Among the shorter poems , the fables were the pieces most highly prized by Smart 's contemporaries .
Contemporaries still wear well , showing a lightness of touch and acuteness of social observation that made eighteenth - century critics put him in the same league as John Gay .
Among the shorter poems , the fables were the pieces most highly prized by Smart 's contemporaries , and they still wear well , showing a lightness of touch and acuteness of social observation that made eighteenth - century critics put him in the same league as John Gay .