Rev. William Diaper

The son of Joseph Diaper of Somersetshire William Diaper attended Balliol College Oxford (B.A. 1710). He collaborated with Rowe, Sewell, and Cobb in translating Quillet's Callipedea (1712). Diaper then became a protege of Jonathan Swift, who introduced him to Bolingbroke and encouraged him to take orders. Before his early death Diaper held curacies at East Brent, Somerset, at Crick, Northamptonshire, and possibly at Dean near Basingstoke.

TEXT RECORDS:

1712Nereides: Eclogue I.
1712Nereides: Eclogue II.
1712Nereides: Eclogue III.
1712Nereides: Eclogue IV.
1712Nereides: Eclogue IX.
1712Nereides: Eclogue V.
1712Nereides: Eclogue VI.
1712Nereides: Eclogue VII.
1712Nereides: Eclogue VIII.
1712Nereides: Eclogue X.
1712Nereides: Eclogue XI.
1712Nereides: Eclogue XII.
1712Nereides: Eclogue XIII.
1712Nereides: Eclogue XIV.
1712Nereides: To Mr. Congreve.
1713Dryades; or, the Nymphs Prophecy. A Poem.

PUBLICATIONS:

Nereides: or sea-eclogues. 1712.
Dryades, or the nymphs prophecy: a poem. 1713.
An imitation of the seventeenth epistle of the first book of Horace, address'd to Dr. S[wift]. 1714.
Oppian's Haliuticks of the nature of fishes and fishing of the ancients [with John Jones]. 1722.
Complete works, ed. Dorothy Broughton. 1951.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Balliol College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts

clergyman
poet
translator

Viscount Bolingbroke
Samuel Cobb
William Congreve
John Philips
Nicholas Rowe
Dr. George Sewell
Rev. Jonathan Swift

REFERENCE:

Not DNB; NCBEL.

Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Alexander Pope, Dunciad (1728; 1743); John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Dorothy Broughton, life in Complete Works (1951); Dobree, OHEL (1959); Pat Rogers, "Faery Lore and the Rape of the Lock" Review of English Studies (1974); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. William Diaper:

1.	1712  Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella, 12 March 1712; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 15:283.
2.	1728  Alexander Pope, in The Dunciad (1728); ed. Sutherland (1943) 137n.
3.	1763  Eumenes, in Lloyd's Evening Post (4 November 1763) 434.
4.	1827  Robert Southey, in "Sayers's Works" Quarterly Review 35 (1827) 190-91.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. William Diaper:

1.	1720  Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 43.
2.	1780  John Nichols, in Select Collection of Poems with Notes Biographical and Historical (1780-82) 5:209-10.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1713  John Philips:   William Diaper, in Dryades (1713) 4.
2.	1713  Matthew Prior:   William Diaper, in Dryades (1713) 16-17.