Volume Ii Part 16 (1/2)

[Footnote 3: John, Lord Carteret, then Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, since Earl of Granville, in right of his mother.]

[Footnote 4: The army in Ireland was lodged in strong buildings, called barracks. See ”Verses on his own Death,” and notes, vol. i, 247.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 5: A cant-word in Ireland for a poor country clergyman.]

[Footnote 6: My lady's waiting-woman.]

[Footnote 7: Two of Sir Arthur's managers.]

[Footnote 8: Dr. Jinny, a clergyman in the neighbourhood.]

[Footnote 9: Ovids, Plutarchs, Homers.]

[Footnote 10: These four lines were added by Swift in his own copy of the Miscellanies, edit. 1732.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 11: Nicknames for my lady, see _ante_, pp. 94, 95.--_W. E. B._]

DRAPIER'S-HILL.[1] 1730

We give the world to understand, Our thriving Dean has purchased land; A purchase which will bring him clear Above his rent four pounds a-year; Provided to improve the ground, He will but add two hundred pound; And from his endless h.o.a.rded store, To build a house, five hundred more.

Sir Arthur, too, shall have his will, And call the mansion Drapier's-Hill; That, when a nation, long enslaved, Forgets by whom it once was saved; When none the Drapier's praise shall sing, His signs aloft no longer swing, His medals and his prints forgotten, And all his handkerchiefs [2] are rotten, His famous letters made waste paper, This hill may keep the name of Drapier; In spite of envy, flourish still, And Drapier's vie with Cooper's-Hill.

[Footnote 1: The Dean gave this name to a farm called Drumlach, which he took of Sir Arthur Acheson, whose seat lay between that and Market-Hill; and intended to build a house upon it, but afterwards changed his mind.]

[Footnote 2: Medals were cast, many signs hung up, and handkerchiefs made, with devices in honour of the Dean, under the name of M. B.

Drapier. See ”Verses on his own death,” vol. i.--_W. E. B._]

THE DEAN'S REASONS

FOR NOT BUILDING AT DRAPIER'S-HILL

I will not build on yonder mount; And, should you call me to account, Consulting with myself, I find It was no levity of mind.

Whate'er I promised or intended, No fault of mine, the scheme is ended; Nor can you tax me as unsteady, I have a hundred causes ready; All risen since that flattering time, When Drapier's-Hill appear'd in rhyme.

I am, as now too late I find, The greatest cully of mankind; The lowest boy in Martin's school May turn and wind me like a fool.

How could I form so wild a vision, To seek, in deserts, Fields Elysian?

To live in fear, suspicion, variance, With thieves, fanatics, and barbarians?

But here my lady will object; Your deans.h.i.+p ought to recollect, That, near the knight of Gosford[1] placed, Whom you allow a man of taste, Your intervals of time to spend With so conversable a friend, It would not signify a pin Whatever climate you were in.

'Tis true, but what advantage comes To me from all a usurer's plums; Though I should see him twice a-day, And am his neighbour 'cross the way: If all my rhetoric must fail To strike him for a pot of ale?

Thus, when the learned and the wise Conceal their talents from our eyes, And from deserving friends withhold Their gifts, as misers do their gold; Their knowledge to themselves confined Is the same avarice of mind; Nor makes their conversation better, Than if they never knew a letter.

Such is the fate of Gosford's knight, Who keeps his wisdom out of sight; Whose uncommunicative heart Will scarce one precious word impart: Still rapt in speculations deep, His outward senses fast asleep; Who, while I talk, a song will hum, Or with his fingers beat the drum; Beyond the skies transports his mind, And leaves a lifeless corpse behind.

But, as for me, who ne'er could clamber high, To understand Malebranche or Cambray; Who send my mind (as I believe) less Than others do, on errands sleeveless; Can listen to a tale humdrum, And with attention read Tom Thumb; My spirits with my body progging, Both hand in hand together jogging; Sunk over head and ears in matter.

Nor can of metaphysics smatter; Am more diverted with a quibble Than dream of words intelligible; And think all notions too abstracted Are like the ravings of a crackt head; What intercourse of minds can be Betwixt the knight sublime and me, If when I talk, as talk I must, It is but prating to a bust?

Where friends.h.i.+p is by Fate design'd, It forms a union in the mind: But here I differ from the knight In every point, like black and white: For none can say that ever yet We both in one opinion met: Not in philosophy, or ale; In state affairs, or planting kale; In rhetoric, or picking straws; In roasting larks, or making laws; In public schemes, or catching flies; In parliaments, or pudding pies.

The neighbours wonder why the knight Should in a country life delight, Who not one pleasure entertains To cheer the solitary scenes: His guests are few, his visits rare; Nor uses time, nor time will spare; Nor rides, nor walks, nor hunts, nor fowls, Nor plays at cards, or dice, or bowls; But seated in an easy-chair, Despises exercise and air.

His rural walks he ne'er adorns; Here poor Pomona sits on thorns: And there neglected Flora settles Her b.u.m upon a bed of nettles.

Those thankless and officious cares I used to take in friends' affairs, From which I never could refrain, And have been often chid in vain; From these I am recover'd quite, At least in what regards the knight.

Preserve his health, his store increase; May nothing interrupt his peace!