Editing Christopher Smart (section)

===Asylum confinement===
{{main|Christopher Smart's asylum confinement}}
[[Image:Amusement of Children three Foot High frontispiece.JPG|thumb|A [[caricature]] of Christopher Smart in [[Tommy Tagg]]'s book published by [[John Newbery]]]]

A "Commission of Lunacy" was taken out against Smart, and he was admitted to [[St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics]] on 6 May 1757 as a "Curable Patient".<ref>{{harvnb|Sherbo|1967|p=112}}</ref> It is possible that Smart was confined by Newbery over old debts and a poor relationship between the two; Newbery had previously mocked Smart and his immorality in his ''A Collection of Pretty Poems for the Amusement of Children six Foot High.''<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=181}}</ref> Regardless of the exact reasons, there is evidence suggesting that Newbery's admittance of Smart into the mental asylum was not based on "madness".<ref name="Mounsey p. 200">{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=200}}</ref> However, there is also evidence that an incident of some kind took place in St. James's Park in which Smart started to pray loudly in public until he had "routed all the company" (''Jubilate Agno'' B89).<ref name="Mounsey p. 200" />

It is not known what exactly happened during his confinement, but Smart did work on two of his most famous poems, ''Jubilate Agno'' and ''A Song to David''.<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=202}}</ref> What is known is that he may have been in a private madhouse before St Luke's and that he was later moved from St Luke's to Mr. Potter's asylum until his release.<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=203}}</ref> At St Luke's, he transitioned from being "curable" to "incurable", and was moved to Mr. Potter's asylum for monetary reasons.<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|pp=203–204}}</ref> During this time, Anna left and took the children with her to Ireland.<ref>{{harvnb|Sherbo|1967|p=135}}</ref> His isolation led him into writing religious poetry, although he abandoned the traditional genres of the 18th century that marked his earlier poetry when he wrote ''Jubilate Agno''.<ref>{{harvnb|Guest|1989|p=123}}</ref> Although it is debated as to whether his turning inward to examine himself in his poetry represents an evangelical type of Christianity, his poetry during his isolation does show a desire for "unmediated revelation".<ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1996|p=140}}</ref> There is an "inner light" that serves as a focal point for Smart and his poems written during this time, and that inner light connects him to the Christian God.<ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1996|p=141}}</ref>

Smart was left alone, except for his cat Jeoffry and the occasional gawker.<ref>{{harvnb|Sherbo|1967|p=130}}</ref> It is very possible that he felt "homeless" during this time and surely felt that he was in a "limbo&nbsp;… between public and private space".<ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1996|p=155}}</ref> In London, only a few of his works were still being published.<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=238}}</ref> However, not everyone viewed Smart's "madness" as problematic, and Johnson defended him, sometimes seriously and sometimes comically, many times.<ref>{{harvnb|Keymer|2003|p=190}}</ref> A century later, [[Robert Browning]] remarked that ''A Song to David'' was great because Smart was mad, and that the poem allowed him to rank alongside of Milton and Keats.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|1998|p=193}}</ref>

He was discharged from St. Luke's asylum uncured after one year. He was thought to be confined elsewhere for the following seven years, during which time he wrote ''Jubilate Agno''.<ref name="Price, Martin, 1920-2010 1973" /> Elizabeth, his daughter, claimed: "He grew better, and some misjudging friends who misconstrued Mr Newbery's great kindness in placing him under necessary & salutary restriction which might possibly have eventually wrought a cure, invited him to dinner and he returned to his confinement no more."<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=239}}</ref> Although this may be a misstatement of the events, Smart did leave the asylum on 30 January 1763.<ref>{{harvnb|Mounsey|2001|p=240}}</ref>