SWAINE (ROBERT), bookseller in London; Britains Burse, 1629-41. Took up his freedom December 20th, 1628. [Arber, iii. 686.] Mentioned in a list of stationers, dated August 5th, 1641, as one of the better sort of freemen, who paid five shillings to the poll tax. [Domestic State Papers, Charles I, vol. 483, 11.]
SWAYLE, or SWALLE (ABEL), bookseller in London; Unicorn, at the West-end of St. Paul's Church-yard, 1665-98. At the end of John Shaw's Discourse concerning the object of Religious Worship, 1665, is a catalogue of books sold by Swayle.
SWEETING (JOHN), bookseller in London, (1) Crown in Cornhill, 1639; (2) Angell in Pope's Head Alley, 1639-61. Took up his freedom June 27th, 1639. [Arber, iii. 688.] The following advertisement which appeared in the Perfect Account for the week ending Wednesday, January 4th, 1654, will best show the nature of his business: "There is published five new plays in one vollum, viz., The mad couple well matcht; The Novella; The Court Beggar; The City Wit; and the Damoisella; all written by Richard Brown (sic) A Collection of those excellent letters to several persons of honour; written by John Donne sometime Dean of St. Paul's London. Likewise a poem called the Shepheards Oracles, delivered in certain Eglogues by Francis Quarls. And the Poems of John Donne … with elegies on the authors death, to which is added divers copies under his own hand never before printed. All which are to be sold by John Sweeting at the Angell in Pope's Head Alley." Sweeting died in 1661, and by his will left a sum of money to the Company of Stationers to be spent on two dinners for all the bachelors that were booksellers and free of the Company. [Timperley, p. 527.]
SWINTOUN (GEORGE), printer and bookseller at Edinburgh, (1) at the Kirk style, at the sign of the Angel, 1649; (2) In the Parliament Yard, 1667. Named among the debtors in Lithgow's Inventory, 1662. Probably one of the booksellers who, in 1671, acquired the business of the Society of Stationers, in which he is believed to have been associated with Robert Brown, Thomas Brown, and J. Glen. [H. G. Aldis, List of Books, p. 121.]
SYMMES, see Sims.
