William Diaper

Who was William Diaper?

William Diaper was an English poet of the Augustan era. Little is known about his life. He was born in Bridgwater, Somerset and attended Balliol College, Oxford as a pauper, where he took his BA in 1702. In 1709 he was ordained a deacon at Wells and became a curate in the parish of Brent, which he describes in disparaging terms in a poem of the same name, calling it "nature's gaol". By 1712, he had made contacts in the London literary world and become a protégé of Jonathan Swift, who refers to the poet several times in his Journal to Stella. In March 1712, Swift writes:

Here is a young fellow has writ some Sea Eclogues, poems of Mermen, resembling pastorals of shepherds, and they are very pretty, and the thought is new. Mermen are he-mermaids; Tritons, natives of the sea. Do you understand me? I think to recommend him to our Society to-morrow. His name is Diaper. P— on him, I must do something for him, and get him out of the way. I hate to have any new wits rise, but when they do rise I would encourage them; but they tread on our heels and thrust us off the stage.

In December 1712, he continued his account of Diaper's progress: