Syria in 1102, three years after the recovery of the holy city by the crusaders. In the narrative of this journey Sæwulf only describes his course from Monopoli, near Bari in Italy, whence he sailed to Palestine on 13 July 1102. He went by way of Corfu and Cephalonia, ‘where Robert Guiscard died,’ to Corinth and Rhodes, ‘which is said to have possessed the idol called Colossus, that was destroyed by the Persians [Saracens?] with nearly all Romania, while on their way to Spain. These were the Colossians to whom St. Paul wrote.’ From Rhodes he sailed to Cyprus and Joppa; thence he went up to Jerusalem, where he visited the sacred sites, also going to Bethlehem, Bethany, Jericho, the Jordan, and Hebron, in the neighbourhood. In the north of Palestine he describes Nazareth, Mount Tabor, the Sea of Galilee, and Mount Lebanon, ‘at the foot of which the Jordan boils out from two springs called Jor and Dan.’
On the feast of Pentecost (17 May) 1103 Sæwulf sailed from Joppa to Constantinople on his return. For fear of the Saracens he did not venture out into the open sea this time, but coasted along Syria to Tripolis and Latakiyeh (Laodicea), after which he crossed over to Cyprus and proceeded on his way to Byzantium. But after describing the voyage past Smyrna and Tenedos to the Dardanelles, the narrative breaks off abruptly. Sæwulf mentions Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, and Raymond, count of Toulouse, as living in his time; and adds that Tortosa was then in the latter's possession, and that Acre was still in the hands of the Saracens. Tortosa was captured by Count Raymond on 12 March 1102, Acre on 15 May 1104.
[Sæwulf's pilgrimage only exists in one manuscript in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from which it was edited by M. Avezac for the French Geographical Society, and translated by T. Wright for his Early Travels in Palestine, 1848. The only other reference is in William of Malmesbury's De Gestis Pontificum; see Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Norman period, p. 38.]
SAFFERY, Mrs. MARIA GRACE (1772–1858), hymn-writer and poet, was daughter of William Andrews of Stroud Green, Newbury, Berkshire, where she was born early in 1772. Her mother was a cultured woman of literary tastes, and while still a child Maria gave evidence of poetic talent. At the age of fifteen she wrote a poem entitled ‘Cheyt Sing’ (the name of an unfortunate Hindoo rajah), which, when published later, in 1790, was by permission inscribed to the statesman, Charles James Fox. Maria Andrews was in early life brought under the personal influence of Thomas Scott, the commentator (1747–1821) [q. v.] While still young she removed to Salisbury, and there attended the ministry of John Saffery, pastor of the Brown Street baptist church in that city. She became Saffery's second wife in 1799, and bore him six children, the eldest of whom, Philip John Saffery, succeeded to the pastorate of the church at his father's death in 1825. Subsequently she conducted with great success a girls' school in Salisbury. In 1834 she published an effective volume of ‘Poems on Sacred Subjects.’ The following year she retired to Bratton in Wiltshire, where the rest of her life was spent with her daughter, Mrs. Whitaker. She died on 5 March 1858, and was buried in the graveyard of the baptist chapel there.
Besides the works already mentioned, Mrs. Saffery wrote many hymns for special occasions, which were published in the ‘Baptist Magazine’ and other periodicals. Other hymns by her have found a place in various collections. Among them are: 1. ‘Fain, O my child, I'd have thee know.’ 2. ‘Saviour, we seek the watery tomb.’ 3. ‘The Jordan prophet cries to-day.’ 4. ‘'Tis the Great Father we adore.’
[Private sources; Julian's Dict. Hymnology.]
SAFFOLD, THOMAS (d. 1691), empiric, originally a weaver by trade, received a license to practise as a doctor of physic from the bishop of London on 4 Sept. 1674. He had a shop at the Black Ball and Lilly's Head ‘near the feather shops within Black Fryers Gateway.’ Thence he deluged the town with doggerel in advertisement of his nostrums, medical and astrological. He taught astrology, solved mysteries, kept a boarding-house for patients, and ‘by God's blessing cureth the sick of any age or sex of any distemper.’ He warned the public against mistaking his house, ‘another being near him pretending to be the same.’ Those ‘conceited fools’ and ‘dark animals’ who asked how he came to be able to work such great cures and to foretell such great things he admonished in fluent rhyme. He fell ill in the spring of 1691, and, refusing medicines other than his own pills, he died on 12 May, a satirical elegist lamenting the ‘sad disaster’ that ‘sawcy pills at last should kill their master.’ The advertisements and goodwill passed to ‘Dr. Case,’ who gilded the ‘Black Ball’ and gave the customers to understand that
At the Golden Ball and Lillie's Head,
John Case yet lives, though Saffold's dead.
