked but little, was sitting within hearing at the time. 



He was at a dinner given to the Judges of the Supreme Court by the Bar of Phila- 

 delphia, on the change of the constitution, in 1837. Mr. Smith had his health drank, 

 and when he arose to reply, a lawyer by the name of Lee, of a character almost in- 

 famous, and every way low, pulled him by the coat and urged him to toast him. As 

 Mr. Smith closed his remarks he said: "Gentlemen, you have toasted the Binneys, 

 the Chaunceys, the Rawles and Sergeants of the bar; allow me to offer the Lees of the 

 Philadelphia Bar." Mr. Lee did not see the joke, and replied, to the amusement 

 of all present. 



Mr. Smith always raised his own pigs. On one occasion he had them killed on the 



eighth of January (the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, where Sir Edward 



Packenham was killed). The next day he met a friend, who remarked: "Smith, 



yesterday was a fine day for killing pigs." "Yes," replied Smith, "but a bad day 



. for. Packingrham." 



