The Smith brothers wrote parodies of poets of the day, supposedly their failed entries in the competition, and sold the collection under the title Rejected Addresses.

Sonnet-writing competitions were not uncommon; Shelley and Smith wrote competing sonnets on the subject of the Nile River.

(and was later renamed in his collection Amarynthus as On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below).

After making his fortune in business, Horace Smith produced around twenty historical novels: Brambletye House (1826), Tor Hill (1826), Reuben Apsley (1827), Zillah (1828), The New Forest (1829), Walter Colyton (1830), among others.

Three volumes of Gaieties and Gravities, published by him in 1826, contain many clever essays both in verse and prose, but the only piece that remains much remembered is the " Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition.