viii Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. 
but my own opinion is, that one session in tbe House of Commons 
would have placed him in the front rank both of debaters and of 
orators in that august and fastidious assembly. Any redundancy 
and copiousness of expression would have been checked and chastened 
by the controversial and critical nature of the assembly itself, and 
his large and extensive knowledge of affairs and fund of cultivated 
intelligence would, I am satisfied, have raised him to great distinc- 
tion. He joined the bar of Scotland as an advocate in 1833. 
I should before have mentioned that for several years he had 
been in the habit, during the recess, of travelling, at first with a tutor 
through the Highlands, and in 1828 and 1829 he took tours on 
the Continent, visiting various places now familiar to tourists, but 
which at that time were not so easily accessible as they have since 
become. He went one year to France, another to Switzerland, 
and another to Italy, and in many instances revisited the same 
scenes. In 1828 he had the great advantage of travelling under 
the superintendence of the late Bishop Terrot, himself an accom- 
plished scholar and a man of high intellectual attainments and 
thought. Professor Aytoun was, in the earlier of these tours, his 
travelling companion. Swinton continued these Continental wander- 
ings in many after years, and recounted his progress in journals 
written at the time. 
I may mention in passing that Swinton’s time was not altogether 
consumed either in the study of law or in politics. He was a principal 
promoter of a Charade Company, composed of his own companions 
and intimates, who played with great acceptance and success in 
various Edinburgh circles. Of these the late Cosmo Innes was the 
principal manager, and Lord Heaves and Angus Fletcher of Dunans 
and Henry Jardine, son of Sir Henry Jardine, as well as Aytoun 
and Swinton, were principal performers. I find that in the diary 
which he kept some of these performances are noted from time to 
time — one in particular, I remember, which was acted at his father’s 
house in Inverleith Place — a dramatised version of Nicholas 
Nickleby , in which William Aytoun sustained the part, first, of 
“ Squeers,” which he rendered admirably, and, secondly, of the 
“ Infant Phenomenon,” in which his attire created an intense 
sensation among the ladies of the audience. 
From 1833 down to 1862 Swinton devoted himself with great 
