Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853

Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853

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That neither Dr. Good nor Mr. George Woodfall, the editors of the edit. of 1812, knew anything about him, is manifest from their own bald note of explanation, "A correspondent of the printers." Some reports say that he was a collector of news for the Public Advertiser, and subsequently a bookseller at Birmingham, but I never saw any one fact adduced tending to show that there was any person of that name so employed. Others that the Rev. Dr. Sidney Swinney was the party referred to: and Mr. Smith, in his excellent notes to the Grenville Papers, vol. iii. p. lxviii., assumes this to be the fact. I incline to agree with him, but have only inference to strengthen conjecture. What may be the value of that inference will appear in the progress of this inquiry, Who was Dr. Sidney Swinney?