This is the first comprehensive account of Swifts engagement with the arts in Ireland and England. It both documents and reflects upon his attitudes toward music gardening theatre architecture and painting and suggests that despite his often sceptical attitude toward the nonliterary arts he saw them as a rich source of inspiration and entertainment for both his poetry and prose. This study also opens up a previously neglected part of Swifts biography showing how his growing awareness of the sisterarts was deeply influenced by his social and political circles in both Ireland and England especially by the rise of the virtuoso the connoisseur and the art collector most notably in the person of his close friend Alexander Pope.