Page 32 - Gullivers
P. 32
Behold! a proof of Irish sense!
Here Irish wit is seen.
When nothing’s lest that’s worth defence, We build a magazine.
The epigram is an economical reflection both of Swist’s continuing interest
in the changing fabric of the city and of the increased political and imaginative identification with Ireland -‘We build a magazine’ – in the final thirty years
of his life when he knew he would remain, without further preferment in the Church, Dean of St. Patrick’s for ever.
Despite the flash of humour in his epigram, reports of Swist in his final
years suggest his last walks, accompanied by a carer, would have been slow affairs, painful in more senses than one. Better then to remember the Swist who in
‘The Legion Club’ appears as at once satirist and flâneur:
As I stroll the city ost I
Spy a building tall and losty
Not a bow-shot from the College,
Half a globe from sense and knowledge.
In Travels through Several Remote Nations, Lemuel Gulliver roams the world. In an important handful of imaginative works, Swist strolled through Dublin. If Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, or Houyhnhnmland are more familiar
to modern day readers, then Swist’s achievement of helping to place Dublin on the literary map should not be overlooked.
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