The fame of the Smiths, however, was confined to a limited circle until the publication of the _Rejected Addresses_, which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity. James Smith used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman: "I do not see why they (the _Addresses_) should have been rejected: I think some of them very good." This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish bishop, that there were some things in _Gulliver's Travels_ which he could not believe. Though never guilty of intemperance, James was a martyr to the gout; and, independently of the difficulty he experienced in locomotion, he partook largely of the feeling avowed by his old friend Jekyll, who used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the drive before his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down all day long. He used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds:-- "'Stroll! why, don't you see my gouty shoe?' "'Yes, I see that plain enough, and I wish I'd brought one too, but they're all out now.' "'Well, and what then?' "'What then? Why, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say that you have really got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe to get off being shown over the improvements.'" His bachelorship is thus attested in his niece's album: "Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die, Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses: For what little fame Is annexed to my name, Is derived from _Rejected Addresses_." The two following are amongst the best of his good things. A gentleman with the same Christian and surname took lodgings in the same house. The consequence was, eternal confusion of calls and letters. Indeed, the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. "This is intolerable, sir," said our friend, "and you must quit." "Why am I to quit more than you?" "Because you are James the Second--and must _abdicate_." Mr. Bentley proposed to establish a periodical publication, to be called _The Wit's Miscellany_. Smith objected that the title promised too much. Shortly afterwards, the publisher came to tell him that he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it _Bentley's Miscellany_. "Isn't that going a little too far the other way?" was the remark.