My Lady’s Lamentation and Complaint against the Dean (1728)

Abstract

Swift made three prolonged visits in the period– 1728–1730 to the estate of Sir Arthur und Lady Acheson a-t Market Hill, between Armagh and Newry, Co. Down. He may have come into their acquaintance as a friend of Lady Acheson’s father, Philip Savage, a former chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland. The friendship ended on a somewhat sour note when the Achesons separated, but not before Swift had written more than a dozen poems about his time at Market Hill. Many, such as the one below (which would appear to be the first of this group), engage in extensive banter and mock-insult. But though Lady Acheson is the main target of the latter, she gives back as much as she receives, and despite her (comically dramatized) complaints about Swift’s extended visits, it was she rather than her husband who seems to have been the main draw for Swift and whom he remained friends with the longest. Copy-text: Works, ed. Deane Swift, 1765.