In the following essay, Cronin asserts that A Life Drama reflects the life-long despair Smith felt at not being part of the exclusive poetic circle of England.

Here, Aytoun continues his criticism of the Spasmodic poets. Claiming to have discovered a Spasmodic tragedy, The Firmilian, written by a hitherto unknown author. T. Percy Jones, Aytoun provides extensive quotes from the tragedy—which is in fact his own satire of the Spasmodic style—interspersed with an ironic commentary. While the essay does not mention Smith by name, by this time Aytoun had identified the few writers he considered Spasmodic, of which Smith was one. This parody further damag...

In the following essay, Noble examines the autobiographical elements in Smith's prose as well as his use of picturesque detail.

In the following excerpt, written soon after Smith's death, Mason eulogizes Smith's writing career and refutes common criticisms of his work.

In the essay below, Walker proposes that Smith should be considered among the greatest English prose writers.

Below, Scott maintains that Smith used his personal experience in mid-Victorian Scotland as the basis for his poetry.

In the following essay, Grimsditch argues that while Smith's poetry is noteworthy because of its imagery, Smith deserves high regard as a prose writer because of the personal nature of and the humor found in his essays.

In the review below, Aytoun became one of the first to label Smith a "Spasmodic" poet, a term that would remain with Smith his entire life. The critic characterized Spasmodic poetry as unoriginal and profane. In this essay, he criticizes Smith for using an excessive amount of imagery that does not further the thematic development of his poems. Several months after publishing this piece, Aytoun continued his attack on the Spasmodic poets by writing a parody of a Spasmodic tragedy (see followin...

Here, Thayer chronicles the development of maturity in Smith's writing, from his first labeling as a spasmodic poet, to the complex issues addressed in his essays.

SOURCE : "Alexander Smith and Alexander Pope," in Fraser's Magazine for Town & Country, Vol . XLVIII, No. CCLXXXVL , October, 1853, pp. 452-66. In the following excerpt, Kingsley derides Smith's works by saying that the shortcomings of Poems are the fault of Smith imitating too closely the works of other writers.

Gilfillian is the critic credited with discovering and encouraging Smith. The following article, the second on Smith by Gilfillian, introduced Smith to about six thousand readers before he had even published a book of poetry, and caused Smith's first volume to be eagerly anticipated. Here, Gilfillian favorably compares Smith to Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge, saying Smith has the potential to become a genius poet.

Clough was an author, poet, and critic who wrote in both England and America during the late nineteenth century. Letters to his fiancé show that Clough originally liked Smith's work, especially A Life Drama, but lost enthusiasm for it before his first review of Smith was printed. The following excerpt is from a joint review of Matthew Arnold's and Smith's works, originally published in the North American Review, July, 1853. In it, Clough contends that despite "imperfectio...

In the following excerpt, Brisbane recounts the effects that criticism—particularly W. E. Aytoun's satire Firmilian—had on Smith both professionally and personally.

Here Murphy praises Smith for his work as an essayist and as "an illuminator of the essay as a literary genre."

Here, the anonymous critic claims that ideas in Smith's City Poems were taken from works of other authors, and that Smith has neither the "vision nor the faculty divine" to be a great poet.