a volume of _Fugitive Pieces_, published by Dr.
Swinney, that he was the son of Major Mathew Swinney, whom after his
flourishing fashion he calls on another occasion "Mathew Swinney of
immortal memory;" from one of his dedications that the Doctor himself was
educated at Eton; from the books of the Royal Society that he was of Clare
Hall, Cambridge; from dates and dedications, that from 1764 to 1768, he was
generally resident at Scarborough; and from the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
that he died there 12th November, 1783.

That Swinney had been chaplain to the Russian Embassy I have no reason to
believe; but that he had been in the East for a time, possibly as chaplain
to the Embassy at Constantinople, is asserted in the brief biographical
notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and would _seem to be proved_ by a
work which he published in 1769, called--

"A Tour through some parts of the Levant: in which is included An
Account of the Present State of the Seven Churches in Asia. Also a
brief Explanation of the Apocalypse. By Sidney Swinney, D.D."

Nothing, however, can be inferred from a title-page of Swinney's. Here we
have two or three distinct works referred to:--_A Tour_, including "An
Account of the Seven Churches," and the "Explanation of the Apocalypse."
Now I must direct attention to the fact, that from the peculiar punctuation
and phraseology--the full-stop after Asia in this title-page--it may have
been Swinney's intention to indicate, without asserting, that the Account
of the Apocalypse _only_ was by Sidney Swinney. If so, though Swinney's
name alone figures in the title-page of the work, he is responsible only
for one or two notes!

I would not have written conjecturally on this subject if I could have
avoided it; but though Swinney was a F.A.S. F.R.S., and though the work is
dedicated to the Fellows of those Societies, no copy of it is to be found
in the libraries of either, or in the British Museum. I cannot, therefore,
be sure that my own copy is perfect. What that copy contains is thus set
forth in half a dozen lines of introduction:

"Before I [S. S.] enter upon the more important part of my dissertation
[The Explanation of the Apocalypse], it may not be improper to give you
some account of the present state of the Seven Churches in Asia, as
they are, _which was communicated to me_ by a certain _friend of mine_,
in the description of a short tour which _he_ made through the