SUMMARY.—­B. 1667, ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, entered household of Sir W. Temple at Moor Park 1692, and became his sec., became known to William III., and met E. Johnson (Stella), left T. in 1694 and returned to Ireland, took orders and wrote Tale of a Tub and Battle of Books (pub. 1704), returned to Sir W.T. 1698, and on his death in 1699 pub. his works, returned to Ireland and obtained some small preferments, visits London and became one of the circle of Addison, etc., deserts the Whigs and joins the Tories 1710, attacking the former in various papers and pamphlets, Dean of St. Patrick’s 1713, death of Anne and ruin of Tories destroyed hopes of further preferment, and he returned to Ireland and began his Journal to Stella, Drapier’s Letters appeared 1724, visits England, and joins with Pope and Arbuthnot in Miscellanies 1726, pub. Gulliver’s Travels 1727, “Stella” d. 1728, gradually lost his faculties and d. 1745.

Lives by Craik (1882), Leslie Stephen (1882), Churton Collins (1893), etc. Works ed. by Sir Walter Scott (19 vols., 1814, etc.) Bonn’s Standard Library (1897-1908).

SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909).—­Poet, s. of Admiral S. and of Lady Jane Ashburnham, dau. of the 3rd Earl of A., b. in London, received his early education in France, and was at Eton and at Balliol Coll., Oxf., where he attracted the attention of Jowett, and gave himself to the study of Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, with special reference to poetic form.  He left Oxf. without graduating in 1860, and in the next year pub. two plays, The Queen Mother and Rosamund, which made no impression on the public, though a few good judges recognised their promise.  The same year he visited Italy, and there made the acquaintance of Walter Savage Landor (q.v.).  On his return he lived for some time in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, with D.G.  Rossetti (q.v.), and G. Meredith (q.v.).  The appearance in 1865 of Atalanta in Calydon led to his immediate recognition as a poet of the first order, and in the same year he pub. Chastelard, a Tragedy, the first part of a trilogy relating to Mary Queen of Scots, the other two being Bothwell (1874), and Mary Stuart (1881). Poems and Ballads, pub. in 1866, created a profound sensation alike among the critics and the general body of readers by its daring departure from recognised standards, alike of politics and morality, and gave rise to a prolonged and bitter controversy, S. defending himself against his assailants in Notes on Poems and Reviews.  His next works were the Song of Italy (1867) and Songs before Sunrise (1871).  Returning to the Greek models which he had followed with such brilliant success in Atalanta he produced Erechtheus (1876), the extraordinary metrical power of which