Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/274

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. m. MARCH 25, 1905.

But whether the person to whom Gray refers is Smart, or Lawman, or any one else, it is clear the man is not really off to Bedlam. He is at Walpole's disposal, if Wai- pole chooses to have him, and this could not be the case if he were bound for an asylum.

2. As to the date 1763 I am also inclined to be sceptical. Bos well heard Johnson upon Smart a few days later than 16 May, 1763, and what Johnson says about his " poor friend's " madness is in the past tense. Then Boswell proceeds to repeat a conversation on the same subject which Johnson had with Burney " at another time," and when Smart was actually in confinement. This conversa- tion Boswell obviously gathered from Burney, and it cannot be an inference from anything that appears in the ' Life of Johnson ' that Smart was in confinement in 1763. The ' Song to David ' was published before 28 June, 1763, on which day Mason wrote to Gray, "I have seen his 'Song to David,' and from thence conclude him to be as mad as ever." But this was when Mason knew, at any rate, that he was out of confinement, as I think I can show. Certainly the ' Song to David ' was published in 1763, and that in its com- pletest form ; and it was as certainly not thus put together in and published from the madhouse.

Just before the passage cited from Mason, 28 June, 1763, are the words : "I have got about ten subscribers to Smart, and do not know how to transmit him the money. Stonhe\ver advises me to keep it, as he hears he is in somebody's hands who may cheat him." To this Gray replies : " I think it may be time enough to send poor Smart the money you have been so kind to collect for him when he has dropped his lawsuit, which I do not doubt must go against him if he pursues it." I could adduce more to indicate that Smart, in 1763, was as much a free agent as a man can be who has been weakened by intemperance, insanity, and the pressure of debt.

I may fairly be expected to Coffer some positive solution, after all this negative criticism. In the life ap. Anderson it is stated that Smart had two children before he was immured. This would determine 1756 circ. for the earliest date of this incarceration. (It is significant that he won the "Seatonian" for the last time in 1755.) According to Anderson his confinement lasted about two years. Now on 18 January, 1759, Gray writes to Mason, "Poor Smart is not dead, as was said, and ' Merope ' is acted for his benefit this week, with a new farce, ' The Guardian.' " To which Mason replies, 25 January :

"This resuscitation of poor Smart pains me; I was in hopes he was safe in that state where the best of us will be better than we are, and the worst I hope as little worse as infinite justice can permit. But is he returned to his senses? If so, I fear that will be more terrible still. Pray, if you can dispose of a guinea so as it will in any sort benefit him (for it is too late for a ticket), give it for me."

The ticket would have been for 'Merope' and 'The Guardian,' and this dramatic per- formance, in which Garrick himself acted for Smart's benefit, marks approximately the poor man's emergence into that outer world from which he had been for two years excluded. He died not in an asylum, but in the King's Bench Prison, and there is no sufficient evidence that he was treated as a lunatic after the period fixed approximately as from 1756 to 1758.

In the preliminary letter to the * Hilliad,' dated 15 December, 1752, from London, Smart writes, "I have been now for about three weeks in this scene of smoke and dust " ; and the letter in reply, 21 Dececaber,. 1752, clearly recognizes Smart as having gone to London to pursue there a literary career. It is, I believe, acknowledged that his fellowship was sequestrated in order to pay his Cambridge debts; and, of course, the real reasons for his leaving the University do riot appear in this laudatory letter. But it has never been suggested that he returned to Cambridge after his confinement as a lunatic ; and this is another reason for dis- missing the notion that he went to Bedlam in 1751 (see further these letters ap- Anderson). D. C. TOVEY.

FRENCH WORDS OF UNCERTAIN ORIGIN.

A NEW edition of the ' Dictionnaire Etymo- logique dela Langue Francaise,' byA.Brachet, has just been published by Hachette & Co. All scholars know the utility of this work, but a large number of words are described as of uncertain origin, though their origin is- in some cases certain, in others probable. 1 subjoin brief references to some of them.

Abri, from apricare, to protect from cold.

Aise, from adatiare.

Antilope, dv^oAwi/', vide Skeat, s.v. Per- haps the last syllable may have been in* fluenced by Got. hlaupan, to run ; cf. leap.

Babine, connected with babvn and our babble:

Bdfre : cf. Ital. bafra, full bellj 7, from an old Teutonic word bafe, sauce or broth. Cf. Korting, s.v.

Bagarre : cf. O.H.G. bdga, a quarrel.

Balise, palitiitni, fence, boundary; hence= used for a mark to direct the course at sea.