300 
S M E 
S M E 
engage in if. By this caution, added to the clearness of his 
expression, and the integrity of his heart, he seldom failed 
to obtain for the bill which he supported the sanction of an 
act of parliament. No one was ever heard with more atten¬ 
tion, nor had any one ever more confidence placed in his 
testimony. In the courts of law he had several compliments 
paid him from the bench by Lord Mansfield and other 
judges, for the new light that he always threw upon difficult 
subjects. About the year 1785, the health of this excellent 
man began to decline, and he took the resolution to avoid all 
the business he could, in order that he might have leisure to 
publish an account of his inventions, improvements, and 
works, by which he conceived he should be doing a public 
benefit to his country and the world. In September 1792, 
he had a paralytic seizure, which put a period to his life in 
about six weeks. 
In all the social duties of life he was exemplary: his 
manners were simple, and his mode of life abstemious. He 
was singularly moderate in his pecuniary concerns. He was 
a friend and encourager of merit wherever he discerned it, 
and many persons were indebted to him for important 
assistance on their entrance into life. Mr. Smeaton was 
the institutor, in 1771, of a society of civil engineers, which 
was dissolved at his death, but afterwards renewed ; they 
published, in 1797, a volume of his Reports. For his 
works in constructing bridges, mills, harbours, engines, &c., 
see his Reports, in 3 vols. 4to. 
SMEATON, Great, a village of England, North Riding 
of Yorkshire ; 7 miles north-by.west of Northallerton. 
SMEATON, Little, a hamlet of England, North Riding 
of Yorkshire; about 2 miles from the foregoing. 
SMEATON, Kirk, and Smeaton, Little, two town¬ 
ships of England, West Riding of Yorkshire; 6| miles 
south-east of Pontefract. 
SMEDMORE, a small hamlet of England, in the isle of 
Purbeck, Dorsetshire, near the Channel. 
SMEETH, a parish of England, in Kent; 5 miles south¬ 
east of Ashford. 
T'o SMEETH, or Smutch, v. a. [pnigge, Saxon.] To 
smoke ; to blacken with smoke. Not in use. 
SMEETON WESTERBY, a township of England, 
county of Leicester; 5 miles north-west of Market Har- 
borough. 
SME'GMATIC, adj. [a-p.vjyp. 0 ., Gr.] Soapy; deter¬ 
sive. 
To SMELL, b. a. pret and part, smelt. Etymology 
unknown. To perceive by the nose.—Their neighbours 
hear the same music, or smell the same perfumes with them¬ 
selves : for here is enough. Collier. —To find out by men¬ 
tal sagacity.—The horse smelt him out, and presently a 
crochet came in his head how to countermine him. 
L' Estrange. 
To SMELL, v. v. To strike the nostrils.—The king is 
but a man as I am : the violet smells to him as it does to 
me; all his senses have but human conditions. Shakspeare. 
—To have any particular scent: with of. —Honey in Spain 
smelleth apparently oft he rosemary or orange, from whence 
the bee gathereth it. Bacon. —To have a particular tincture 
or smack of any quality. 
My unsoil’d name, the austereness of my life. 
Will so your accusation overweigh, 
That you shall stifle in your own report, 
And smell of calumny. Shakspeare. 
To practice the act of smelling.—I had a mind to know 
whether they would find out the treasure, and whether 
smelling enabled them to know what is good for their 
nourishment. Addison. —To exercise sagacity. 
Down with the nose, take the bridge quite away, 
Of him that his particular to forefend. 
Smells from the general weal. Shakspeare. 
SMELL, s. Power of smelling ; the sense of which the 
nose is the organ. 
Next in the nostrils she doth use the smell, 
As God the breath of life in them did give; 
So makes he now this power in them to dwell, 
To judge all airs, whereby we breath and live. Davies. 
Scent; power of affecting the nose.—There is a great va¬ 
riety of smells, though we have but a few names for them: 
the smell of a violet and musk, both sweet, are as distinct 
as any two smells. Locke. 
SME'LLER, s. One who smells. One who is smelled. 
These left-handed rascals, 
The very vomit, sir, of hospitals. 
Bridewells, and spittal-houses; such nasty smellers. 
That if they’d been unfurnish’d of club-truncheons. 
They might have cudgell’d me with their very stinks. 
Beaum. arid FI. 
The organ of smelling. 
SME'LLFEAST, s. A parasite ; one who haunts good 
tables. 
Smellfeast Vitellio 
Smiles on his master for a meal or two. Bp. Hall. 
SMELLIE (William), M.D., an eminent teacher and 
practitioner of midwifery, was a native of Scotland. After 
having successfully practised this art in a small town of that 
country for a period of nineteen years, he removed to 
London, and in 1741 was living in Pall-Mall, where Dr. 
William Hunter resided with him. This circumstance 
implies, that he had already risen to considerable eminence 
in his line, and he was in fact in high repute as a lecturer, 
being attended by a numerous concourse of pupils of both 
sexes. This reputation, indeed, he appears to have merited 
by his talents and assiduity; for he was the first in proposing 
many of the practical improvements, which modern 
experience has admitted into the practice of midwifery, and 
by his mechanical skill he contributed materially to the 
improvement of the instruments employed to facilitate 
delivery in difficult cases, and to the disuse of those which 
were less safe and convenient; and he established some 
useful rules for their application. He was the first writer, 
who, by accurately determining the shape and size of the 
pelvis, and of the head of the foetus, and comparing their 
proportions, and the true position of the foetus in utero, 
pointed out clearly the whole progress of the child during 
parturition : and his opinions were subsequently confirmed, 
especially by Dr. Hunter, from observations made after death, 
where parturition had not been completed. The improve¬ 
ment which he made in the forceps, which has since been 
universally adopted, is well known, and he taught the 
present manual mode of using them. He abolished many 
superstitious notions and erroneous customs that prevailed 
in the management of parturient women and of the 
children; and he had the satisfaction to see the greater part 
of his maxims adopted, not only in this island, but by many 
of the most respectable practitioners in Europe. 
In the year 1752, he published the substance of his lec¬ 
tures, in the improvement and correction of which he 
affirms, that he had spent six years, in one volume 8 vo., 
under the title of “ A Treatise on Midwifery;” to which, in 
1754, he added a second volume of cases, intended to 
illustrate the precepts laid down in the former. An ad¬ 
ditional volume of cases, which he promised in his pre¬ 
face, did not appear till about five years after his death, 
in 1768. The whole formed the most complete system of 
the art of midwifery, which had then appeared and was 
regarded as the best authority: it was, in fact, the result 
of an extensive experience of forty years, and contained a 
very comprehensive view of the various circumstances, that 
usually occur, with instructions respecting the best means of 
obviating them. In 1754, Dr. Smellie likewise published 
a set of anatomical plates, of a large folio size, and thirty- 
six in number, which were intended farther to elucidate the 
doctrines of his lectures. He was remarkably candid and 
modest in his demeanour, and upright and disinterested in 
all 
