214 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 201. 



Clive as governor, and a writer on many subjects 

 connected with Hindoo antiquities. Swinney 

 enrols bim amongst his heroes, 



" Holwell, Clive, York, Lawrence, Adams, Coote, 

 Of Draper, Bath-strung for his baffled suit." 

 And he refers, in a note, to those 



" Ungrateful monsters (heretofore in a certain trading 

 company), who have endeavoured to vilify and sully 

 one of the brightest characters that ever existed." 



I learn farther, from a volume of Fugitive 

 Pieces, published by Dr. Swinney, that he was 

 the son of Major Mathew Swinney, whom after 

 his flourishing fashion he calls on another occasion 

 " Mathew Swinney of immortal memory ; " from 

 one of his dedications that the Doctor himself was 

 educated at Eton ; from the books of the Royal 

 Society that he was of Clare Hall, Cambridge ; 

 from dates and dedications, that from 1764 to 

 1768, he was generally resident at Scarborough ; 

 and from the Gentleman's Magazine, that he died 

 there 12th November, 1783. 



That Swinney had been chaplain to the Russian 

 Embassy I have no reason to believe ; but that he 

 had been in the East for a time, possibly as chap- 

 lain to the Embassy at Constantinople, is asserted 

 in the brief biographical notice in the Gentleman's 

 Magazine, and would seem to he proved by a work 

 which he published in 1769, called — 



" A Tour through some parts of the Levant : in 

 which is included An Account of the Present State of 

 the Seven Churches in Asia, Also a brief Explanation 

 of the Apocalypse. By Sidney Swinney, D.D." 



Nothing, however, can be inferred from a title- 

 page of Swinney 's. Here we have two or three 

 distinct works referred to : — A Tour, including 

 "An Account of the Seven Churches," and the 

 "Explanation of the Apocalypse." Now I must 

 direct attention to the fact, that from the peculiar 

 punctuation and phraseology — the full-stop after 

 Asia in this title-page — it may have been Swinney's 

 intention to indicate, without asserting, that the 

 Account of the Apocalypse only was by Sidney 

 Swinney. If so, though Swinney's name alone 

 figures in the title-page of the work, he is re- 

 sponsible only for one or two notes ! 



I would not have written conjecturally on this 

 subject if I could have avoided it ; but though 

 Swinney was a F.A.S. F.R.S., and though the 

 work is dedicated to the Fellows of those Societies, 

 no copy of it is to be found in the libraries of 

 either, or in the British Museum. I cannot, 

 therefore, be sure that my own copy is perfect. 

 What that copy contains is thus set forth in half a 

 dozen lines of introduction : 



"Before I [S. S.] enter upon the more important 

 part of my dissertation [The Explanation of the Apo- 

 calypse], it may not be improper to give you some 

 account of ihe present state of the Seven Churches in 

 Asia, as they are, which was communicated to me by a 



certain friend of mine, in the description of a short 

 tour which he made through the principal parts of the 

 Levant : should they be accompanied with a few casual 

 notes of my own, I trust the work will not be less ac- 

 ceptable to you on that account." 



It must be obvious, after this declaration, that 

 the Tour set forth so conspicuously in the title- 

 page, was not written by Swinney. Now the 

 " Itinerary " which follows is advowedly " wrote by 

 the author of the preceding account" and this brings 

 the reader and the work itself to " The End ! " 



The truth I suspect to have been this : — Swin- 

 ney was not prudent and was poor, and raised 

 money occasionally, after the miserable fashion of 

 the time, by publishing books on subscription, and 

 receiving subscriptions in anticipation of publi- 

 cation. 



About this time, from 1767 to 1769, he pub- 

 lished a Sermon ; The Ninth Satire of Horace, a 

 meaningless trifle of a hundred lines, swollen, by 

 printing the original and notes, into a quarto ; a 

 volume of Fugitive Pieces; and the first canto of 

 The Battle of Minden,^ a Poem in three Books, 

 enriched with critical Notes by Two Friends, and 

 with explanatory Notes by the Author. Of the 

 latter work, as of the Tour, I have never seen but 

 one copy, a splendid specimen of typography, 

 splendidly bound, containing the first and second 

 canto. Whether the third canto was ever pub- 

 lished is to me doubtful ; some of your corre- 

 spondents may be able to give you information. 

 My own impression is that it was not, and for the 

 following reasons. 



Swinney, it appears, had received subscriptions 

 for the work, and promised In his prospectus a 

 plan of the battle, and portraits of the heroes, 

 which the work does not contain. " However, to 

 make some little amends" to his "generous sub- 

 scribers," Swinney announces his intention to 

 present them with " three books instead of one." 



The first book is dedicated to Earl Waldegrave, 

 who commanded " the six British regiments of 

 infantry" on the "ever memorable 1st August, 

 1759," and a note alfixed states that "Book the 

 Second" will be published on 1st January, and 

 " Book the Third " on 1st of August. 



But the public, as Swinney says, were kept " in 

 suspense " almost three years for the second book, 

 which was not published until 1772 ; and In the 

 dedication of this second book, also to Earl Wal- 

 degrave, Swinney says : 



" Doubtless many of my subscribers have thought 

 me very unmindful of the promise I made them in my 

 printed proposal, in which I undertook to publish my 

 poem out of hand. Ill health has been the sole cause 

 of my disappointing their expectations. A fever of the 

 nerves . . . for these four years, has rendered me in- 

 capable. ... In my original proposals I undertook to 

 publish this work in two books. [In the introduction 

 he says, as I have just quoted, one book.] Poetical 



