Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Christopher Smart
Cristopher Smart,
POET,
Was born at Shipbourne in 1722, and educated at Maidstone and Cambridge. He cultivated poetry, and produced a translation into Latin of the Ode to St. Cecilia, of Pope, much praised by that poet, who caused him to undertake a similar translation of his Essay on Criticism." He also published a translation of "Horace" and of "Phædrus," a version of the Psalms and the Parables in verse, a satire entitled "The Hilliad" (against Sir John Hill), and other pieces, all of which were collected and published in 1791. Though the friend of Johnson, Garrick, and others, his literary efforts were unsuccessful, and the embarrassment of his circumstances brought on derangement and melancholy. He died in 1770.
[See Life prefixed to his Works, as above, and "Johnson's English Poets."]