SWINBURNE

in Pope as in Webster, in Anthony Trollope as in Cyril Tourneur. The genius of Victor Hugo, however, has been unto him even as a siren, his idolatry of the great romanticist not only finding expression in immoderate eulogy, but prompting him now and then to belittle the works of other poets most notably those of Alfred de Musset. The merits and defects of his prose style were at first almost equally striking. He abused his magnificent command of epithet, he was super-emphatic, and he frequently employed figures which are only admissible in verse. These defects are much less conspicuous in his later essays, and in his finest passages it would be hard to excel the splendid glow and ornate grace of the diction and the stately mould of the sentences.

Mr Swinburne is the greatest metrical inventor in English literature. Other poets have equalled him in melody, but none other has revealed the tunefulness and pliancy, the majesty and grace of the English speech in such a variety of lyrical forms. He can impart dignity and distinction to the simplest measures, and move with faultless ease in the most elaborate. He can take a thing like the roundel, a form which seemed to be only adapted for ingenious trifling, and render it a sonorous instrument for brooding thought or impassioned imagination. He can give rapid and graceful movement to heavy-laden, long-drawn metres which other artists in verse would find unworkably cumbrous. He can stir the blood by the rush and resonance of a battle-chorus, or charm the ear by the music of a love-lyric as sweet as the songs of spring. His music is like no other man's, and whether the verses are running lightly, marching proudly, or swinging impetuously, the music is alike irresistible. He has been accused of tautology and obscurity, and even of drowning sense in sound. He has no doubt a tendency to use redundant phrases and unfamiliar inversions, and to carry alliteration to excess. But the charge of obscurity has been generally urged in ignorance of his aims and from misappreciation of his craftsmanship. With the possible exception of Gérard de Nerval, he is the modern poet whose aims and methods approach most closely to the musician's. Vague Mr Swinburne sometimes is; but he is so most often of artistic intent. Words which may at first seem pleonastic and even meaningless are discovered on further reading to have been inserted with delicate art to deepen the impression of mystery or beauty which the writer sought to suggest by the verbal music of a given passage. In dealing with nature his endeavour is not to produce a minute transcript, but to render the spirit of a scene, to catch and convey the elusive haunting secret of its loveliness or its terror. The Garden of Cymodoce admirably illustrates his descriptive method. You feel at first as if the meaning of certain phrases were escaping you; but as you read, the charm, at once daunting and seductive, of the wonderful sea-hall-the magic of the lovely crimson glimmer and of the gloom which seems to dilate above the black silent water-is borne in upon you by the suggestion of the music, the subtle verbal colouring and shading, the premeditated vagueness of certain lines, as it could never have been by any number of direct and minute descriptive touches. The poem is as perfect in one way as Keats's Hymn to Pan is in another. Of all our poets Mr Swinburne is the poet of the sea. He knows the ocean in all its moods; he has rendered with equal perfection the revel of storming surges, the magnificent rolling of deep-sea billows, the soft glow of the bowers of the waterworld, the sensuous delight of a swimmer swimming out as the morning breaks over the green rippling deep. His versatility has not yet gained

due recognition. He has dealt with the most various subjects and drunk inspiration from the most various sources; he has worked as a lyric, a narrative, and a dramatic poet; in style he has ranged from the most ornate manner to the most austere. None of his later volumes can awaken the delight with which his readers greeted the outburst of soaring song and lyric fire in Atalanta. The joy of that surprise can never be renewed. And in splendour of rhythm, in witchery of phrase, in passionate imaginative glow the last series does not and could not well surpass the first series of Poems and Ballads. But in nobility of aspiration, width of sympathy, and bracing love of nature the advance is indubitable. In the early poems (saving Atalanta) the air was too often as that of a hothouse; it was enervating to linger in the society of Felice and Yolande and Juliette. But the old languor and pessimism have passed away; the mournful amorist of the First Series, the indignant rebel of Songs before Sunrise, has become the exultant singer of the sea and the sea-wind, the high-hearted lyrist of the great deeds and imperial destiny of England. In the early poems we were transported to the clear-cut, clear-coloured hills of Greece and the drowsy garden-closes of the south; in the latest we hear the night-wind rushing over the mirk muir sides' of the Scottish Border and the Tyne roaring in spate. Mr Swinburne's plays, setting aside Atalanta, are of far inferior importto his lyrics, though they contain noble passages of poetry, and though in one character, his Mary Stuart, he has achieved a triumph of dramatic creation. It is as a lyrist in some ways unsurpassed that Mr Swinburne will keep a place in English literature.

ance

Swindling. See FRAUD.

Swindon, a town of Wiltshire, 77 miles W. of London and 29 ENE. of Bath, consists of Old Swindon (Svindune in Domesday), on an eminence 1 mile S., and New Swindon, which originated in the transference hither in 1841 from WoottonBassett of the engineering works of the Great Western Railway. The former is rather a picturesque place, with a good Decorated parish church (rebuilt by Sir G. G. Scott in 1851), a town-hall (1852), assembly rooms (1850), and a corn exchange (1867); New Swindon has a mechanics' institute (1843), a theatre, &c. Pop. (1861) 6856; (1881) 22,374; (1891) 32,840 (5545 in Old Swindon).

See J. E. Jackson's Swindon and its Neighbourhood (1861), and the English Ill. Mag. for April 1892. Swine. See PIG.

Swinemünde, a fortified seaport of Prussia, on Usedom Island, at the entrance of the narrow channel of Swine, connecting the Grosses Haff (into which the Oder flows) with the Baltic. It is yearly entered by nearly 500 vessels of 229,000 tons burden (one-third British), and has valuable fisheries and excellent sea- bathing. Pop. 8626.

Swing, a cognomen assumed by senders of threatening letters during the period when the irritation of the agricultural labourers of England against their employers was at its height, namely from 1830 to 1833. The cause of this misunderstanding arose from a wide-spread belief on the part of the labourers that the use of machinery would greatly lessen the demand for labour, and consequently produce a general reduction of wages; it was also intensified by the savage severity with which the game-laws were enforced, and by other hardships to which the labouring classes in the country considered themselves unjustly subjected. As disregard by landlords or farmers of the demands contained in these threatening letters was constantly followed by the burning of stacks and farm-buildings, the employers of labour became sa

terrified that in very many cases almost implicit obedience was paid to the dictates of 'Captain Swing.'

Swinton, (1) a town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 5 miles NNE. of Rotherham. It has manufactures of bottles, iron, pottery, &c. Pop. (1891) 9697.—(2) A town of Lancashire, 4 miles WNW. of Manchester, with cotton-mills and brickfields. Pop. of Swinton and Pendlebury urban sanitary district (1871) 14,052; (1891) 20,197.

Swiss Guards, a celebrated corps or regiment of Swiss mercenaries in the French army of the old régime, constituted Gardes' by royal decree in 1616. Mercenaries as they were, they were ever unswerving in their fidelity to the Bourbon kings, and their courage never blazed more brightly than on the steps of the Tuileries, 10th August 1792. They had been ordered to leave Paris by a decree been sent farther than their barracks, when of the Assembly on July 17th, but had not yet on August 8th, in anticipation of insurrection, they were ordered to march to the Tuileries. Michelet gives their number as 1330; Challamel, Pollio, and Marcel in Le Bataillon du Dix Août (1881) as 1200; Louis Blanc as 950; MortimerTernaux as 900 to 950. But the number may now be taken definitely as nearly 800, including the ordinary guard of the king (see Captain de Durler's MS. Relation printed by Mr H. Morse Stephens in Eng. Hist. Review for April 1887). In anticipation of a storm Mandat had made admirable arrangements to defend the palace, but the National Guards fraternised with the insurgents, and Mandat himself was murdered on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, whither he had gone by the king's command on a summons from the municipality. Meanwhile a growing mob under Santerre, with the famous 500 men of Marseilles at their head, marched on the Tuileries. But before they reached the palace Roederer had persuaded the king to leave the Tuileries and place himself and the royal family under the protection of the National Assembly. He was accompanied thither by 150 Swiss, besides two hundred gentlemen and about a hundred National Guards. The remainder were left without orders, uncertain what to do, and when Westermann with his Marseillais and a raging mob made their way through the gate of the Tuileries and across the court the 650 Swiss under Captain Durler faced them on the great staircase, knowing only the orders of the night before that they were not to suffer themselves to be forced. Westermann, an Alsatian, tried to win them over by speaking to them in German, but it was not so that these men had learned duty. Some one fired a shot, and the struggle began. The Swiss had already driven back Westermann with about a hundred dead, when the king hearing the firing sent them orders to leave the palace. They fought their retreat across the gardens, while the mob swarmed into the palace and murdered a few wounded men they found there. Those under Durler made their way to the Assembly, were disarmed and placed in the neighbouring church of the Feuillants; but those who were posted in the corridors and rooms of the palace did not hear the order to retreat, and were speedily attacked, overpowered by the mob, and hunted to death. A few fought their way out across the gardens only to find the drawbridge up, whereupon they made for the Place Louis XV., formed a square under the statue of the king, and were cut to pieces where they stood. Few but those who found refuge in the church of the Feuillants survived that fatal day. Fifty-four were sent to the Abbaye and were among the first to perish in the atrocious September massacres. The heroism of the Swiss Guards was fittingly com

SWITHIN

memorated in 1821 by the great lion outside one of the gates of Lucerne, cut out of the rock after a model by Thorwaldsen.

See Pfyffer d'Altishofen's Récit de la Conduite des Gardes Suisses (Lucerne, 1824); Durler's Relation already quoted; vol. ii. (1891) of H. Morse Stephens' History of the French Revolution; also the article MERCENARIES. Switchback, a term applied to a zigzagging, alternate back and forward mode of progression up a slope. Aswitchback railway' originally meant one where the ascent is up a steep incline simplified by curving the track backwards and forwards (and upwards) on the face of the slope. Afterwards the term came to be applied to a railway where (as at is largely effected by their own weight alone, Mauch Chunk, q.v.) the movement of the carriages the descents by gravity and the ascents by a stationary engine. (This railway, once used for excursions.) Hence the application to the wellcarrying coal, was superseded in this capacity by a tunnel, and subsequently reserved for pleasure known apparatus for amusing the public at watering-places, fairs, and exhibitions: a short length inclines, so that the car gains enough of momentum of elevated railway with a series of rounded descending the first steep incline to ascend one or more smaller inclines till it gradually and more slowly works its way to the original level at the far end of the course. Thence it returns in the circular. Very similar were the so-called Montagnes same way. Sometimes these switchbacks are made Russes, elevated wooden frames with (wheeled) cars rushing down and up the slopes again, designed to represent Russian snow-slides, which were introduced into Paris as a popular amusement about 1815. The Flying Mountains' of St Petersburg had been described by Lord Baltimore in his Gaudia Poetica (1770). Thomas Moore's Epicurean, published in 1827, and based on some knowledge of the Montagnes Russes, describes very nearly the

modern switchback.

Swithin, or SWITHUN, ST, Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. The 11th century Life attributed to Gotzelin may contain elements of historical truth, and according to it he was tutor to Egbert's son Ethelwulf, under whom he was made bishop. He was a devoted builder of churches, and a man of unusual piety and humility. He built a bridge at the east side of the city, and here he used to sit and watch his workmen. One day some of them broke an old woman's basket of eggs, whereupon the bishop miraculously restored them. He died in 862 and was buried in the churchyard of Winchester, having asked, says William of Malmesbury, to be laid where passers by might tread on his grave, and where the rain from the eaves might fall on it.' A century later he was canonised, and the monks exhumed his body to deposit it in the cathedral; but this translation, which was to have taken place on the 15th July, is said, though unfortunately not by contemporary chroniclers, to have been delayed in consequence of violent rains. Hence the still current belief that if rain fall on the 15th July it will continue to rain for forty days. Unhappily Professor Earle has exploded the ingenious legend about the saint's displeasure, and shown that a much more probable origin is to be found in some primeval pagan belief regarding the meteorologically prophetic character of some day about the same period of the year as St Swithin's. In France the watery saints' days are those of St Médard (8th June), and St Gervais and St Protais (19th June). The rainy saint in Flanders is St Godelieve (6th July), and in Germany among the saints' days to which this belief attaches is that of the Seven Sleepers (27th June).

all are based on the principle of the absolute sovereignty of the people, subject to certain restrictions chiefly regarding military and legal matters imposed by the federal constitution: they are subject also to the ratification of the Confederation. In Uri, the two half-cantons of Appenzell, and in Glarus there still exists the ancient Landsgemeinde, an open-air gathering of all those possessing votes, who meet every spring to legislate on cantonal affairs. These cantons possess a representative power in their Landrath, and an executive power in the Regierungsrath. In other cantons the citizens elect representatives to the cantonal council from electoral districts. The citizen of a commune is ipso facto citizen of the canton in which his commune is situated, and therefore votes in the election of the cantonal council. In the majority of cantons this body choose from among their own number an executive, who superintend all cantonal affairs and the government of the communes; the members also transact business with the federal government and with that of other cantons. The supreme legislative authority of the Confederation is vested in a parliament of two chambers, the Council of the States (Ständerath) and the National Council (Nationalrath), which represent the supreme government of the country, under reserve of the referendum or vote of the people. The Council of the States consists of forty-four members, each canton having two representatives, and each halfcanton one. The regulations as to their election and duration of term of office differ in each canton. The National Council consists of 147 members, elected in each canton in the proportion of one deputy for every 20,000 of the population. The electoral districts cannot be made up of parts of different cantons, and are fixed by the Federal Assembly after every census; the election takes place once every three years. Every male who has attained the age of twenty and possesses the rights of citizenship according to the constitution of his canton, is entitled to vote, and any voter other than a clergyman or an official appointed by the Federal Council is eligible for election as a representative. The sum of 16s. a day is paid during session to the members of the Council of the States and the National Council. These two chambers each elect a president and vice-president, and meet at Berne at least twice a year in June and December, together forming the Federal Assembly. This body controls the general administration of the Confederation; they alone can declare war, make peace, or conclude treaties with foreign powers. The executive authority of the Federal Assembly is deputed to the Federal Council composed of seven members, elected for a period of three years and each receiving a salary of £480 per annum, except the president, who receives £540. No canton can have more than one citizen in this council; its duties are divided among seven departments, one member being charged with the direction of each. The president of the Federal Council, who is also president of the Confederation, is chosen annually at a united meeting of the Council of the States and the National Council from among the members of the Federal Council. The president and the vice-president (who is chosen at the same time) are elected for one year, and cannot be reelected within twelve months of the expiration of

the way for the referendum, which has now spread throughout the whole Confederation, and by means of which all legislative acts passed in the Federal or Cantonal Assemblies may be referred to the people en masse. It is of two kinds, compulsory and optional, both as regards federal and cantonal matters. In those cantons where all laws adopted by the representative body of the canton must be submitted to the people it is compulsory; in those cantons where it may be demanded by a certain number of votes it is optional. With the exception of Freiburg, cantonal referendum exists in those cantons where there is no Landsgemeinde. In the majority of cantons 5000 signatures are required in order to obtain a referendum for cantonal laws. The compulsory referendum regarding federal legislation was established in 1848, but was then limited to the revision of the constitution. That of 1874 contains an article extending the exercise of the popular vote, when demanded by 30,000 citizens or eight cantons, to all laws and resolutions of a general nature passed by the Federal Assembly, this being the optional form of the federal referendum. Since the referendum was fully developed in 1874 it has been put in operation on an average once a year; the decisions have generally shown a conservative rather than a radical tendency on the part of the people.

ones.

Initiative is the exercise of the right granted to voters to initiate proposals for the enactment of new laws or for the alteration or abolition of old By this means the sovereign people' have always the power to bring forward the discussion of legislative matters, even in the event of their representatives in the government being unwilling to do so. Fifty thousand signatures are required to obtain the initiative regarding federal legislation, and in the majority of cantons 5000 for cantonal matters.

Law and Justice.-With the exception of the Federal Bankruptcy Act, applicable throughout the whole of the Confederation, the procedure in civil and criminal matters varies in the different cantons. In the French cantons, with the exception of Geneva, the civil codes are based upon the Code Napoléon, while in the German cantons they differ considerably from each other, and are for the most part original. In Uri and Appenzell there exists not only a code, but customary laws, to which the court gives effect. In ten cantons representing twenty per cent. of the entire population capital punishment exists. By the federal constitution, no sentence of death can be pronounced for a political offence.'

Revenue and Expenditure.-The revenue is derived chiefly from the postal and telegraph services, the customs, powder manufactories, the tax for exemption from military service, and from the real property of the confederation; which together for some years past have produced an income of about £2,500,000. The estimated revenue for 1891 was £2,625,520, the expenditure being reckoned at £3,122,760; the deficit of £497,240 caused by the new armament of the troops and the construction of the fortifications on the St Gothard is covered by a federal loan (1889) of £1,000,000. The public debt in 1891 amounted to £2,166,000. There are two 34 per cent. loans of £240,000 (made in 1885) and of £2,760,000 (in 1890), the latter sum being invested in the shares of the largest Swiss railways, from which the Confederation obtains 4 per cent., and thus makes a certain profit. Each canton has its own budget of revenue and expenditure. The total cantonal debts do not exceed £11,096,400. The French metric system of money, &c. is in use throughout the Confederation.

Army. The federal constitution forbids the maintenance of a standing army; still it declares

that every Swiss is liable to military service.' The army is therefore essentially a citizen force drawn from all classes of the people, being intended only for defensive purposes and to secure the neutrality of the country. It is divided into three classes-the Elite or active army, in which all citizens are liable to serve from the age of twenty to thirty-two; the Landwehr, from thirty-two to forty-four; and the Landsturm, consisting of men from seventeen to fifty not incorporated in the two former classes. Every Swiss keeps his rifle and kit, and in the case of a cavalry soldier his horse, at his own home. Cavalry recruits provide their own horses, which they may use for agricultural or other purposes during the remainder of the year; one-tenth of the price is refunded annually by government. The total strength of the army, not including the Landsturm, is: Elite, 125,620; Landwehr, 80,715; total, 206,335. With the exception of the heads of the ordnance departments, the General Staff and the Corps of Instructors-about 200 in number-are the only officers permanently paid and employed.

Education.-Primary instruction is compulsory, unsectarian, and is provided gratuitously at the cost of each canton, whose officials control the administration and inspection of the schools; thus the details of organisation vary considerably in the different cantons. The period of compulsory attendance is usually from the age of five or six up to fourteen, fifteen, and even sixteen. In many cantons those children who do not enter the secondary schools must pass into the supplementary ones, which generally meet twice a week, the aim of the teachers being to help the scholars to retain what they have learned in the primary schools. There are five universities on the German model -Basel, Bern, Zurich, Geneva, Lausanne, and (for Catholics only) Freiburg; there is also an academy at Neuchâtel, which does not, however, possess the four faculties. The Polytechnic at Zurich is a technical college under the control of the federal authorities, attended by 900 students, the annual cost of maintenance being £20,000. The most important technical schools are the Technikum at Winterthur, those of silk-weaving at Zurich, watchmaking at Geneva, La Chaux de Fonds, Neuchâtel, &c., and wood-carving at Meyringen. Practical as well as theoretical instruction in agriculture is given in the farm-schools at Strickhof and Rütte, and during the winter months short courses of lectures are given gratuitously in the rural districts on horticulture, vine-growing, cattlebreeding, &c.

Agriculture, &c.-All the land in the Confederation is freehold, the cost of transfer in each canton being extremely moderate. More than one-half of the arable land is devoted to cereals; still in 1889 flour to the value of £3,907,550 was imported. Cattle-breeding is an industry of great importance. The Swiss possess two excellent breeds, the particoloured and the brown. The former are amongst the heaviest in Europe, the milk being admirably adapted for making cheese and butter. The brown race is a medium-sized breed, its headquarters in Schwyz, Lucerne, and Zurich. There are upwards of 5500 cheesemaking establishments, and the following are the exports in connection with this industry: cheese, worth £1,561,191, to France, Italy, Germany; condensed milk (£438,071) to Great Britain; and butter (£50,742) to France. Tobacco is grown chiefly in the cantons of Valais, Vaud, Freiburg, Bern, and Aargau; the quality is by no means good, but the exports (including cigars and cigarettes) amount to £90,000 a year. The vine flourishes best on the slopes surrounding the lakes of Geneva, Neuchâtel, Biel, and Zurich. The average annual production of wine amounts

23

to 31,266,400 gallons; but about 15,400,000 gallons are annually imported, exceeding the exports by 11,000,000.

Commerce.-Little or no coal is to be found in the Confederation, there are no canals or navigable rivers, the country is situated far from the seacoast, and nearly the whole of the raw material and half-finished goods have to be imported. Still, in spite not only of these drawbacks but of the protective policy adopted by the neighbouring powers, there is a larger general trade per head of the population than in almost any other European country, amounting to £13, 0s. 2d. for imports and £9, 13s. 6d. for exports. In 1889 the imports amounted to £38,169,145, and the exports to £28,435,794; while if we include the transit trade the totals are £61,302,925 for imports and £51,119,401 for exports. The trade for 1890 with the principal

countries was:

The textile industries are the most important, the chief centres being Zurich, Basel, Glarus, and St Gall, the total value of the goods exported being £16,292,954. Next comes the watchmaking industry, established at Geneva in 1587, and which has since spread to the cantons of Neuchâtel, Bern, and Vaud. The value of the watches, musical boxes, &c. exported in 1889 amounted to £3,949,728. The production of machinery (weaving-looms, &c.) is valued at £1,200,000. Embroidery is carried on chiefly in St Gall and Appenzell. Wood-carving, introduced in the Oberland about 1820, now gives employment to about 4000 persons. The gross amount of money brought annually by tourists into the Play-ground of Europe' is estimated at £4,000,000.

History. The occupants of the Lake-dwellings (q.v.) were the first inhabitants known to us. At the time of the Roman invasion the two principal tribes in possession of the country were the Celtic Helvetii and the Rhætii (of doubtful affinities). In 58 B.C. the Helvetii were partially subdued by Julius Cæsar, but it was not till 15 B. C. that they were completely subjugated by Augustus. These became part of the Roman empire, and during the three following centuries trade was developed and military roads were constructed, e.g. the St Gothard, the Great St Bernard, and that crossing the Julier. The chief Roman settlements were Aventicum (Avenches), Augusta Rauracorum (Kaiser Augst) and Vindonissa (Königsfelden). After the conquest of Gaul Helvetia was invaded by the Burgundians and the Alemanni 450 A.D. The former took possession of western Switzerland, and the latter settled east of the Aar, in the district since known as 'La Suisse Romande.' In the 7th century, during the domination of the Frank kings of the Merovingian dynasty, order was restored, and Christianity preached by SS. Gallus, Columbanus, and others. About this period the great monasteries of Einsiedeln, Dissentís, St Gall, and Pfäffers were founded, which soon became centres of progress and learning. Much of what later became Switzerland then formed part of the Holy Roman Empire, for which it was ruled by wealthy abbots and nobles, among whom were the Counts of Zähringen. This powerful family became extinct in 1218, and the country was distracted by internal wars. In 1273 Rudolph of Hapsburg (whose castle was situated in what is now the canton of Aargau) was raised to the imperial throne; after his death (1291) a short period of anarchy ensued in the empire. The inhabitants of Uri,