Swinburne, Henry

, a learned traveller, and probably a descendant of the preceding, was the youngest son of the late sir John Swinburne, bart. of Capheaton, in Northumberland, the long-established seat of that ancient Roman Catholic family. He was educated at Scorton school, in Yorkshire, and afterwards studied at Paris, Bourcleaux, and in the royal academy at Turin. He made the usual tour of Italy; and, in 1774, travelled with his lady on the Continent, for the express purpose of indulging their taste for antiquities and the fine arts. He spent six years in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany; formed an intimacy with some of the most celebrated literati of those coun­^ries, and received some signal marks of esteem from the sovereigns of the courts he visited. On his return to England he retired to his seat at Hamsterley, in the bishopric of Durham, which thenceforth became his principal residence. He published his Travels in Spain in a quarto volume, 1779; four years after, vol. I. of his Travels in the Two Sicilies, and a lid two years after. Both these works have been reprinted in octavo, the first in two, the other in four, volumes, with improvements. The learning and ingenuity of Mr. Swinburne have been generally acknowledged, and the warmth and animation of his descriptions discover an imagination highly susceptible of every bounty of nature or art; but he is perhaps too apt to relinquish simplicity for profusion of ornament. He was the first who brought us intimately acquainted with Spain, and the arts and monuments of its ancient inhabitants. By the marriage of his only daughter to Paul Benfield, esq. he became involved in the misfortunes of that adventurer, and obtained a place in the newly-ceded settlement of Trinidad, where he died in April 1803. His library had been sold by auction, by Leigh and Sotheby, the preceding year. ²