'The Kitchen Perpetually Crowded with Savages'

Jonathan Swift often stayed at Quilca, the country home of his friend the Rev. Thomas Sheridan (1687-1738) in County Cavan, Ireland. There he wrote portions of Gulliver’s Travels. Not surprisingly, Swift was an inspired kvetcher. There’s a long tradition of English writers complaining about accommodations. Think of Smollett, Carlyle and Waugh. Three-hundred years ago today, Swift wrote a letter to Sheridan containing three poems inspired by his stays at Quilca. Here is “The Plagues of a Country Life”: 

“A companion with news,

A great want of shoes;

Eat lean meat, or choose;

A church without pews.

Our horses astray,

No straw, oats or hay;

December in May,

Our boys run away,

All servants at play.”

 

By Swiftian standards, pretty mild. No scatological substrate. In the body of the letter he writes: “The ladies room smokes; the rain drops from the skies into the kitchen; our servants eat and drink like the devil, and pray for rain, which entertains them at cards and sleep; which are much lighter than spades, sledges and crows.” Another traditional complaint -- the laziness and unreliability of servants. He might also be describing the poverty typical of rural Ireland in the eighteenth century. Swift says the “maxim” of the servants is:

 

“Eat like a Turk,

Sleep like a dormouse;

Be last at work,

At victuals foremost.”

 

Swift worked hard to feel gratitude for rural, in “The Blessings of a Country Life”:

 

“Far from our debtors,

No Dublin letters,

Not seen by our betters.”

 

One year earlier, Swift has written a brief prose piece titled “The Blunders, Deficiencies, Distresses,and Misfortunes of Quilca.” It’s a list of complaints. I especially like this one: “The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages.”