865 



SWINBURNE, HENRY. 



SYDENHAM, LORD. 



660 



Tbeophilus Swift seems to have thought that this man was innocent, 

 and exerted himself both at the trial and afterwards, to prove Ins 

 innocence. He wrote a ' Vindication of Renwick Williams, commonly 

 called the Monster,' London, 1790. Theophilus Swift wrote an 

 ' Essay on the Rise and Progress of Rhyme/ which was printed in the 

 'Transactions' of the Irish Academy, vol. ix., 1801 ; and in 1811 he 

 published at Dublin ' Mr. Swift's Correspondence with the Rev. Mr. 

 Dobbin and his Family.' Scott's edition of Swift's Works contains 

 several communications from Theophilus Swift. He inherited from 

 his grandmother, Mrs. Whiteway, a considerable estate in the county 

 of Limerick. He died in Ireland, in the summer of 1815. 



SWINBURNE, HENRY, an English traveller, was born in May 

 1752. He was the third son of Sir John Swinburne, Bart., of 

 Capheaton, in the county of Northumberland, of an ancient Roman 

 Catholic family. Ho received his education at the monastic seminary 

 of Lacelle, in France, where he made rapid progress in the study of 

 ancient and modern literature and. in drawing. By the death of his 

 eldest brother, he became possessed of an annuity and of a small 

 estate at Hamsterley, in the county of Durham, and was thus placed 

 in independent circumstances. He now set out on a tour, in which he 

 visited Turin, Genoa, Florence, and other parts of Italy, improving 

 himself on his route in the knowledge of works of art and in drawing. 

 On his way home through Paris, he became acquainted with and 

 married Miss Baker, daughter of the then solicitor-general of the West 

 Indies, and, returning to England, resided with her some time at his 

 estate at Hamsterley, where he amused himself with gardening and 

 laying out grounds. He soon recommenced travelling, and reached 

 Paris, in March 1774; in the autumn of the same year he proceeded 

 to Bordeaux, and, after spending a year in the eouth of France, 

 accompanied his friend Sir Thomas Gascoigne on a tour in Spain ; 

 they travelled along the coast from Barcelona to Cadiz, and thence 

 through the interior to Madrid, Burgos, and Bayoune, where they 

 arrived in June 1776. At the close of this year Swinburne, in com- 

 pany with his wife, left Marseille for Naples. He remained in Italy 

 till June 1779, during which period, after staying a year at Naples, at 

 the court of Ferdinand IV., he visited Sicily, Home, Florence, and 

 Turin, whence he returned to France. About this time he published 

 an account of his Spanish tour in a series of letters, and spent the 

 latter part of the year 1779 in England. The next year he travelled 

 through France and Italy to Vienna, where he was received with 

 much kindness by the Empress Maria Theresa, and her sou Joseph II. 

 He was agaiu in England in 1781, and in 1783 set out for Paris to seek 

 indemnity from the French government for the loss of his West India 

 property, which had been devastated during the war. Through the 

 favour of Maria Antionette, he obtained in compensation a grant of 

 land in the island of St. Vincent, the value of which was however 

 much reduced on the cession of the island to Great Britain. In 1786 

 Swinburne again went to Paris, and returned in 1788. 



After having long solicited a diplomatic appointment from the 

 British government, he was- appointed, in 1796, commissioner for the 

 adjustment of the cartel then proposed for the exchange of prisoners- 

 of-war between France and England. In the performance of this 

 service great difficulties occurred from the refusal of the French to 

 give up Sir Sidney Smith; and, after long and fruitless negociations, 

 Swinburne was finally recalled at the close of the year 1797. His 

 latter years were saddened by the loss of his son, who was shipwrecked 

 on his way to Jamaica, and by the diminution of his fortune, which 

 induced him, in 1801, to accept the offices of vendue master in the 

 island of Trinidad, and commissioner for the restoration of the 

 Danish islands. After a few months' residence at Trinidad, Swinburne 

 fell a victim to the climate, April 1, 1803. 



His works are 'Travels through Spain in the years 1775 and 1776,' 

 8vo, London, in a series of Letters ; ' Travels in the Two Sicilies in the 

 Years 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780 ; ' and a Correspondence extending 

 from the year 1774 to that of his death, edited by Charles White, Esq., 

 under the title of the ' Courts of Europe at the close of the Last 

 Century,' 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1841. This publication contains many 

 curious details concerning the courts of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., 

 and the most stirring periods of the French Revolution. Swinburne 

 is a lively and sensible writer ; he describes everything in an easy, 

 unaffected, and sometimes forcible style ; he is an attentive observer 

 of national characteristics, and has selected with judgment such 

 anecdotes and incidents as best illustrate the manners of different 

 countries. 



SWITHIN, SAINT, seventeenth Bishop of Winchester, was born 

 in the early pnrt of the 9th century, but the exact year is not ascer- 

 tained. He was ordained priest in 830 by Helmstan, bishop of Win- 

 chester, and was soon after appointed by King Egbert his chaplain, 

 and tutor to his son Ethelwulf. In the reign of the latter he became 

 chancellor, and was entrusted with the education of Alfred, whom he 

 accompanied to Rome. The services rendered by Swithin to Ethel- 

 wulf in the direction of the ecclesiastical affairs of his kingdom were 

 rewarded by his elevation in 852 to the see of Winchester, vacant by 

 the death of Helmstau. He is supposed to have been the originator 

 of the payment of ' Peter-pence ' to Rome, though there is much reason 

 to believe that this tribute had an earlier origin, and also to have pro- 

 cured the first act of the Wittenagemot for enforcing the universal 

 payment of tithes. 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. V. 



William of Malmesbury says of St. Swithin that "he was a rich 

 treasure of all virtues, and that those in which he took most delight 

 were humility and charity to the poor." He adds, that he built several 

 churches, and devoted himself exclusively to the spiritual administra- 

 tion of his diocese ; in his frequent visitations of it he travelled with 

 his clergy on foot, and for the most part by night, in order to avoid 

 the suspicion of ostentation. He died in the reign of Ethelbert, on 

 the 2nd of July 862. His last request was that he should be buried 

 in the churchyard of Winchester, " ubi cadaver et pedibus prsetereun- 

 tium et stillicidiis e ccclo rorantibus esset obnoxium." Within a 

 century afterwards, his name having been admitted into the calendar 

 as that of a canonised saint, it was resolved to transfer his remains to 

 the cathedral, and to place them in a magnificent shrine prepared for 

 the purpose by King Egbert. The translation, which was to have 

 taken place on the 15th of July, was delayed for forty days in conse- 

 quence of the severe rainy weather which occurred, and hence arose 

 the well-known tradition that if it rain on St. Swithin's day there will 

 be rain for forty days after. In France the day of the festival of 

 St. Gervais (June 19th) is marked by a similar superstition. These 

 superstitions are not however altogether unfounded on facts, experi- 

 ence having shown that whenever a wet season sets in about the end 

 of June to the middle of July, it generally continues for a consider- 

 able period, and that, in a majority of our summers, a rainy season of 

 about forty days comes on nearly at the time indicated by the tra- 

 dition of Saint Swithin. 



The festival of St. Swithin in the Roman Martyrology is the 2nd of 

 July, the day of his death ; but in England it was celebrated on the 

 15th of July, the day appointed for the translation of his relics to the 

 Cathedral of Winchester. 



SYDENHAM, CHARLES EDWARD POULETT THOMSON, 

 LORD, was the son of John Poulett Thomson, Esq., of Waverley Abbey 

 and Roehampton in Surrey, the head of the mercantile firm of J. 

 Thomson, T. Bonar, and Co., which had been long one of the most 

 eminent houses engaged in the Russian trade. Mr. John Thomson, 

 who assumed the name of Poulett by sign-manual, in 1820, in memory 

 of his mother, married, in 1781, Charlotte, daughter of Dr. Jacob of 

 Salisbury, and by her he had a family of nine children, of whom the 

 subject of the present notice, born at Waverley on the 13th of Sep- 

 tember 1799, was the youngest. There were two elder sons, Andrew 

 and George, of whom the latter, now George Poulett Scrope, Esq., is 

 the present member for Stroud, and the author of ' Principles of 

 Political Economy,' 12mo, 1833, and of 'The Life of Lord Sydenham,' 

 8vo, 1843. 



Lord Sydenham was never at any public school or university ; and 

 he left his native country at the age of sixteen, to be placed in his 

 father's house of business at St. Petersburg, then under the chief 

 direction of his eldest brother. He returned to England in ill-health 

 in 1817; then made a tour to the south of France, Switzerland, and 

 Italy ; after which he took his place in his father's counting-house in 

 London, in the summer of 1819. In the spring of 1821 he was again 

 sent out to St. Petersburg, this time as a partner in the firm ; and here 

 he remained for two years. The greater part of the winter and spring 

 of 1823-24 he spent in Vienna; whence returning by Paris to Eng- 

 land, he assumed, in conjunction with his brother Andrew, the chief 

 conduct of the business in London. 



Sanguine, ambitious, and self-confident, he involved himself to 

 some extent in the American mining speculations of 1825. Meanwhile 

 he had become intimate with young Mr. Bentham and Mr. James Mill, 

 with Mr. Warburton, Mr. Hume, Dr. (now Sir John) Bowring, and Mr. 

 M'Culloch, and had set his heart upon entering public life. He 

 obtained a seat in parliament for Dover, after an expensive contest, at 

 the general election in the summer of 1826. His rise from this date 

 was very rapid. Voting steadily with the extreme section of the 

 Opposition, he spoke but seldom, and almost exclusively upon com- 

 mercial questions. On the first occasion however on which he delivered 

 himself at any length, in a debate on the state of the shipping interest, 

 on the 7th of May 1827, he made a very favourable impression on the 

 House, and had the gratification of being warmly complimented by 

 Mr. Huskisson. After this, whenever he rose he was listened to with 

 attention. He was again returned for Dover in 1830 ; and when the 

 Whigs came into power, in November of that year, he was appointed 

 to the offices of Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer 

 of the Navy. He was returned again for Dover after his acceptance 

 of office, and also to the succeeding parliament, which met in June 

 1831. At the general election in December 1832, he was returned 

 both for Dover and for Manchester ; he elected to sit for the latter 

 place ; and continued to represent Manchester as long as he remained 

 in the House of Commons. Meanwhile on the reconstruction of the 

 ministry in June 1834, occasioned by the secession of Lord Stanley 

 and Sir James Graham, Mr. Poulett Thomson was made President of 

 the Board of Trade, in the room of Lord Auckland, who was removed 

 to the Admiralty ; and on the recovery of power by his party in April 



1835, after Sir Robert Peel's short administration, he resumed that 

 office with a seat in the cabinet. So early as in the beginning of the year 



1836, if there be no misprint of the date in Mr. P. Scrope's narrative, 

 it had been in contemplation to remove hini to the House of Lords, 

 in order to relieve him from the fatigues of the long night sittings in the 

 Commons, under which his health was already beginning to break down ; 



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