SWAYNE SWINBURNE. 



C29 



work of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in reference to the re- 

 sults of injuries to nerves, constituted a uew depart- 

 ure in the study of the pathology of these structures, 

 and the results have been of vast importance to the 

 practical surgeon. The work of the same physician 

 in the investigation of the nature, results, and 

 treatment of snake-bites also has been of the highest 

 value. The statistical work of the younger Gross, 

 the observations of Otis upon the capacity of the 

 male urethra, which rendered possible the introduc- 

 tion of litholapaxy by Bigelow, the experiments of 

 Senn, of Milwaukee, upon wounds of the intestines 

 and intestinal sutures, the monumental labors of 

 the compilers of the Meilic'tl <u>d Sitfffienl History of 

 the Win- of the Rebellion and of Dr. Billings and his 

 associates in the preparation of the Index Culnlngiin 

 and Index M-ilifna. and the equally noteworthy work 

 of many others who cannot be mentioned here, sor.c 

 to illustrate the fact that American surgery to-day is 

 as worthy of respect and admiration as at any period 

 in the history of the country. 



Perhaps the four great achievements of the cen- 

 tury have been the introduction of anaesthesia ; tho 

 establishment of ovariotomy as a justifiable proced- 

 ure, the outcome of which has been modern abdom- 

 inal surgery ; tliu elevation of gynaecology into fi 

 science ; and the recognition of the principles of 

 antiseptic surgery. When we remember that of 

 these four tho first three are clearly attributable to 

 American genius and skill, and that nowhere in the 

 world was the inestimable value of the fourth earlier 

 appreciated than in this country, we can understand 

 the debt which the civilized world owes to American 

 surgery. 



In the limits of this article the merest allusion to 

 the most memorable occurrences has been possible, 

 but much more of almost equal interest and impor- 

 tance ni.iy be found recorded in the Essays of Pro- 

 f.-^ ,rs Gross and Thomas which may bo found in 

 A <!*iitnrif nf Am'.ricnn Medicine, published by Lea, 

 of Philadelphia, in 1876. (j. w. w.) 



SWAYNE, NOAH HAYNES (1804-1884), jurist, was 

 born in CulpepperCo., Va., Dec. 27, 1804. While an 

 apothecary's clerk at Alexandria he entered on a 

 C.MII-SI; of higher study, and was admitted to the bar 

 at Warreuton, Va., in 1824. He then removed to 

 Coshocton, O. , and in a few years was elected to the 

 State legislature. He was U. S. district attorney 

 from 1830 to 1839, and in the meantime was elected 

 jud^i: of tlia county court, but declined. In 1836 he 

 was again elected to the legislature, and there took a 

 prominent part in organizing State asylums for the 

 insane, blind, deaf, and dumb. His eminence in his 

 profession induced Pres. Lincoln to appoint him a 

 justice of the U. S. Supreme Court in January, 1862. 

 He resigned this profession in 1881 on account of 

 his advanced age, and died in New York City, June 

 8, 18M4. 



SWINBURNE, ALOEBNON CHAKIJS, English poet 

 and critic, was born atPimlico, a suburb of London, 

 April 5, 1837. He is the son the eldest of bix chil- 

 dren of Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne, B. N., 

 and of his wife, Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of 

 thu third Earl of Ashburnham ; and the grandson of 

 Sir John Edward Swinburne, Bart., of Capheaton, 

 Northumberland. From the blood and influence of 

 the latter, a man of no common mould, who lived 

 and retained his natural force unabated to the ex- 

 treme age of ninety-eight, the poet has evidently 

 derived much that is characteristic in him. Asa 

 boy, young Swinburne's tastes ran on the one hand 

 to poetry, and on the other to swimming and riding. 

 In these physical exercises he is said to have ex- 

 celled. He was not merely a great reader of poetry, 

 but of poetry of a very high order of excellence. In 

 one of his books he speaks of " having, from well- 

 nigh the first years -I can remember, made of the 



| study of Shakespeare the chief intellectual business, 

 i and found in it the chief spiritual delight of my 

 J whole life." Poets and authors of the first rank ex- 

 erted a most powerful influence on the impresion- 

 ! able mind of the lad when he was, to use his words, 

 | "most susceptible of influence, and least conscious 

 of it. and most in want." As a child, he often found 

 an all-sufficient delight in the mere music of verse 

 the meaning of which was quite beyond his power of 

 comprehension. His memory for poetry was spe- 

 cially retentive. His favorite authors so impressed 

 themselves on his mind, apparently with little or no 

 direct effort on his part, that he early had by heart 

 i long passages from them even entire poems. As 

 was most natural in a lad so constituted, efforts at 

 original composition of poetry soon followed, and 

 some of these boyish effusions he afterward pub- 

 lished in his somewhat notorious collection of Poems 



llll'l littllndi. 



Young Swinburne was sent to Eton, and after five- 

 years there entered Balliol College, Oxford, as a 

 commoner, in 1857. While at the university he was 

 one of the chief among some half-dozen student 

 contributors to a short-lived college magazine, Un- 

 ileryraduate Papers. His contributions included, 

 among other things, what was considered a very 

 clever parody. After something less than four years 

 at Oxford, he left tho university without taking a 

 degree. Ho was, however, a natural scholar, and 

 his attainments, especially in litciature and the lan- 

 guages, have been considered and justly as truly 

 phenomenal. 



Without ever having personally met Walter Sav- 

 age Landor, at that time England's oldest living 

 j poet, young Swinburne came to entertain for him 

 the most enthusiastic admiration and regard, and iu 

 18C4 he made a veritable hero-worshipper's pilgrim- 

 age to Italy, for no other purpose than to make tho 

 personal acquaintance of his hero. The aged poet 

 received him. cordially, and the two spent some 

 months together at Florence, during the last year of 

 Lander's life. 



After previous publications, not without merit, 

 Mr. Swinburne first achieved name and fame by tho 

 publication, in 1865, at the ago of twenty-eight, cf 

 his classical drama, Atalnnta in Cab/don. Atalanta 

 is a tragedy upon the severest Greek model cer- 

 tainly a unique, and by many considered nn almost 

 faultless, work of art. It was the result of a happy 

 inspiration, bora of prolonged training in the classi- 

 cal languages. Nor is it a mere Greek imitation ; it 

 is rather the product of a Greek imagination. Hence 

 Atalnntn ranks with the very best productions of its 

 kind. Seldom or never has ii been given to an 

 author to achieve popularity by tho publication of a 

 work which naturally appeals to so restricted an au- 

 dience. Yet it would not be wide of the truth to Fay 

 that Mr. Swinburne did achieve just that over and 

 above the reputation he gained within the world of 

 letters. Few modern resuscitators of the ancient 

 classical drama have more nearly contrived to " make 

 the dry bones live.' 1 



But while Atalanta made the young author famous, 

 Poems and Ballads published the following year 

 in this country under the title of Lavs Veneris 

 came very near making him, in certain eyes at least, 

 infamous. The book was violently assailed as being 

 grossly sensual and immoral. Parts of the collec- 

 tion were declared to be indecent, others blasphe- 

 mous. In defence of the work the plea has been 

 urged that the poems were, as Mr. Browning says 

 of a volume of his own, " though lyric in expres- 

 sion, always dramatic in principle, and so many ut- 

 terances of so many imaginary beings." But many 

 who accepted the plea refused to consider all parts 

 of the work as artistic in the best sense. Still 

 others, who entertained a high opinion of the young 



