Christopher Smart's Asylum Confinement - Analysis

Analysis

Samuel Johnson's biographer James Boswell described a moment when Charles Burney inquired of his friend Johnson of Smart's state. Johnson used the term "madness" to comment on the state of society before explaining to Burney that Smart's actions that were deemed symptoms of madness were actually reasonable:

Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual mode of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.

Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in a mad-house, he had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr Burney: – Burney. 'How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?' Johnson. 'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.' Burney. 'Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.' Johnson. 'No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities are not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.' – Johnson continued. 'Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.'

In an article printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, Hester Piozzi, Smart's acquaintance and Johnson's close friend, argued that in many aspects Smart appears sane:

In every other transaction of life no man's wits could be more regular than those of Smart, for this prevalence of one idea pertinaciously keeping the first place in his head had in no sense, except in what immediately related to itself, perverted his judgement at all; his opinions were unchanged as before, nor did he seem more likely to fall into a state of distraction than any other man; less so, perhaps, as he calmed every violent start of passion by prayer.

Beyond Smart's circle of friends, few were willing to dismiss claims that Smart was affected by madness. Most contemporary literary critics knew of Smart's time in asylum and, upon publication of his A Song to David, called attention to aspects of the poem which they could use to claim that Smart was still "mad". The view was widely held, and the poet William Mason wrote to Thomas Gray, "I have seen his Song to David & from thence conclude him as mad as ever."