Alexander Smart was born at Montrose on the 26th April 1798. His father
was a respectable shoemaker in the place. A portion of his school
education was conducted under the care of one Norval, a teacher in the
Montrose Academy, whose mode of infusing knowledge he has not unjustly
satirised in his poem, entitled "Recollections of Auld Lang Syne."
Norval was a model among the tyrant pedagogues of the past; and as an
illustration of Scottish school life fifty years since, we present our
author's reminiscences of the despot. "Gruesome in visage and deformed
in body, his mind reflected the grim and tortuous aspects of his person.
The recollection of his monstrous cruelties,--his cruel flagellations,--is
still unaccountably depressing. One day of horrors I shall never cease
to remember. Every Saturday he caused the pupils to repeat a prayer
which he had composed for their use; and in hearing which he stood over
each with a paper ruler, ready, in the event of omission of word or
phrase, to strike down the unfortunate offender, who all the while
drooped tremblingly before him. On one of these days of extorted prayer,
I was found at fault in my grammar lesson, and the offence was deemed
worthy of peculiar castigation. The school was dismissed at the usual
time, but, along with a few other boys who were to become witnesses of
my punishment and disgrace, I was detained in the class-room, and
dragged to the presence of the tyrant. Despite of his every effort, I
resisted being bound to the bench, and flogged after the fashion of the
times. So the punishment was commuted into 'palmies.' Horrible
commutation! Sixty lashes with leather thongs on my right hand,
inflicted with all the severity of a tyrant's wrath, made me scream in
the anguish of desperation. My pitiless tormentor, unmoved by the sight
of my hand sorely lacerated, and swollen to twice its natural size,
threatened to cut out my tongue if I continued to complain; and so
saying, laid hold on a pair of scissors, and inflicted a deep cut on my
lip. The horrors of the day fortunately emancipated me from the further
control of the despot."
At another seminary Smart completed his education. He was now
apprenticed to a watchmaker in his native town, his hours of leisure
being sedulously devoted to the perusal of the more distinguished
British poets. It was his delight to repeat his favourite passages in
solitary rambles on the sea beach. In 1819, on the completion of his
apprenticeship, he proceeded to Edinburgh, where, during a period of six
months, he wrought at his trade. But the sedentary life of a watchmaker
proving injurious to his health, he was led to seek employment in a
printing-office. Soon after, he became editor, printer, and publisher of
the _Montrose Chronicle_, a newspaper which was originated in his native
town, but which proved unsuccessful. He thereafter held an appointment
in the office of the _Dundee Courier_. Returning to Edinburgh, he
accepted employment as a pressman in a respectable printing-office, and
afterwards attained the position of press overseer in one of the most
important printing establishments of the city.
In his twentieth year Smart adventured on the composition of verses, but
being dissatisfied with his efforts, he consigned them to oblivion. He
subsequently renewed his invocation of the Muse, and in 1834 published
a small duodecimo volume of poems and songs, entitled "Rambling Rhymes."
This publication attracted considerable attention, and secured for the
author the personal favour of Lord Jeffrey. He also received the
commendation of Thomas Campbell, Charles Dickens, Thomas Babington
Macaulay, Charles Mackay, and other literary and poetical celebrities. A
new and enlarged edition of his volume appeared in 1845, and was
dedicated by permission to Lord Jeffrey.
Smart was one of the principal contributors to "Whistle Binkie." At
different periods he has composed excellent prose essays and sketches,
some of which have appeared in _Hogg's Instructor_. Those papers
entitled "Burns and his Ancestors," "Leaves from an Autobiography," and
"Scenes from the Life of a Sufferer," may be especially enumerated. Of a
peculiarly nervous temperament, he has more than once experienced the
miseries of mental aberration. Latterly he has completely recovered his
health, and living in Edinburgh with his wife and family, he divides his
time between the mechanical labours of the printing-office and the more
congenial pursuits of literature.