Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/273

 10*8. HI- MARCH 25, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

221

LOKDON, SATURDAY, MARCH S5, 1905.

CONTENTS.-No. 65.

NOTES : Christopher Smart and the Madhouse, 221 French Words of Uncertain Origin, 222 Francis Douce, 223 Killigrew and Barker Families" Hirsles yont," 224 Haswell Family Pancake Day, 225 Tottenham and Stoke Newington Parish Registers Butterfly in Baskish, 226.

QUERIES : " Bright Chanticleer proclaims the dawn" Whistler's Ship-Spratt Family Bibliographical Queries " Futura prseteritis " " St. George to save a maid," 227 King's Cock-Crower Names of Letters Masons' Marks 'Brown's Superb Bible' Lines on a Mug Dr. James Barry, 228 Windsor Castle Sentry 'Patience' Thomas Cooper John Normnn, of Bideford George Borrow : The Turkish Jester ' Luther's 'Commentary on the Galatiaus,' 229.

EEPLIES : The Author of ' Thealma and Clearchus,' 229 The Nail and the Clove, 231 Father Sarpi in English Literature Wall: Martin, 232 Translations of Domesday Zemstvo Lucas Families Bidding Prayer, 233 Hoi- born Bacon or Usher ? Heriot Theatre-Building Anchorites' Dens, 231 Quarterstaves Penny Wares Wanted " Vine " Inn, Highgate Road Saxton Family- Heraldic Mottoes,|235 -Wedding-King Finger Christmas Custom in Somersetshire Charles I. in Spain The Egyptian Hall, 236-Sarum " Dobbin," Children's Game, 237 " Peril," 238.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Hamilton's 'Chronicle of the Eng- .. lish Convent at Louvain ' ' The Scots Peerage' The

"Stratford Town" Shakespeare ' Paradise Lost'

"Metbuen's Standard Library."

Notices to Correspondents.

CHRISTOPHER SMART AND THE MADHOUSE.

I SHOULD be grateful for a speedy solution of some doubts as to the date of Smart's confinement as a lunatic. He is said (see ' Diet, of National Biography ') to have been so immured in 1751 and 1763. I do not know whether these dates are given on any other evidence than the following.

1. Gray writes to Walpole (who apparently wanted an amanuensis), 8 October, 1751 :

" We have a man here that writes a good hand ; but he has little failings that hinder my recom- mending him to you. He is lousy, and he is mad : he sets out this week for Bedlam ; but if you insist upon it, I don't doubt he will pay his respect* to you."

Mr. Gosse suggests that this was Smart ; but I have my doubts about it. According to the life in Anderson's ' British Poets,' Smart did not leave Cambridge until 1752. In 1752 he won the Seatonian Prize for a poem on a religious subject ; and it appears that the award was made to him in 1750 on 25 March. It is probable that this was the date for 1752 also. On this hypothesis, between 8 October, 1751, when he is supposed to have left Cambridge for Bedlam, and

25 March, 1752, he composed a successful prize poem, for we may dismiss, I think, the notion that he began his effort very long before the time of sending it in ; that was not Smart's way; and in 1755 he just barely contrived to send his poem to Cambridge within the limit of time. Did he write the poem of 1752 in an asylum 1 If so, his earlier were more indulgent than his later keepers, for there is probably a nucleus of truth in the story that the ' Song to David ' was in part scratched with a key upon the wainscot of the room in which he was con- fined, he being refused the use of pen, ink, and paper.

There is a further objection. Before 1753 Smart was doing work for Newbery, the bookseller. In 1753 he married Newbery's step-daughter, Miss Carman. Xewbery was a man not only benevolent, but prudently benevolent, as his conduct to Smart and the girl after their marriage sufficiently proves. Is it at all probable that he would have allowed her to marry a man who, as he must have known, had already been confined as a lunatic ?

1 have conjectured that the person of whom Gray writes was Lawman, the mad attorney, who was Smart's copyist for his play 'A Trip to Cambridge,' &c. (Gray to Wharton, March, 1747). Making every allow- ance for jocular exaggeration and Gray's obvious contempt for Smart, I do not believe that he would have described him in such disgusting terms. Johnson said that Smart did not love clean linen, and honestly con- fessed that he had the same dislike. Smart's habits would tend to slovenliness ; but they clearly did not exclude him from society at Cambridge ; like Person he was fond of low company, but like Person he was never debarred from converse with men refined both in person and intellect. In the biography ap. Anderson it is stated that he was private tutor to the John Hussey Delaval (afterwards Lord Delaval) who is the hero of the escapade described by Gray, 27 December, 1746. His father, steward to Lord Barnard, once had an estate in Kent, and Smart himself was in his youth a favoured guest at Ilaby Castle. Upon Smart's recovery from his madness Hawkesworth visited him, and writes : "It is by no means considered in any light that his company as a gentleman, a scholar, and a genius is less desirable." This is surely evidence that Smart was never regarded quite as a pariah. When Hawkesworth saw him he was going to dine with Mr. Richard Dalton, who had an appointment in the King's Library.