If thus untimely fell he who, of all the literary associates of Dr.
Burney, had attained the most prosperous lot, who shall marvel that
untimely should be the fate of the most unfortunate of his Parnassian
friends, Christopher Smart? who, high in literary genius, though in
that alone, had a short time previously, through turns of fortune,
and concurrences of events, wholly different in their course from
those which had undermined the vital powers of Dr. Hawkesworth, paid
as prematurely the solemn debt relentlessly claimed by that dread
accomptant-general, Death!—of all alike the awful creditor!—and paid
it as helplessly the victim of substantial, as Dr. Hawkesworth was that
of shadowy, disappointment.
With failure at the root of every undertaking, and abortion for the
fruit of every hope, Kit Smart finished his suffering existence in
the King’s Bench prison; where he owed to a small subscription, of
which Dr. Burney was at the head, a miserable little pittance beyond
the prison allowance; and where he consumed away the blighted remnant
of his days, under the alternate pressure of partial aberration of
intellect, and bacchanalian forgetfulness of misfortune.
His learning and talents, which frequently, in his youth, had been
crowned with classical laurels at the University of Cambridge, had
seemed to prognosticate a far different result: but, through whatever
errors or irregularities such fair promises may have been set aside,
he, surely, must always call for commiseration rather than censure, who
has been exposed, though but at intervals, to the unknown disorders of
wavering senses.
Nevertheless, whenever he was master of his faculties, his piety,
though rather fanatical than rational, was truly sincere; and survived
all his calamities, whether mental or mundane.
He left behind him none to whom he was more attached than Dr. Burney,
who had been one of his first favourite companions, and who remained
his last and most generous friend.
Alike through his malady and his distresses, the goodness of his
heart, and his feeling for others, were constantly predominant. In his
latest letter to Dr. Burney, which was written from the King’s Bench
prison, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, “whom I myself,”
he impressively says, “have already assisted according to my willing
poverty.”
Kit Smart is occasionally mentioned in Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson,
and with anecdotes given to Mr. Boswell by Dr. Burney.
Mrs. Le Noir, the ingenious daughter of Mr. Smart, is authoress of a
pleasing production entitled _Village Manners_, which she dedicated to
Dr. Burney.