Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/206

 the thirteenth century known as the ‘Testa de Nevill’ [see ].

Swereford died in harness. He sat as baron throughout Trinity term 1246, but his death is recorded during the Michaelmas sittings, probably on St. Frideswide's day, 19 Oct. He was buried in front of the altar of St. Chad in the church of St. Paul's, which he had endowed with a chantry of one priest.

Like his great predecessors, whose ‘science’ he is so fond of recalling, Swereford was not only learned in exchequer lore, but a collector of historical precedents and state papers. He has been generally regarded, on the strength of an autograph dedication and other personal allusions, as the compiler of the ‘Red Book of the Exchequer,’ a miscellaneous collection of official precedents, statutes, charters, and accounts which ranks next to Domesday Book among our books of remembrance in age and historical importance. The manuscript, which is preserved in the Public Record Office, was first published in the Rolls Series in 1896 (3 vols.), and was edited by the present writer. The ‘Red Book’ contains possibly only a portion of the ‘Parvi Rotuli’ collected by Swereford. These were placed at the service of Matthew Paris, who has referred to their historical value in several passages, and has given us the following obituary notice of their author: ‘In elegance of figure, in beauty of features, and a mind endowed with many forms of learning, he has not left his like in England.’

[Several essays have been written upon Swereford's life and work, and the scattered notices contained in Madox's History of the Exchequer, Le Neve's Fasti, and Newcourt's Repertorium have been brought together in Hardy's Catalogue, iii. 107, with some additional information. These accounts are, however, not only exceedingly imperfect, but also frequently erroneous. The truth is that the facts of Swereford's life, like those of most of the great mediæval clerks, must be laboriously gleaned from manuscript records. These facts are given in the edition of the Red Book of the Exchequer in the Rolls Series (pt. i. pp. xxxv–xlix) from the Patent and Close Rolls, the Memoranda Rolls, ancient deeds and other records of the Chancery and Exchequer, from monastic cartularies and contemporary chronicles, and from the Liber Pilosus of St. Paul's. An extremely unfavourable estimate of Swereford's work and historical authority, by Mr. J. H. Round, appeared in the English Historical Review for July and October 1891. Reference should also be made to the Hist. MSS. Comm. ix. App., Archæologia, xxviii. 261, lii. 169, to Prof. F. Liebermann's Einleitung in den Dialogus, and to the edition of Matthew Paris in Mon. Germ. xxviii.]  SWETE or TRIPE, JOHN (1752?–1821), antiquary, born about 1752, was the son of Nicholas Tripe of Ashburton in Devonshire. John (who afterwards assumed the surname of Swete) matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 19 Oct. 1770, graduated B.A. in 1774, and proceeded M.A. in 1777. He took holy orders, and on 27 Aug. 1781 he was made a prebendary of the diocese of Exeter (, Fasti, i. 431, 433). In later life he resided at Oxton House, near Kenton, in the neighbourhood of Exeter. He died in 1821, leaving several children. His son, John Beaumont Swete, succeeded to his estates.

He published: 1. Three poetical pieces in Polwhele's ‘Traditions and Recollections,’ 1826, pp. 240–2. 2. Seven poetical pieces signed ‘S.,’ in ‘Poems chiefly by Gentlemen of Devonshire and Cornwall,’ ed. Polwhele, 1792, ii. 34, 205–9, 233. 3. Three antiquarian articles signed ‘N. E.’ in ‘Essays by a Society of Gentlemen at Exeter,’ 1796. These essays occasioned a quarrel between him and Polwhele, who regarded their publication as a breach of confidence and as calculated to injure his own work on Devonshire, then approaching completion. The misunderstanding was increased by some strictures on Swete's essays which appeared in the ‘European Magazine’ under the signature ‘W.,’ and which he mistakenly attributed to Polwhele.

Swete also left a manuscript description of Devonshire in the possession of his family. It forms an itinerary of the county, commencing in 1792 and terminating in 1802, and contains a full description of the places visited in his journeys, illustrated by sketches made and dated at the time. The portion relating to Torquay was published in the ‘Torquay Directory’ in 1871.

[Western Antiquary, vi. 269–70, 303; Polwhele's Hist. of Devon, pref. i. 81, ii. 162–3; Davidson's Bibliotheca Devoniensis, pp. 3, 135; Transactions of the Devonshire Association, xiv. 51–3; Gent. Mag. 1796 ii. 739, 896, 1017; Gomme's Gent. Mag. Library, English Topography, iii. 82, 161, 192, 208; Polwhele's Reminiscences, i. 46; Polwhele's Traditions and Recollections, pp. 242–4, 383–4, 445, 475–81, 710–11; Warner's Recollections, ii. 144; Polwhele's Biographical Sketches, iii. 125, 132–3; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, iv. 1439.]  SWETNAM, JOSEPH (fl. 1617), called the woman-hater, kept a fencing school at Bristol, as appears from an excessively rare work by him, entitled ‘The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence. Being the first of any English-mans in-