SMART, CHRISTOPHER ( ,1722-1771), English poet, was born at Shipbourne, Kent, on April i1, 1722. His father was steward for the Kentish estates of William, Viscount Vane, younger son of Lord Barnard of Raby Castle, Durham. Chris topher Smart went to school at Maidstone, and at the Durham grammar school of Durham. He spent part of his vacations at Raby Castle, and his gifts as a poet gained him the patronage of the Vane family. Henrietta, duchess of Cleveland, allowed him a pension of 140 which was paid until her death in 1742. At Cam bridge, where he was entered at Pembroke College in 1739, he spent much of his time in taverns, and got badly into debt, but in spite of his irregularities he became fellow of his college, praelector in philosophy and keeper of the common chest in 1745. In November 1747 he was compelled to remain in his rooms for fear of creditors. About 1752 he left Cambridge for London, though he kept his name on the college books. He wrote in London under the pseudonym of "Mary Midnight" and "Pent weazle." He had a hand in many journalistic undertakings, and completed a prose translation of Horace. Some criticisms made by "Sir" John Hill on his Poems on Several Occasions (1752) pro voked his satire of the Hilliad (1753), noteworthy as providing the model for the Rolliad.
In 1751 Smart had shown symptoms of mental aberration, which developed into religious mania, and between 1756 and 1758 he was in an asylum, where he was visited by Johnson, who thought him sane. The poem written by him in the asylum, "A Song of David," is his only famous work, and has been compared by some critics to the work of Blake. After his release Smart produced other religious poems, but none of them shows the same inspiration. For some time before his death, which took place on May 2 1 , 1 7 7 1 , he lived in the rules of King's Bench, and was supported by small subscriptions raised by Dr. Burney and other friends.
From the Poems of the late Christopher Smart (1790 the "Song to David" (pr. 1763) was excluded. It was reprinted in 1819, and in an abridged form is included in T. H. Ward's English Poets, vol. iii. ; it was reprinted in 1895, and in 1901 with an introduction by R. A. Streatfeild.