left in 1859 for Edinburgh University, where he graduated M.A. in 1867. In 1866, having given up the idea of entering the ministry, he went to Germany, and studied German literature and philosophy, first at Heidelberg University, and afterwards at Berlin. During his stay in Germany he was engaged in collecting materials for his ‘Life of Lessing,’ and he visited most of the places connected with his hero's career, and with the lives of Goethe and Schiller. He returned and settled in London, Norland Square, Notting Hill, in 1869, and commenced journalism. In 1871 he took a mastership in the Edinburgh Academy, but, finding the work uncongenial, resigned and returned to London in 1873 to literary work, which occupied him till his death. He was successively connected with the ‘Globe,’ the ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ and the ‘St. James's Gazette’ (under Mr. Frederick Greenwood), writing chiefly on social and educational topics, and on continental politics. He was a constant contributor to the ‘Athenæum,’ ‘Saturday Review,’ and the ‘English Illustrated Magazine,’ did weekly work for the ‘Graphic’ and the ‘Daily Graphic’ for many years, and for some time was on the staff of ‘Nature.’ He had planned a history of Germany on a fairly big scale, but the claims of his everyday work, and his premature death, prevented the realisation of this scheme, for which his wide reading and sound judgment eminently qualified him. From 1880 he lived at a house in Bedford Park, 1 Queen Anne's Grove, which he had built. He died there of influenza, on 20 March 1895, and was buried at Hampstead cemetery. Sime married, on 6 Oct. 1865, Jessie Aitken Wilson (youngest sister of Sir Daniel Wilson [q. v.], president of Toronto University, and of Professor George Wilson of Edinburgh University). One child of this marriage survived him, Georgina Jessie. A portrait was engraved from a characteristic photograph.
His published works were: 1. ‘History of Germany’ (historical course for schools, edited by E. A. Freeman), 1874. 2. ‘Life of Lessing,’ 2 vols. 1877. 3. ‘Schiller’ (Blackwood's ‘Foreign Classics for English Readers’), 1882. 4. ‘Mendelssohn's Letters,’ 1887. 5. ‘Life of Goethe’ (‘Great Writers Series’), 1888. 6. ‘Geography of Europe,’ 1890. He also edited ‘Minna von Barnhelm,’ 1877, and wrote numerous articles dealing with German history, literature, and biography in the ninth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’
[Personal knowledge and information from family.]
SIMEON or SYMEON of Durham (fl. 1130), historian, was a monk of Durham, being thirty-eighth on his own list of the monks of that house (Hist. Eccl. Dunelm. ii. 5). He probably joined the monastery between the date of its establishment by Bishop Walcher [q. v.] at Jarrow in 1074 and its removal to Durham by Bishop William de St. Carilef [q. v.] in 1083; for he speaks of recollecting how Tynemouth was served by the monks from Jarrow (Hist. Regum, i. 260). It is, however, probable that he did not make his profession till 1085 or 1086 (Arnold, Præf. vol. i. p. xii). Very little is known of his life. He mentions that he could remember the services of the secular clergy in Durham Cathedral in the time of Bishop Walcher (Hist. Eccl. Dunelm. ii. 58). As a monk of Durham he was present at the translation of the remains of St. Cuthbert in 1104 (Reginald of Coldingham, De Cuthberti Virtutibus, Surtees Soc. i. 84). Afterwards he rose to be precentor of the church of Durham. That post was held by William of St. Barbara in 1138 (Monast. Angl. vi. 1173), and Simeon probably died a few years previously. The ‘Historia Regum’ is brought down to 1129, and the ‘Epistolæ de Archiepiscopis Eboraci’ was probably written about 1130 or 1132. Simeon must at this time have been about seventy years old. His obit was kept at Durham on 14 Oct. (Liber Vitæ, p. 146, Surtees Soc. xiii.).
Bale, on the strength of a chronological error in a rubric prefixed to the only manuscript of the ‘Historia Regum,’ fixed Simeon's date at 1164. Selden (ap. Scriptores Decem, pp. i–xxvi), accepting this conclusion, argued that Simeon could not be the author of the ‘Historia Ecclesiæ Dunelmensis,’ whose recollection went back to 1080. Accordingly, he claimed this latter work on behalf of Turgot [q. v.], who was prior of Durham in 1104. The error was exposed by Rudd in a dissertation prefixed to Bedford's edition of the Durham history in 1732.
Simeon was for the most part an industrious compiler rather than an original historian. His most important work is the ‘Historia Ecclesiæ Dunelmensis,’ which was written between 1104 and 1108, and is brought down to the death of William of St. Carilef in 1096. Next in importance is the ‘Historia Regum Anglorum et Dacorum.’ The first portion, extending from 732 to 957, is based on the work of a Cuthbertine annalist, who had borrowed largely from Asser, but preserves northern information of value; the second portion extends from 848 to 1129, and is based on the ‘Chronicle’ of Florence of Worcester, with
