In Smart’s day, Old St was the edge of the built up city with market gardens and smallholdings beyond. However, Smart made a religious conversion at this time, and there is an account of him approaching strangers in St James’ Park and inviting them to pray with him. Yet there are divergent opinions as to whether he was mad at all, or whether his consignment was in some way political on the part of John Newbery, the man who was both Smart’s publisher and father-in-law. ![]() His prolific literary career turned to pamphleteering and satire, publishing hundreds of works in a desperate attempt to keep his wife and two little daughters, Marianne and Elizabeth Ann.Įventually, he signed a contract to write a weekly magazine, The Universal Visitor, and the strain of producing this caused Smart to have a fit, sometimes ascribed as the origin of his madness. Once he married Anna Maria Canaan, Smart was unable to remain at Cambridge and came to London, seeking to make ends meet in the precarious realm of Grub St. He fell into debt whilst a student at Cambridge and, even though his literary talent was acknowledged with awards and scholarships, his delight in high jinks and theatrical performances did not find favour with the University. In an age when only aristocrats with private incomes were able to exist as poets, Christopher Smart was a superlative talent with small means who struggled to make his path through the world and his emotional behaviour became increasingly volatile as a result. And, to my amazement and delight, Paul has illustrated all eighty-nine lines, each one with an apposite feline image. ![]() So when artist Paul Bommer asked me to suggest a subject for an illustrated print, I had no hesitation in proposing Christopher Smart’s eulogy to his cat Jeoffry, the best description of the character of a cat that I know. Whenever I walk along Old St, I always think of the brilliant eighteenth century poet Christopher Smart who once resided here in St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, with only his cat Jeoffry for solace, on the spot where the Co-operative and Argos are today.
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