Introduction
Born: January 4, 1801, Manchester, England.
Died: September 22, 1874, of an epileptic fit. At the time of his death, he was living in Prestwich Park, Prestwich, in a house bought for him by friends.
Born: January 4, 1801, Manchester, England.
Died: September 22, 1874, of an epileptic fit. At the time of his death, he was living in Prestwich Park, Prestwich, in a house bought for him by friends.
Son of a an English father and French mother, Swain is remembered as a poet and engraver.
He was honorary professor of poetry at the Manchester Royal Institution, and in 1856 was granted a civil list pension.
Swain’s epitaph for John Horsefield is noted by English Heritage as an element of their rationale for listing Horsefield’s tomb as a Grade II monument.
After his early education, Swain began work at age 15 as a clerk for Tavaré and Horrocks, a dye-works that was part-owned by a maternal uncle. Swain left his job at the dye-works after 14 years to become a bookseller.
That venture did not last, and two years later he joined Lockett & Company, a Manchester firm of engravers and lithographers.
Swain eventually bought the engraving department from the firm to run it himself. By the time the bookselling venture ended, Swain was friends with Robert Southey and other literary names. His poems had been published in journals from 1822 on, and he had also had various more substantial works published.
Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow—
Leave things of the future to fate;
What’s the use to anticipate sorrow?
Life’s troubles come never too late!
If to hope overmuch be an error,
’Tis one that the wise have preferred;
And how often have hearts been in terror
Of evils that never occurred.
Have faith, and thy faith shall sustain thee—
Permit not suspicion and care
With invisible bonds to enchain thee,
But bear what God gives thee to bear.
By His Spirit supported and gladdened,
Be ne’er by forebodings
deterred;
But think how oft hearts have been saddened
By fear of what never occurred.
Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow:
Short and dark as our life may appear,
We may make it still darker by sorrow—
Still shorter by folly and fear!
Half our troubles are half our invention,
And often from blessings conferred
Have we shrunk, in the wild apprehension
Of evils that never occurred.
Charles Swain
Poems, 1857
If you can help with any of these items,