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Title: Drapier's-Hill
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
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 hoarded 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 deanship 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 friendship 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 bum 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!
But now let all his tenants round
First milk his cows, and after, pound;
Let every cottager conspire
To cut his hedges down for fire;
The naughty boys about the village
His crabs and sloes may freely pillage;
He still may keep a pack of knaves
To spoil his work, and work by halves;
His meadows may be dug by swine,
It shall be no concern of mine;
For why should I continue still
To serve a friend against his will?
[Footnote 1: Sir Arthur Acheson's great-grandfather was Sir Archibald, of Gosford, in Scotland.]
[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: Drapier's-Hill
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