The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-28 00:00:00

LIFE OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG:
.With an Account of his Writings. By Elihu Rich.
One hundred years have elapsed-1749: 1849—.
since an extraordinary work was published in this
city of London, in quarto volumes, by a Swedish phi-
losopher at that time sojourning in England. It was
entitled Arcana Oelestia quce in Scriptura, arc., and,
besides containing a recondite analysis of Genesis, of
Exodus, and of the other divisions of the Holy Book,
with reference to its " inner meaning," recounted how
the writer had been 'rapt up into the celestial regions,
how his spiritual senses had been opened, how he had,
conversed with angels and with the souls of men
beatified, and how he had been commissioned by Om-
nipotence to reveal to the inhabitants of this world the
mysteries of the hereafter, the immortality of human
life, and the characteristics of Ileaven. Numerous
volumes had already issued from the pen of
this man, relating to the abstract and physical
sciences. He had contributed many golden truths to
the treasury of earthly knowledge. He had la-
boured with distinguished ability and with great
practical success as a Metallurgist. He had by many
novel and brilliant experiments originated that science
of Chrystallography which was subsequently deve-
loped by our own illustrious Wollaston. His feli-
citous conjectures may be said to have been the first
startling predications of the geological researches of
Lyell, Buckland, and Murchison. He preceded La
Place in the supposition that some of the feeblest burrs
of light visible in the heavens might be resolved into
congeries of stars, and in that other supposition which
ultimately ripened into what is known as the Nebular
hypothesis. His theories as to the existence of a
magnetic element were the natural antecedents of the
facts evolved by the profound investigations of Mi-
chael Faraday. His Prodromus Trincipiarion was the
precursor of a new epoch in chemistry. His Principia
Rerum Naturalum was a splendid sequence to the
effusions of the genius of Leibnitz and Descartes.
He penned tracts on the "depreciation of the cur-
rency," which would not ,be beneath the notice of
Jones Loyd or of John Taylor. He profferred hints
as to the warming and ventilation of rooms (in his
Nova Regulce and his Nova Observata), such as
might be profitably perused by Dr. Reid. He con-.
ceived and explained new plans for the construction
of docks on a scale commensurate with Great
'Grimsby and Birkenhead. He concentrated upon
one gigantic effort of the intellect—the (Economia •
Regni Animalis—all the data derivable from the study
of anatomy, metaphysics, and philosophy. In this
remarkable production, as well as in his Dissertationes
duce de Fibra et SuccoNervoso; De Febre, intermit-
tente, he endeavoured to penetrate those abysses of
marvel which have been,. since sounded by the
mind of Liebig. And in a remarkable treatise
on the Worship and Love of God, Dc Cul& et
Amore Dei, he so often forestalled the productions
of Schelling, of Schubert, and of Eschermeyer,.that
Coleridge acknowledges so much in his " Literary
Remains" (vol. iv., p. 424), declaring that this book
alone would be sufficient to mark its author as " a
man of philosophic genius, radicative and evolvent."
No wonder therefore that when a person, gifted with
such indisputable intelligence and sagacity, suddenly
proclaimed through the medium of his Arcane that he
held communion with angelic forms and with the
spirits of the departed, no wonder that when he spoke
thus the whole world was stricken as with a thunder-
bolt of amazement. The effect of declarations so
extraordinary was very soon perceptible. Some re-
garded him as an Imposter and others as a Prophet ;
some as a Madman, others as Inspired ; some as
a deranged visionary, others as a being ordained to
follow a course parallel with the course pursued by
Moses and by John the Baptist. The consequence of
this exaggerated contrariety of opinion was, that he
experienced a continual oscillation between the
extremes of patronage and persecution. Looking
back through the tranquillizing influence of a century,
unagitated by the passions raging at the period of
this man's appearance, we may now form some
reasonable estimate of his position and of his character
—considering both as among the many marvellous
) phases of humanity. Reviewing his life, therefore,
) in this impartial and unimpassioned mood, it is im-
possible for us to arrive at any other conclusion than
that, in-his intellect reason and imagination (both, in
his instance, of a colossal magnitude) struggled for the
mastery, and that his reason at first predominant
) was ultimately conquered by his superb and domi-
neering imagination. Reason was predominant
) during his career as a philosopher; imagination
) during his career as a dreamer. It is impossible,
moreover, not to feel equally satisfied from the
) sincerity, the earnestness, and the purity of this
remarkable man's existence, that he himself reposed
an implicit credence in the actuality of the magnifi-
Ocent hallucinations of his fancy. He was a Poet,
1 believing in the vitality of his creations. He was a
1
Pygmalion—thinking statues and willing tbem, not
f. into a fleshly lite, but into a spiritual int-
mortality. Such to our mind was Emanuel
g Swedenborg a matchless dreamer. and a
O Mr. Rich, has
0 I scarcely two hundred pages an epitome of the life
1 and a sketch of the writings of Swedenborg ; and, like
9, all biographers, he has become infected with what
O Macaulay terms so felicitously the lees biogrOphica,
2 the disease of adoration. In striving to impart to
the mind of the reader, within a very brief compass,
0
some knowledge of the nature of the opinions expressed
O and the principles propounded by Swedenborg, he
O has rendered the book rather a synopsis of S%\ eden-
-1 berg's productions than a detailed narrative of his
O career. We would rather for our own part, fur ex-
O ample, have found a less laborious syllabus of the
1 Arcana Ccelestia, and a little more Boswellism, a
O little more of the particulars of the man's life, of his
O private habits, of his domestic incidents. What is
0
given, however, is given truthfully and sen-
t
O tentiously. So far we must in justice offer our meed
0 of commendation. From the birth of Emanuel
o Swedenborg at Stockholm, on the 29th of January,
1 1688, down to his death in London, in the 85th year
O of his age, on the 29th of March, 1772, every one of
O his peregrinations over Europe are mentioned—his
1 journeys to England, to Holland, to France, to
1 Saxony, to Austria, to Hungary, and throughout the
1 Italian peninsula. As the son of the Bishop of
oSkara, Westrogothia, and of that Prelate's first wife,
Sarah Behm, Emanuel Swedenborg was from his
earliest childhood bred up in a reverence for religion ;
O and throughout the whole of his career the purity of
2 his conduct attested his reverence for the moral
i dogmas of Christianity. Great in reason, as is shown by
0 his philosophical works, he became yet more extraordi-
-2 nary in imagination, as is shown in his theological
O writings—both of them singularly voluminous. Mr.
2 Elihu Rich has given a rapid epitome of the character
(0, and tendency of each ; and by so doing has filled up a
u, hiatus in popular literature.

A DREAM.
How long have I been slumbering ?

Oh! give me quick my lyre.
For I would sing a glorious thing,
That sets set my soul on fire.
I've bad a dream, and such a dream

Ne'er hung above a soldier's sleep;
Yet ending in as sad a theme,
As ever made the waker weep.
* * 0#
".,
A hero sprung,,to sudden life,"
Like to a Biro-God—
Bearing, as if from recent strife;
A broken chain and rod.
A shout rose to the sky !
And bells were rung, and banners waved
It was a nation, long enslaved,
Waking to liberty.
He stood upon the Danube's banks,
And there his flag unfurled ;
And round him formed in glittering ranks
The warriors of the world.
Mazer and Heaved came :
The Czecish lance, the Polish spear
Borne side by side, like brothers dear—
,.
In freedom's cause the same
The hero spoke—the thunders woke
On every hill and plain ;
The Austrian despot's ranks he broke—
Ten thousand slaves were slain !
On thrOugh the sulphury cloud,
The Magyar swept with charging cheer,
Till rose before him, high and near,
Vienna's spires so proud!
Oh ! 'twas a gracious lesson then
To look at Europe's Kings.
The world might see they were but men—
But little human things.
Each cowering by his throne,
And shivering with a mortal fear,
Thinking that promis'd time was here
When men shall have their own.
'The tyrants gathered all their strength
For one convulsive throe; 't
And backward battling came at length,
To meet withblow fur blow.
Oh! how I watch'd the strife,
With burning spirit from afar,
And yearn'd I with the brave Magyar,
To take or yield a life.
Ah 1 sweet were death, sweet—O'er my dream
A shadow lowering,
hid heaven from view ; and it did seem
A foul and blackened thing.
Treason ! I know thee well.
The cause of freedom was undone—
T hough Dot in battle lost and won—
And Ludwig Kossuth fell 1
Thou hest not fallen ' • in thy fall
The world will still applaud
Thy deeds ; and future freemen all
Deem thee a demigod !
Oh ! I would rather bend my knee,
And kiss the garment hem of thee,
Than wrap me in a purple robe—
The monarch of the globe.
London, Sqt, 26, 1849. MAINZ BSI%