WRESTLING JACOB. Come, O thou Traveller unknown, And I am left alone with Thee: I need not tell Thee who I am, In vain Thou strugglest to get free, Wilt Thou not yet to me reveal To know it now, resolved I am : Or touch the hollow of my thigh; What though my shrinking flesh complain, I rise superior to my pain: When I am weak, then I am strong: And when my all of strength shall fail, I shall with the God-Man prevail. My strength is gone; my nature dies; I fall, and yet by faith I stand: Yield to me now, for I am weak, 'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me! the grace My prayer hath power with God; I see Thee face to face, and live: I know Thee, Saviour, who Thou art; The Sun of Righteousness on me Hath rose, with healing in his wings; Withered my nature's strength, from Theo My soul its life and succour brings; My help is all laid up above; Thy nature, and thy name, is Love! S Contented now upon my thigh I halt, till life's short journey end; On Thee alone for strength depend; Lame as I am, I take the prey, Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o'ercome; And as a bounding hart fly home! Thy nature, and thy name, is Love! CHRISTOPHER SMART was born April 11th, 1722, at Shipbourne, in Kent. While yet a boy, he lost his father, who had been steward to Lord Barnard, afterwards Earl of Darlington. To this nobleman's patronage and influence with the Duchess of Cleveland, Smart owed an allowance which enabled him to enter, at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1739. He was elected, in 1745, to a fellowship; and two years after, took his master's degree. He carried off the Seatonian prize for four consecutive years, and his "Latin Poems," amongst which was a translation of Pope's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," attracted considerable and favourable attention. But already, step by step with academical successes, marched most incongruously those irregularities of conduct of 66 66 66 which the precise and fastidious Gray, Smart's fellowcollegian, prophesied that a jail or madness would be the result. Smart's after experience, satisfying both its members, offered a double fulfilment of this alternative prediction. In 1753, he married Miss Carnan, stepdaughter to Mr. Newberry, a bookseller, to whose periodical publications he had contributed. Deprived by this act of his academical emoluments, he repaired to London, and relied for a subsistence on his literary activity and talents. In 1756, Smart was one of the stated undertakers" of a monthly miscellany called The Universal Visiter;" and with the "unhappy vacillation of mind," which seems at this time to have occurred as a premonition of the malady to which, in a more settled form, his future was doomed, Dr. Johnson so sincerely sympathized" as to assist him with several essays. In 1763, the poor poet was confined in a madhouse. The following quotation from Boswell's "Life of Johnson" is interesting as illustrating the half-venerating pity which the great moralist, many of whose days were passed under the cloud of constitutional melancholy, felt towards the sufferer from what he seemed to suspect of being a developed form of his own infirmity. At the same time it will fulfil the purpose-at present, its primary one-of giving prominence to the peculiar "method" of Smart's madness, and indicating those habits which had engendered or aggravated it. "Madness""-Boswell is here quoting Johnson-"frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed 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 madhouse, 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 were 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.”” From another conversation of Dr. Johnson's, it would seem, according to Mr. Croker's very legitimate inference, that Smart supposed "himself obliged literally to pray continually." Smart died in the King's Bench, where he was imprisoned for debt, May 18th, 1770. 66 "Smart's," says Southey, "was an unhappy life-imprudent, drunken, poor, diseased, and at length, insane. Yet he must not be classed with such as Boyse and Savage, who were redeemed by no virtue, for Smart was friendly, liberal, and affectionate. His piety was fervent, and when composing his religious poems, he was frequently so impressed as to write upon his knees." The Song to David," a few concluding stanzas from which are presented, was composed during his confinement in a madhouse; and when, not being allowed writing materials, he was compelled to "indent his lines with the end of a key upon the wainscot." This poem in its weird grandeur and whirlwind piety comes near to being a prodigy; almost every line invites analysis. Whatever the degree of lucidity enjoyed at moments of com |