SOURCE: "Christopher Smart," in Temple Bar, Vol. 112, No. 443, October, 1897, pp. 268-74.

In this originally unsigned essay, Hanson argues that Smart's Translation of the Psalms provides the "missing link" between the brilliance of A Song to David and the mediocrity of the poet's other works.

In the history of literature it is not uncommon for a man to have two distinct and different reputations, one while he is alive and the other after his death. Adam Smith was known to his contemporaries as a philosopher, and the Wealth of Nations was only a fragment of a projected great work on the 'Progress of Man.' The example of Johnson is trite. Christopher Smart has had something of the same fortune. Those who know his name to-day think of him as the author of the Song to David; but during his life his reputation rested chiefly on a number...