April 11, 1722

Christopher Smart (April 11, 1722 to May 21, 1771) is the Cambridge educated poet well known during his lifetime and ours, but more forgotten during the 19th century. Christopher Smart's father was an estate manager for the aristocratic Vane family in Kent. His youth was spent surrounded by relative affluence and the Vane money. Yet his father died bankrupt, due to unwise investments, and some scholars feel this turmoil -- young Christopher at the age of 11, witnessing the public auction of all his family's goods, -- explains later episodes in Smart's career which were interpreted as mental instability.
The adult poet would spend time confined for mental incapacity and also in debtor's prison. Still, I find this explanation cheap. Modern science has not really dealt convincingly with a distinction between mental illness and mystical experiences. What we do know is that Smart is the author of a glorious poem famous for it's depiction of his cat Jeoffrey: Jubilate Agno.