WILLIAM SMITH (fl. 1596), English sonneteer. He published in 1596 a sonnet sequence entitled Chloris, or the Complaint of the passionate despised Shepheard. He was a disciple of Spenser, to whom the two first sonnets and the last are addressed. He signed his name W. Smith, and has sometimes been confused with the playwright Wentworth Smith, who collaborated with John Day, William Haughton and others (1601-1603).