368- Memoir of Archibald Campbell Swinton. 



two families, the Mures and the Swintons, were closely 

 connected. Mrs Swinton had come to spend the evening with 

 my mother, and the tidings of her death, a few days thereafter, 

 gave my susceptibilities a shock which I long remembered. 



Archibald Swinton, afterwards Archibald Campbell Swinton, 

 the eldest son, was born on 15th July 1812, and at the age 

 of eight was sent to a preparatory school in Yorkshire, near 

 Doncaster, of which the headmaster was a Dr Sharp, a scholar 

 of some eminence. He was vicar of Doncaster, and the school 

 over which he presided had high reputation. Along with other 

 pupils were the present Lord Grimthorpe and his two brothers, 

 Christopher and William Beckett Denison. Among the papers 

 at Kimmerghame is a letter, dated 15th January 1827, from 

 Dr Sharp to John Swinton. He writes as follows : — 



" No pupils I ever had gave me more cordial satisfaction, during the 

 time they were under my care, than your sons, and it delighted me 

 extremely to receive so favourable an account of their present prospects. 

 So far as assiduity and applied industry can prevail, James, I know, 

 will never be found deficient ; but Archie, if in abilities and quickness 

 of apprehension so much his superior, requires a little more management 

 to bring into full employment those excellent powers of memory and 

 understanding with which fate has endowed Mm—aut Coesar aut nullus 

 used to be his maxim here ; and of this I feel sure, that no boy of his 

 own age can cope with him if Archie be not wanting to himself." 



. Swinton remembered with gratitude and affection his life at 

 Doncaster ; and he was wont to describe the appearance of the 

 Archbishop of York on his way to Doncaster races, which it 

 seems the archbishops were formerly sometimes in the habit of 

 frequenting. He afterwards went for a short time to reside 

 with a gentleman near Hitchin, but he does not appear to have 

 remained long there. The well-known school called the 

 Edinburgh Academy was opened in 1824, and Swinton was 

 sent to it in, I think, 1825. He ever afterwards took the 

 warmest interest in its welfare, and was one of the Directors 

 down to the day of his death. From school he went to the 

 University of Edinburgh, and in the Humanity Class of 

 Professor Pillans my acquaintance, or rather friendship, with 

 him commenced, and it continued unbroken down to the end. 

 A very bright, attractive, and able band they were, that 

 contribution from the new school. Some made their mark in 

 the world thereafter. The most prominent of them were, in 

 addition to Swinton himself, William Aytoun, the author of the 



