(q. v.); was set adrift by Temple’s death in
1699, but shortly afterwards became secretary to Lord
Berkeley, one of the Lord-Deputies to Ireland, and
was soon settled in the vicarage of Laracor, West
Meath; in 1704 appeared anonymously his famous satires,
the “Battle of the Books” and the “Tale
of a Tub,” masterpieces of English prose; various
squibs and pamphlets followed, “On the Inconvenience
of Abolishing Christianity,” &c.; but politics
more and more engaged his attention; and neglected
by the Whigs and hating their war policy, he turned
Tory, attacked with deadly effect, during his editorship
of the
Examiner (1710-11), the war party and
its leader Marlborough; crushed Steele’s defence
in his “Public Spirit of the Whigs,” and
after the publication of “The Conduct of the
Allies” stood easily the foremost political
writer of his time; disappointed of an English bishopric,
in 1713 reluctantly accepted the deanery of St. Patrick’s,
Dublin, a position he held until the close of his life;
became loved in the country he despised by eloquently
voicing the wrongs of Ireland in a series of tracts,
“Drapier’s Letters,” &c., fruitful
of good results; crowned his great reputation by the
publication (1726) of his masterpiece “Gulliver’s
Travels,” the most daring, savage, and amusing
satire contained in the world’s literature; “Stella’s”
death and the slow progress of a brain disease, ending
in insanity, cast an ever-deepening gloom over his
later years (1667-1745).
SWILLY, LOUGH, a narrow inlet of the Atlantic, on
the coast of Donegal, North Ireland, running in between
Dunaff Head (E.) and Fanad Point (W.), a distance
of 25 m.; is from 3 to 4 m. broad; the entrance is
fortified.
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, poet and prose writer,
born in London, son of Admiral Swinburne; educated
at Balliol College, Oxford, went to Florence and spent
some time there; his first productions were plays,
two of them tragedies, and “Poems and Ballads,”
his later “A Song of Italy,” essay on
“William Blake,” and “Songs before
Sunrise,” instinct with pantheistic and republican
ideas, besides “Studies in Song,” “Studies
in Prose and Poetry,” &c.; he ranks as the successor
of Landor, of whom he is a great admirer, stands high
both as a poet and a critic, and is a man of broad
and generous sympathies; his admirers regard it as
a reproach to his generation that due honour is not
paid by it to his genius; b. 1837.
SWINDON (32), a town in Wiltshire, 77 m. W. of
London; contains the Great Western Company’s
engineering works, which cover 200 acres, and employ
10,000 hands.
SWINEMUeNDE (9), a fortified seaport on the island
of Usedom, in the Baltic, near the mouth of the Swine,
one of the outlets of the Oder.
SWISS CONFEDERATION, a league of the several Swiss
cantons to resist an attempt on the part of the Emperor
Albrecht to incorporate certain of the free towns
into his family possessions.
SWISS GUARDS. See GARDES SUISSES.