Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/235

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Swinburne
229
Swinburne

Durham, ii. 278–9; Burke, Peerage and Baronetage, 1896). Henry was educated at the free school at York, and then sent when sixteen years old to Hart Hall, Oxford, where he matriculated on 17 Dec. 1576 (Oxford Univ. Reg. ii. ii. 71). He afterwards migrated to Broadgates Hall (afterwards Pembroke College), whence he graduated B.C.L. at some uncertain date (Macleane, Hist. of Pembroke Coll. 1897, pp. 92–3). He disqualified himself for a fellowship by marrying while at Oxford Ellen, daughter of Bartholomew Lant of that city, and retired to York, where he commenced practice in the ecclesiastical court as a proctor. He eventually became commissary of the exchequer and judge of the consistory court at York. He died in 1623, and was buried in York minster, where a handsome monument bearing an inscription to his memory was erected. An engraving from a plate presented by Sir John Swinburne, bart., of Capheaton, is given in Drake's ‘Eboracum,’ 1736, p. 377. Swinburne's will, dated 20 May 1623, with a codicil dated 15 July, was proved on 24 June 1624. The name of Swinburne's second wife was Margaret. She survived him, with a son Tobias, to whom Swinburne left his house in York, and who became an advocate of Doctors' Commons (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, p. 1448).

Swinburne was author of two books on ecclesiastical law, which are important from their intrinsic merit, and from being the first written in England on their respective subjects. They are: 1. ‘A Briefe Treatise of Testaments and last Willes …’ London, 4to, 1590 (the colophon bears date 1591). Another edition appeared in 1611, and a third, ‘newly corrected and augmented,’ in 1633. Later editions were issued in 1635, 1640, 1677, 1678, 1728, and 1743. A ‘seventh’ edition was prepared for press by John Joseph Powell [q. v.] and James Wake, and published in 3 vols. 1803, 8vo. 2. ‘A Treatise of Spousals or Matrimonial Contracts … by the late Famous and Learned Mr. Henry Swinburne …’ London, 1686, 4to; another edition, 1711, 4to. In the preface it is stated that Swinburne contemplated a work on tithes, which he did not live to complete.

[Works in Brit. Mus. Library; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 289; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Yorkshire Archæol. Journ. i. 202, vii. 54.]

A. F. P.


SWINBURNE, HENRY (1743–1803), traveller, born at Bristol on 8 July 1743, was the fourth son of Sir John Swinburne of Capheaton, Northumberland, third baronet, and head of an old Roman catholic family, who married on 20 July 1721 Mary, only daughter of Edward Bedingfeld, and granddaughter of Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, Norfolk. His father died in January 1744–5, and his mother died at York on 7 Feb. 1761. Henry was educated at Scorton school, near Catterick, Yorkshire, and was then sent to the monastic seminary of Lacelle in France. He afterwards studied at Paris, Bordeaux, and in the Royal Academy at Turin, devoting special attention to literature and art.

The death at Paris on 1 Feb. 1763 of his eldest brother, who had in the previous year devised to him a small estate at Hamsterley in Durham and an annuity, combined with his patrimony, placed him in independent circumstances. He proceeded to Italy, where he carefully examined the pictures, statues, and antiquarian relics at Turin, Genoa, and Florence, and learnt the language of the country. On his way back to his native land he met at Paris Martha, daughter of John Baker of Chichester, solicitor to the Leeward islands, a young lady with a good fortune, who was being educated at a convent of Ursuline nuns. They were married at Aix-la-Chapelle on 24 March 1767.

The young couple then settled at Hamsterley, where the husband laid out the estate ‘with a painter's eye.’ After a few years they tired of life spent among country squires and their wives, and went abroad. They passed the autumn of 1774 and the following months until September 1775 at Bordeaux, and then visited the Pyrenees. There Swinburne left his wife, and, in the company of Sir Thomas Gascoigne, travelled through Spain, returning to Bayonne in June 1776. The manuscript descriptive of his journey was sent to England, and committed to the editorial care of Dr. Samuel Henley [q. v.] It was published in 1779 as ‘Travels through Spain, 1775 and 1776,’ and was illustrated with many excellent and accurate drawings, taken on the spot, of Roman and Moorish architecture. In 1787 it was reprinted in two octavo volumes, and in the same year a French translation by J. B. De la Borde came out at Paris. Abridgments, with engravings from some additional drawings by Swinburne, appeared in 1806 and 1810. Swinburne was the first to make known in this country ‘the arts and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Spain.’ His ‘Travels’ are often cited by Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chaps. ix. and x.).

Immediately on his return to Bayonne in June 1776 Swinburne, with his family, travelled to Marseilles, and a supplementary volume describing the expedition was issued in 1787. They then proceeded by sea to