poem and that he would "teach" how to farm hops in order to use them to flavor alcoholic drinks. However, Smart does more than "teach in verse Miltonian" as he relies on various forms and styles to "express a variety of viewpoints." While the poem discusses farming methods, it also expresses a "'Patriot' hostility" to Walpole and the later Carteret/Compton administration of the British Parliament. The poem, in essence, is anti-Hanoverian, although he would later change this view. AutobiographyThe Hop-Garden is a personal work and contains many biographical references. One of such as his mention of his deceased friend, Theophilus Wheeler, who died at Christ's College, Cambridge, a year after starting. In particular, Smart was working on the poem when Theophilus died, and he dedicated a portion of the second book to his memory:THEOPHILUS, thou dear departed soul,What flattering tales thou told'st me? How thou'dst hailMy Muse, and took'st imaginary walksAll in my hopland groves! Stay yet, oh stay!Thou dear deluder, thou hast seen but half-He's gone! and ought that's equal to his praiseFame has not for me, tho' she prove most kind.Howe'er this verse be sacred to thy name,These tears, the last sad duty of a friend.Oft I'll indulge the pleasurable painOf recollection; oft on Medway's banksI'll muse on thee full pensive; while her streamsRegardful ever of my grief, shall flowIn sullen silence silverly alongThe weeping shores - or else accordant withMy loud laments, shall ever and anonMake melancholy music to the shades,The hopland shades, that on her bank exposeSerpentine vines and flowing locks of gold.(The Hop-Garden Book the Second, 25-43) Part of the motivation to dedicating such a large portion of the poem to a discussion about Wheeler comes from his relationship with the writing of the poem; Smart showed an early version of the first book to Wheeler in 1743 before Wheeler's death. Satire In Chris Mounsey's biography of Christopher Smart, the fourth chapter is devoted to an examination of The Hop-Garden. However, this examination admittedly does not focus on the poem as a georgic, but emphasizes an Augustan nature of the poem, especially its potential as a satirical attack upon John Philips's Cyder (1708). By mocking the use of poetry for praise in the poem's epigram, Smart sets the stage for his work to satirize a previous work that indulged too much in a desire for praise, and, as Mounsey points out, Philip's Cyder was an