Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England, by Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...

, was published in 1765 along with a translation of the Psalms of David and a new version of A Song to David. These poems were composed while he was in a mental asylum and during the time he wrote Jubilate Agno.

Background

For many years after the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

's claim that non-Biblical music was inappropriate was popularly held. Although Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...

 tried to write hymns, those like Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

 and Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 reversed Calvin's beliefs and claimed that religion and poetry could not mix because the poetry could be damaged: Swift claimed that "the smallest quantity of religion, like a single drop of Malt-Liquor in Claret, will muddy and discompose the brightest Poetical Genius" and Johnson wrote specifically that Watt's "devotional poetry is, like that of others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topicks enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well." None of this stopped Isaac Watts, and his hymns became popular in public worship; but Christopher Smart's desires were not Watts's, and Christopher wrote as "a private act of worship."

The Hymns were printed in A Translation of the Psalms of David, Attempted in the Spirit of Christianity, and Adapted to the Divine Service, a volume published in 1765 and contained a translation of the Psalms

Psalms

The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...

,a new series of Hymns, and a copy of A Song to David. Although the work was not published until 1765, Christopher Smart was already advertising a work containing both Psalms and Hymns in 1763. The Hymns contained thirty-five hymns, and they were not reprinted until Christopher Smart's daughter, Elizabeth LeNoir, published Miscellaneous Poems, which contained changed versions of hymn 3, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 28, and 32. Although there was only one edition of the work, many famous names appeared on the subscription list. The work was published by Dryden Leach, but received little notice in various reviews and no mention of the Hymns.

Hymns and Spiritual Songs

The Hymns were composed between June of 1762 and January of 1763 while Christopher was in a mental asylum for "religious mania", as "D Fragment" of Jubilate Agno

Jubilate Agno

Jubilate Agno is a religious poem by Christopher Smart, and was written between 1759 and 1763, during Smart's confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London. The poem was first published in 1939, under the title Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam, edited by W. F...

claims:

The Lord magnify the idea of Smarts singing hymns on this day in the eyes of the whole University of Cambridge. (D148)

Novr 5th 1762. N.S.

This fragment led Robert Brittain, one of Christopher Smart's editors, to claim that "Smart had just written his 'Hymn xxix. The Fifth of November'." This would verify that Christopher Smart wrote these Hymns while in a mental asylum and that he was creating hymns to follow the Church Year. Furthermore, the references to hymns in the "D Fragment" of Jubilate Agno does not allow a definite date of creation to exist, but can narrow down their origins to a few years.

The actual Hymns are modeled after a tradition of hymn writing exemplified by Robert Nelson

Robert Nelson (nonjuror)

Robert Nelson was an English lay religious writer and nonjuror.-Life:He was born in London on 22 June 1656, the only surviving son of John Nelson, a merchant in the Turkey trade, by Delicia, daughter of Lewis and sister of Sir Gabriel Roberts, who, like John Nelson, was a member of the Levant...

. However, a connection between Nelson and Christopher Smart's hymns may only be coincidental, because they both rely on common Anglican texts. The texts that Christopher Smart relies on most for his Hymns are the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 and the Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

. They form a sort of "companion" to the Book of Common Prayer. However, the complexity of the Biblical allusions and Biblical works may confuse or mislead a reader who is not steeped in Biblical tradition.

The actual Hymns do follow the festivals and fasts that were important to Anglican tradition, but they also include four "Solemn Days": the "Martyrdom of the Blessed King Charles the First" on January 30; the "King's Restoration" on May 29; the "Accession of the Ruling Monarch" on October 25; and the "Most Traiterous and bloody intended Massacre by Gunpower" on November 5. These days are outlets for Christopher's patriotism and his dislike of the Catholic Church.

Hymns

There are thirty-five hymns included in Hymns and Spiritual Songs:

• I. New Year II. Circumcision III. Epiphany IV. Conversion of Saint Paul V. King Charles the Martyr
• VI. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple VII. Ash Wednesday. First Day of Lent VIII. St. Matthias IX. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin X. The Crucifixion of Our Blessed Lord
• XI. Easter Day XII. St. Mark XIII. St. Philip and St. James XIV. The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ XV. Whitsunday
• XVI. Trinity Sunday XVII. The King's Restoration XVIII. St. Barnabas XIX. The Nativity of St. John the Baptist XX. St. Peter
• XXI. St. James XXII. St. Bartholomew XXIII. St. Matthew XXIV. St. Michael and All Angels XXV. St. Luke
• XXVI. The Accession of King George III XXVII. St. Simon and St. Jude XXVIII. All Saints XXIX. The Fifth of November XXX. St. Andrew
• XXXI. St. Thomas XXXII. The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ XXXIII. St. Stephen XXXIV. St. John the Evangelist XXXV. The Holy Innocents