The poet Christopher Smart (1722-1771) lived a life of immense suffering and inner turmoil. He experienced being committed to what was termed at the time a lunatic asylum, and also a debtor’s prison. After his death, his poetry and translations were to be largely forgotten until the 20th century when, with the help first of Edmund Blunden, and then the championing of figures like W B Yeats, Allan Ginsburg and Peter Porter he enjoyed a renaissance. This was helped by the finding of a full manuscript of the utterly remarkable `Jubilate Agno’ , testimony to a period in which Smart had suffered delirium and an outbreak of religious mania in the lead up to his confinement in hospital. In this long, prophetic poem, there are references to his life till then, in Kent, Durham, Cambridge and London. One of these refers to almost Blakean terms to his youth in the Medway Valley. It was here, in Shipbourne, where he had been born, son of Peter and Winnifred Griffiths. His father had worked for the landed aristocrat Lord Vane in his estates near Durham, and been set to Kent to the Fairland estates of the same family by the Medway. This landscape was one that Smart held a nostalgic affection later in his life:
` For I fast this day even the 31st of August N.S. to prepare for the SABBATH of the Lord.
For the bite of an Adder is cured by its greese and the malice of my enemies by their stupidity.
For I bless God in SHIPBOURNE FAIRLAWN the meadows the brooks and the hills.
For the adversary hath exasperated the very birds against me, but the Lord sustain’d me.
For I bless God for my Newcastle friends the voice of the raven and heart of the oak.
For I bless God for every feather from the wren in the sedge to the CHERUBS and their MATES.’ (`Jubilate Agno’, Fragment B, Part One, http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/christopher_smart/poems/12112.html).
The death of Smart’s parents by 1733 caused his relocation to Durham, where he was looked after by Lord Vane’s family, and developed an affection for their daughter. At the age of 17, he went to Cambridge, where he studied and became a fellow at Pembroke College. He was a talented versifier in Latin, and the expectation was that he would stay there. However, after writing to Alexandra Pope with a translation into Latin of one of his poems and receiving some encouragement, his interests shifted to writing and creative work, much of it in English. He expressed his dissatisfaction towards the university and life there not just through scathing poetry, but also by being almost perpetually drunk. By 1748 he was in London, marrying Ann Maria Carnan, Stepdaughter of the publisher John Newbery in the early 1750s. The fact that she and her mother were Catholic, and that on marriage he was unable to return to Cambridge to take up the position of Fellow there if he had wished, did not dissuade him. The marriage, however, was not to prove a happy one, with the two separated for most of the final decade of Smart’s life.
Despite producing large amounts of work, and signing an agreement to write and co-edit `The Universal Visitor’ which published, amongst others, the work of Samuel Johnson, by 1756 Smart suffered such severe mental trauma and fever that he was committed to St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in Windmill Hill, London. He was discharged the following year, but remained in attended accommodation in Bethnal Green till 1763. It was then that his first and only collection of poems issued in his life appeared, `Poems of Several Occasions’.
For the final decade of his life, he maintained a precarious existence in London, frequently looked after by his friends. He was able to inspire immense affection from those who knew him. This did not prevent him accruing a large number of debts, causing his incarceration in debtors prison in 1770. He died a year later.
Smart’s remarkable work, particularly `Jubilate Deo’, is not easily available now. Generous excerpts can be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christopher-smart#tab-poems. The portion beginning `For I will consider my cat Jeooffry’ is symptomatic of the almost incantatory, mesmerising quality of Smart’s writing, and the blazing sense of modernity, perhaps two centuries before its time:
` For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.’