Christopher Smart was born in Shipbourne, Kent, in 1722 and grew up to become one of the most distinctive voices in eighteenth-century English poetry. He attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he demonstrated enough talent to earn a fellowship. His early career involved writing light verse, translations, and journalism in London. He regularly contributed to two popular periodicals of the time, *The Midwife* and *The Student*, and mingled with prominent figures like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding — a notable achievement in a literary scene where those names held significant influence.
Smart was a devout high church Anglican, and his faith was deeply embedded in his work. Unfortunately, it also led to his downfall. In the 1750s, he began to exhibit signs of what his contemporaries labeled madness — particularly, an uncontrollable urge to drop to his knees and pray in public, regardless of the situation. Johnson defended him, reportedly stating he would just as soon pray with Kit Smart as with anyone else, arguing that his only madness was a relentless desire to pray. Others were less sympathetic. Smart was placed in a private asylum, St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, and later confined to a madhouse in Bethnal Green for much of the late 1750s and into the 1760s.
“During his time in confinement, he wrote *Jubilate Agno*, a long, unusual, ecstatic poem that remained unpublished during his life and wasn't fully printed until 1939.”
The poem loosely follows the antiphonal call-and-response format of Hebrew liturgy, encompassing everything from theological reflection to natural history, including a well-known, tender passage about his cat Jeoffry. It stands apart from anything else created during that time.
After his release, Smart published *A Song to David* in 1763, a formally ambitious hymn of praise that many consider his masterpiece today. At the time, some readers interpreted its intensity as further proof of his instability. In his later years, Smart lived in poverty, faced imprisonment for debt, and ultimately died in a debtors' prison in 1771 at the age of forty-nine.
