Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/242

  till 1853. In 1833 he was made a canon residentiary of Ely, an office which he retained till his death. In 1855 he was elected to the Lady Margaret professorship, beating his chief competitor, Harold Browne, who then held the Norrisian chair, by the casting vote of the chairman. ‘It is Harold the conqueror this time, not William,’ was his remark to his opponent, under the impression that the election had gone the other way. He showed his generous spirit on the occasion by insisting on setting apart out of his own income the yearly sum of 700l., first for the better endowment of the Norrisian professorship during Harold Browne's tenure of it, and after that to accumulate till it should reach the sum of 10,000l., when the money should be devoted to such purposes for furthering the study of theology in Cambridge as the senate, with his own approval, should decide upon. Selwyn lived to see the new divinity school erected with the funds thus raised.

In 1852 he was named a member of the cathedrals commission, and the report of 1854 was understood to be largely his work. He was also the moving cause of the rebuilding of his own college chapel, for which purpose funds had been accumulating under the bequest of a late master. In Michaelmas term 1866, when riding along the Trumpington road, he was thrown from his horse, owing to the carelessness, it was said, of an undergraduate, who was riding on the wrong side of the road. In a copy of Latin elegiacs, dated 20 Nov., which appeared in the ‘Times’ of 15 Dec. 1866, the sufferer apostrophised the ‘juvenum rapidissime’ in lines of mingled humour and pathos. He never wholly recovered from the effects of the fall, and died on 24 April 1875, being buried at Ely on the 29th.

Selwyn married, on 22 Aug. 1832, Juliana Elizabeth, eldest daughter of George Cooke, esq., of Carr House, Doncaster, who survived him, but left no family. In person he was tall and spare, with a strong likeness to the portraits of George Herbert. He had a curiosa felicitas of expression, and was an enthusiastic oarsman.

Besides many letters and sermons, Selwyn published: He also edited ‘Origenes contra Celsum,’ bk. i. 1860, bks. i.–iv. 1877; and translated Tennyson's ‘Enoch Arden’ into Latin verse, 1867.
 * 1) ‘Principles of Cathedral Reform,’ 1840.
 * 2) ‘Horæ Hebraicæ.,’ 1848–60.
 * 3) ‘Notæ Criticæ in Versionem Septuagintaviralem,’ 1856–8.
 * 4) ‘Winfrid, afterwards called Boniface,’ a poem, 1864.
 * 5) ‘Waterloo, a Lay of Jubilee,’ 1865.
 * 6) ‘Speeches delivered at Cambridge on various occasions,’ 1875 (these last collected and reprinted after his death).

 SEMPILL. [See also .]

SEMPILL, FRANCIS (1616?–1682), ballad-writer, son of Robert Sempill of Beltrees, Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire [see under, ad fin.], and his wife Mary Lyon, was born about 1616. Educated according to his position, he probably studied law. Like his ancestors, he ardently supported the Stuarts. The family estates were heavily burdened, and, failing to relieve them of debt, he in 1674 alienated to his son by deed the lands of Beltrees and Thirdpart. In 1677, when there was a process of ‘horning’ against Sempill, his resources further declined. He both sold and feued, granted the superiority over his estates to his neighbour, Crawford of Cartsburn, and resigned to his son the life-rent due to himself and his wife from certain lands. In 1677 Sempill was appointed sheriff-depute of Renfrewshire, and one of his decisions shortly afterwards involved him in a riot in which he was severely handled (, Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. App. p. 8). According to Law (Memorialls, 1638–84), he died suddenly at Paisley, 12 March 1682. Sempill married, 3 April 1655, his cousin Jane Campbell of Ardkinlas, Argyllshire, who survived him, together with two sons, Robert and James.

The author of many occasional pieces on social and political subjects, Sempill was widely known as poet and wit. Through an intimacy formed with Cromwell's officers in Glasgow, he was early recognised in England as a song-writer (, Musical Museum). Sempill wrote complimentary verses on James, duke of York, and celebrated the births of his children. In his autobiographical poem, ‘The Banishment of Poverty by His Royal Highness J.D.A.’ (i.e. James, duke of Albany), he gives a lively narrative of his troubles, including his sojourn in the debtors' refuge at Holyrood. Sempill is also credited with a variety of fairly pointed poetical epitaphs, with a Christmas carol, and a sentimental lyric on ‘Old Longsyne.’

‘She rose and let me in,’ a song that is often attributed to Sempill, figures in D'Urfey's ‘New Collection of Songs’ (1683), and in Henry Playford's ‘Wit and Mirth,’