SWA 
SWARFORD, a parish of England, in Oxfordshire; 5 
miles north-east of Chipping Norton. 
SWARKESTONE, a parish of England, in Derbyshire, 
situated on the Trent, on the road from Derby to Ashby-de- 
la-Zouch, The bridge across the Trent is supposed to be 
the largest in Europe. It consists of 39 arches, and extends 
across the meadows near a mile to Stanton. 
SWARLAND, a hamlet of England, in Northumber¬ 
land; miles south-by-west of Alnwick. 
SWARM, s. [pyeapm, Saxon ; swerm, Dutch; swaerm , 
Swed., swaerma, tumultuari, ab antiq. hurra, in gyrum 
agitari. Stiernh. and Serenius.]—A great body or number 
of bees or other small animals, particularly those bees that 
migrate from the hive. 
A swarm of bees that cut the liquid sky. 
Upon the topmast branch in clouds alight. Dryden. 
A multitude; a crowd. 
From this swarm of fair advantages. 
You grip’d the general sway into your hand. Shahspeare. 
To SWARM, v. n. (jpeapman, Sax., swermcn, Dutch.] 
To rise as bees in a body and quit the hive.—When bees 
hang in swarming time, they will presently rise, if the 
weather hold. Mortimer.—To appear in multitudes; to 
crowd; to throng. 
Our superfluous lacqueys, and our peasants, 
Who in unnecessary action swarm 
About our squares of battle. Shahspeare. 
To be crowded; to be over-run; to be thronged.—These 
garrisons you have now planted throughout all Ireland, and 
every place swartns with soldiers. Spenser. —To breed 
multitudes. 
Not so thick swarm'd once the soil 
Bedropp’d with blood of Gorgon. Milton. 
It is used in conversation for climbing a tree, by embrac¬ 
ing it with the arms and legs. 
To SWARM, v. a. To press close together, as bees in 
swarming ; to throng. 
How did thy senses quail, 
Seeing the shores so swarm'd ! Fanshaw. 
SWARRATON, a parish of England, in Southampton- 
shire; 3] miles north-north-west of New Alresford. 
SWART, or Swarth, adj. [ swarts , Gothic; ppeape, 
Saxon; swart, Dutch.] Black; darkly brown; tawny. 
Whereas I was black and swart before ; 
With those clear rays which she infus’d on me; 
That beauty am I blest with, which you see. Shahspeare. 
In Milton it seems to signify gloomy ; malignant. 
Ye valleys low. 
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks. Milton. 
To SWART, v. a. To blacken; to dusk.—The heat of 
the sun may swart a living part, or even black a dead or 
dissolving flesh. Brown. 
SWARTESLUYS, a small fort in the north-east of the 
Netherlands, in Friesland, in the quarter of Vollenhoven, 
on the Schwartzwasser. 
SWARTEWATER. See Vechte. 
SWARTH, s. A row of grass or corn cut down by the 
mower; a different spelling of swath. See Swath. 
Phillips. — Here stretch’d in ranks the levell’d swarths are 
found. Pope. 
SWARTH, or Swairth, s. [perhaps from jpeapc, Sax., 
block, dark, pale, wan. Ray.] The apparition of a person 
about to die, as pretended in parts of the North.—There are 
the exact figures and resemblances of persons then living, 
often seen not only by their friends at a distance, but many 
times by themselves: of which there are several instances in 
Aubrey’s Miscellanies. These apparitions are called fetches, 
and in Cumberland swarths ; they most commonly appear 
to distant friends and relations, at the very instant preceding 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1607. 
SWA 781 
/ 
the death of the person, whose figure they put on. Some¬ 
times there is a greater interval between the appearance and 
death. Grose. 
SWA'RTHILY, adv. Blackly; duskily; tawnily. 
SWA'RTHINESS, s. Darkness of complexion; tawni¬ 
ness.—Discontent disjoins mankind, and sends him, with 
beasts, to the loneliness of untrod desarts, who was by 
nature made a creature sociable. Nor is it the mind alone 
that is thus mudded; but even the body suffers: it thickens 
the complexion, and dyes it into an unpleasing swarthiness : 
the eye is dim in the discoloured face ; and the whole man 
becomes as if statued into stone and earth. Fcltham. 
SWA'RTHY, adj. [See Swart.] Dark of complexion ; 
black; dusky; tawny. 
Did they know Cato, our remotest kings 
Would pour embattled multitudes about him; 
Their swarthy hosts would darken all our plains. 
Doubling the native horrour of the war, 
And making death more grim. Addison. 
To SWA'RTHY, v. a. To blacken; to make swarthy 
or dusky.—Now will I and my man John swarthy our faces 
over as if that country’s heat had made ’em so. Cowley. 
SWA'RTISH, adj. Somewhat dark or dusky; inclining 
to black.—Melancholy, that cold, dry, wretched saturnine 
humour, creepeth in with a leane, pale, or swartysh colour, 
which reigneth upon solitarye, carefull, musyng men. 
Bullein. 
SWA'RTINESS, or Swa'rtness, s. Darkness of colour, 
duskiness. The first is in Sherwood’s Diet. The latter in 
the Prompt. Parv. 
SWA'RTY, adj. Swarthy: than which it is an older 
word. 
Divine Andate, thou who hold’st the reins 
Of furious battles and disorder’d war, 
And proudly roll’st thy swarty chariot-wheels 
Over the heaps of wounds and carcasses, &c. Beaum and FI. 
SWARTZIA [so named by Schreber, in honour of 
Olof Swartz, M.D. Prof, instit. Berg. Acad. Caesar, Nat. 
Cur. Reg. Holm, &c.] in Botany, a genus of the class 
polyadelphia, order polyandria.—Generic Character. Calyx : 
perianth one-leafed, inferior, coriaceous, coloured internally; 
four or five-parted, permanent; segments ovate, sharpish, 
reflexed, almost equal. Corolla none. Stamina: filaments 
numerous, capillary, flexuose, longer than the calyx, ascend¬ 
ing, united at the base ; inserted into a semicircular recepta¬ 
cle surrounding the base of the pedicel of the germ, and two 
longer and thicker, by the side of the pedicel on each part, 
before the other filaments, adnate, free, declined. Anthers 
roundish, flat, emarginate above and below, fastened by the 
back; on the longer filaments larger and oval. Pistil: 
germ oblong, compressed, villose, placed on a thickish, de¬ 
clining pedicel. Style none. Stigma oblique, acute. Peri¬ 
carp : capsule coriaceous, obliquely ovate, pedicelled, one- 
celled, two-valved. Seed single, ovate, covered at the base 
with a pulpy pitcher-shaped oblique aril, and pedicelled. 
Essential Character. —Calyx: four-leaved. Petals single, 
lateral, flat. Legume one-celled, bivalve. Seeds arillated. 
1. Swartzia simplicifolia.—With simple leaves; and 
roundish ovate petal, larger than the calyx; and polyan- 
drous flowers. A shrub.—Native of Trinidad. 
2. Swartzia grandiflora. —With simple, oblong-ovate 
leaves; subtriflorous foot-stalks; round, reniform, very large 
petal; and oblong legumes.—Native of Trinidad. 
3. Swartzia dodecandra.—With simple leaves; dodecan- 
drous flowers; and oblong petal, of the length of the cup. 
A shrub of a smaller kind than the simplicifolia.—Native of 
South America. 
4. Swartzia triphylla.—With ternate leaves; and mar¬ 
gined foot-stalks. This is a small tree, rising to the height of 
eight feet or more, and branching towards the top; flowers 
corymbose and axillary. Native of the Caribbee islands. 
5. Swartzia pinnata.—With pinnate leaves, and round 
common footstalk.—Native of Trinidad. 
9 N 
6. Swartzia 
