SMART, Christopher (1722-1771), English poet, was born at Shipbourne in Kent on 11th April 1722. The discovery that Smart was anything more than an unfortunate Bohemian of letters who wrote much uninteresting verse of second-rate 18th-century quality is quite recent. After one or another of his superseded translations or ineffective exercises in heroics had in turn been assigned the place of honour as his representative literary work, his real masterpiece was discerned in a poem which, except for a reprint issued in 1819, had been singularly overlooked, and even omitted from the collected editions of his poetry. The history of this poem, A Song to David, is somewhat remarkable. It was written in the saner moments of confinement for a fit of insanity, and was, it is said, on not unimpeachable authority perhaps, indented with an iron nail or a key on the wall of the cell in default of other means of writing. The real facts of the case would seem to be that the unfortunate poet inscribed one or two stanzas in the manner asserted, and that he either dictated or was given the materials wherewith to write the rest of the poem. There is no internal evidence of any morbid origin, however, for the poem is full of a healthy and virile energy. As a boy he was delicate and precocious, with a facile gift of verse, which already won him a certain notoriety, of not the best effect haply, at Durham school, whither he had been sent on leaving a preparatory school at Maidstone. During a holiday visit to Raby castle his boyish gifts attracted the interest of the duchess of Cleveland, who made him an allowance of £40 a year, which was continued until her death, and which possibly served further to weaken his self-reliance. At Cambridge, where he was entered at Pembroke Hall in 1739, he ...