Ancient Egyptian Pigs ; rarely seen in the sculptures, and never before the ISth dynasty.
1. Sows with young pigs. 2. Yuuni; pit's. 3. Boars, a is a whip, knntteci like some of our own. 6, a ga</,l,
ublem of a shepherd.
uuni; pit's. 3. Boars, o n(»ose, often used as the *
SWINERTOX
57
SWITZERLAND
that our Lord sent the devils into the swine. He mere- ly permitted them to go, as Aquinas says, " quod autem porci in mare prscipitati sunt nou fuit operatio divini miraculi, sed operatio di^monum e permissione divina;" and if these Gadarene villagers were Jews and owned the swine, they were rightly punished by the loss of that which they ought not to have had at all. See Tacit. IJist. V, 4 ; Juven. Sat. xi v, 98 ; Jlacrob. Sat. ii, 4 ; Josephus, Ant. xiii, 8, 2; Philo, 0pp. ii, 531; Mishna, Buba Kama, vii, 7 ; Talm. Hieros. Shekal. fol. 47, 3 ; Lightfoot, Uor. Heb. p. 315 sq. ; Otho, Lex. Rub. p. 530 sq.
2. The wild boar of the wood (Psa. Ixxx, 13) is the common Siis scrofa which is frequently met with in the woody parts of Palestine, especially in Mount Tabor. The allusion in the psalm to the injury the wild boar does to the vineyards is well borne out by fact. " It is astonishing what havoc a wild boar is capable of effect- ing during a single night; what with eating and tram- pling underfoot, he will destroy a vast quantity of grapes" (Hartley, Researches in Greece, p. 234). — Smith. See BoAU.
Swinerton, Asa V., a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born at Danvers, Mass., in 1802. He joined the New England Conference on trial in 1831. When the Providence Conference was formed in 1841, he continued on the district of which he was presiding elder, and thus became a member of -the lat- ter Conference. He continued to labor, with the ex- ception of one year (supernumerary), until 1863, his death taking place at Monument, Mass., Oct. 12 of that year. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 18()4, p. 51.
S'winey, Samuel T., a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was born in West Feliciana Parish, La. Of the circumstances of conversion, etc., we have no particulars. He joined, probably, the Mis- sissippi Conference in 1856, and after a number of years became supernumerarj', and died Aug. 14, 1869. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church, <Sy»^/;, 1869, p.341.
Swinnock, George, an English clergyman, was vicar of Great Kymble, Bucks, from which he was eject- ed for nonconformity in 1662. He afterwards became pastor at Maidstone, where he died in 1673. His writ- ings are: Heaven and Hell Epitomized (Lond. 1()59, 8vo ; 1663, 4to): — Christian Man's Callinfj (in 3 pts. 4to : i, 1662; ii, 1663; iii, 1665) : — also Sermons. See Allibone, Diet, (f Brit, and Amer. Authors, s. v.; Darling, Cyclop. Biblior/. s. v.
STwinton, John, an English divine and antiquary, was born in 1703 at Bexton, Cheshire. He was edu- cated at Wadham College, Oxford, was chaplain to the factory at Leghorn, and died April 4, 1777, keeper of the universit}^ records at Oxford. He contributed vols. vi and vii (the Life of Mohammed and the History of the A rabs) to the Modern Unii'crsn/ History, and wrote man}' learned dissertations on Phcrnician and other an- tiquities. See Allibone, Diet, of Brit, and A mer. A u- thors, s. V. ; Chalmers, Biog. Diet. s. v.
S'within, St., an English ecclesiastic of the 9th cen- tury, was chaplain to king Egbert, and tutor to his son Ethelwolf, by whom he was made chancellor. He had the charge of the education of king Alfred, whom he accompanied to Rome. In 852 he was consecrated bishop of Winchester. William of Malmesbury records of him that he was " a rich treasure of all virtues, and those in which he took most delight were humility and charity to the poor." The origin of the tribute called "Peter's pence" (q. v.) has often been assigned to Swithin, and he is said to have procured an act of the Witenagemote enforcing, for the first time, the uni- versal obligation of paying tithes. Swithin died July 2, 862. See Mrs. Jameson. Legends of the Monastic Or- ders, p. 89.
Swithin's Day. The following is said to be the
origin of the old adage " If it rain on St. Swithin's Day, there will be rain more or less for forty succeed- ing days." In the year 865 St. Swithin, bishop of Win- chester— to which rank he was raised by king Ethel- wolf the Dane — was canonized by the then pope. He was singular for his desire to be buried in the open church-yard, and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops, which request was com- plied with ; but the monks, on his being canonized, taking it into their heads that it was disgraceful for the saint to lie in the open church-yard, resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on July 15. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as had hardly ever been known, which made them set aside their design as heretical and blas- phemous; and instead they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought. The value to be placed upon the popular notion that if it rain on July 15 it will do so for forty succeeding days may be learned from the follow- ing facts from the Greenwich observations for twenty years : It appears that St. Swithin's Day was wet in 1841, and there were 23 rainy days up to Aug. 24; 1845, 26 rainy days; 1851, 13 rainj- days; 1853, 18 rainy days; 1854, 16 rainy days; and in 1856, 14 rainy days. In 1842 and following years St. Swithin's Day was dry, and the result was, in 1842, 12 rainy days; 1843, 12 rainy days; 1844, 20 rainy days; 1846, 2rrainy days; 1847, 17 rainy days; 1848,31 rainy days; 1849, 20 rainy days; 1850, 17 rainy days; 1852, 19 rainy days; 1855, 18 rainy days; 1857, 14 rainy days; 1858, 14 rainy days; 1859, 13 rainy days; and in 1860, 29 rainy days. These fig- ures show the superstition to be founded on a fallacy, as the average of twenty years proves rain to have fallen upon the largest number of days when St. Swith- in's day was dry. — Eadie, Eccb^s. Cyclop, s. v.