over
each with a paper ruler, ready, in the event of omission of word or
phrase, to strike down the unfortunate offender, who all the while
drooped tremblingly before him. On one of these days of extorted prayer,
I was found at fault in my grammar lesson, and the offence was deemed
worthy of peculiar castigation. The school was dismissed at the usual
time, but, along with a few other boys who were to become witnesses of
my punishment and disgrace, I was detained in the class-room, and
dragged to the presence of the tyrant. Despite of his every effort, I
resisted being bound to the bench, and flogged after the fashion of the
times. So the punishment was commuted into 'palmies.' Horrible
commutation! Sixty lashes with leather thongs on my right hand,
inflicted with all the severity of a tyrant's wrath, made me scream in
the anguish of desperation. My pitiless tormentor, unmoved by the sight
of my hand sorely lacerated, and swollen to twice its natural size,
threatened to cut out my tongue if I continued to complain; and so
saying, laid hold on a pair of scissors, and inflicted a deep cut on my
lip. The horrors of the day fortunately emancipated me from the further
control of the despot."

At another seminary Smart completed his education. He was now
apprenticed to a watchmaker in his native town, his hours of leisure
being sedulously devoted to the perusal of the more distinguished
British poets. It was his delight to repeat his favourite passages in
solitary rambles on the sea beach. In 1819, on the completion of his
apprenticeship, he proceeded to Edinburgh, where, during a period of six
months, he wrought at his trade. But the sedentary life of a watchmaker
proving injurious to his health, he was led to seek employment in a
printing-office. Soon after, he became editor, printer, and publisher of
the _Montrose Chronicle_, a newspaper which was originated in his native
town, but which proved unsuccessful. He thereafter held an appointment
in the office of the _Dundee Courier_. Returning to Edinburgh, he
accepted employment as a pressman in a respectable printing-office, and
afterwards attained the position of press overseer in one of the most
important printing establishments of the city.

In his twentieth year Smart adventured on the composition of verses, but
being dissatisfied with his efforts, he consigned them to oblivion. He
subsequently renewed his invocation of the Muse, and in 1834 published
a small duodecimo