words which painfully remind us of Gray’s reported manner of enjoying a constitutional.  It is certain that there was considerable friction between these two men of genius, and Gray roundly prophesied that Smart would find his way to gaol or to Bedlam.  Both alternatives of this prediction were fulfilled, and in October, 1751, Gray curtly remarks:  “Smart sets out for Bedlam.”  Of this event we find curious evidence in the Treasury.  “October 12, 1751—­Ordered that Mr. Smart, being obliged to be absent, there will be allowed him in lieu of commons for the year ended Michaelmas, 1751, the sum of L10.”  There can be little question that Smart’s conduct and condition became more and more unsatisfactory.  This particular visit to a madhouse was probably brief, but it was possibly not the first and was soon repeated; for in 1749 and 1752 there are similar entries recording the fact that “Mr. Smart, being obliged to be absent,” certain allowances were paid by the college “in consideration of his circumstances.”  The most curious discovery, however, which we have been able to make is recorded in the following entry: 

“Nov. 27, 1753.—­Ordered that the dividend assigned to Mr. Smart be deposited in the Treasury till the Society be satisfied that he has a right to the same; it being credibly reported that he has been married for some time, and that notice be sent to Mr. Smart of his dividend being detained.”

As a matter of fact, Smart was by this time married to a relative of Newbery, the publisher, for whom he was doing hack work in London.  He had, however, formed the habit of writing the Seatonian prize poem, which he had already gained four times, in 1750, 1751, 1752, and 1753.  He seems to have clutched at the distinction which he brought on his college by these poems as the last straw by which to keep his fellowship, and, singular to say, he must have succeeded; for on the 16th of January 1754, this order was recorded: 

“That Mr. Smart have leave to keep his name in the college books without any expense, so long as he continues to write for the premium left by Mr. Seaton.”

How long this inexpensive indulgence lasted does not seem to be known.  Smart gained the Seatonian prize in 1755, having apparently failed in 1754, and then appears no more in Pembroke records.

The circumstance of his having made Cambridge too hot to hold him seems to have pulled Smart’s loose faculties together.  The next five years were probably the sanest and the busiest in his life.  He had collected his scattered odes and ballads, and published them, with his ambitious georgic, The Hop Garden, in the handsome quarto before us.  Among the seven hundred subscribers to this venture we find “Mr. Voltaire, historiographer of France,” and M. Roubilliac, the great statuary, besides such English celebrities as Gray, Collins, Richardson, Savage, Charles Avison, Garrick, and Mason.  The kind reception of this work awakened in the poet an