Now, the to inform his readers that his frequent title of "Baron," is purely imaginary, having originated in a "mistake" on the part of his followers, who were disposed to magnify some petty, presentable distinction, very common in the courts of Europe, into a high-sounding epithet, that would give a fictitious eclat to his name. fact upon this head is simply this: Swedenborg was ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora; his name changed from Swedborg to Swedenborg, by which his nobility was signified, and he thenceforward took his seat with the nobles of the equestrian order in the triennial assemblies of the States. This did not constitute him, technically, a "Baron," in the English sense of the word, but he was hereby constituted a nobleman, and would have been called a "Lord" in Great Britain; but the prevalence of feudal ideas in most of the countries of Europe, where the great distinction was anciently between "Barons" and peasants, or serfs, undoubtedly gave rise to the title in question, which is at present seldom applied to him by his advocates. It is, evidently, no great misnomer, though intrinsically of very little moment, as Swedenborg himself says of it, when speaking in his letter to Hartley, of the various prerogatives of his rank: "For, what far exceeds them," says he, "I have been called to a holy office by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested himself in person to me, his servant, in the year 1743, when he opened my sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels, which I enjoy to this day (1769-26 years)." The claim here asserted to spiritual intercourse and a divine illumination is, doubtless, the great stumbling block with all the impugners of the illustrious Swede, and the main barrier to that candid examination of his works, which De Quincey himself acknowledges to be requisite to an adequate judgment of the man. Yet, it is clear, in his own case, that he was incapacitated for such a judgment. His testimony is ruled out of court by his own decision. "I cannot think myself qualified to speak of any man's writings, without a regular examination of some one or two among those which his admirers regard as his best performances." Well, and does he say that he took this method to qualify himself for pronouncing an equitable sentence? "Yet, as any happened to fall in my way, I have looked into them; and the impression left upon my mind, certainly was not favorable." And why should it have been? How could the impression well have been otherwise than unfavorable with one who obviously contented himself with mere transient glances and broken perusals of writings which require, for a fair estimate, the most deliberate and patient investigation? Under these circumstances, what respect is due to the verdict of "dullness" and "extravagance," in the disclosures made of the astounding phenomena of the other life? How can such narratives be dull, whatever the style, provided they be true? And the question of their truth is the real question with which the objector has to do. As to "extravagance in the conceptions," it is very easy to understand that the soberest description of the realities of heaven and hell, should appear extravagant to one who has not studied with some degree of attention the laws of pyschology upon which they depend, and which have of late years become far more developed, than at the period to which De Quincey refers; although one would think that his own opium-bred visions would have read to him a lesson of credence on this head, which could not easily have been gainsayed. But Swedenborg has contrived to strip even the shadowy world beyond the grave, of all its mystery and all its awe." Here, alas! is the real pinch. The un seen world has been, indeed, a "shadowy world;" and such do the great mass of men prefer it should remain. But Swedenborg, speaking as he was moved by his supernatural experience, has not suffered it thus to remain. He has torn away the veil, and instead of innocuous shadows has disclosed an array of substantial and eternal realities, calculated to awaken a sensual world from its slumbers, as with the trumpet-peal of judgment. This is the head and front of his offending, and it is from this source and this alone, that he is likely to become "immensely mischievous" as some men count mischievousness, in proportion as he becomes popular. Hence it is that he bids fair to “dereligionize men beyond all other authors whatever." True, indeed it is, that his revelations are likely to make sad havoc of that religion which consists with a gross ignoring of the interior structure of man's nature, and of the laws by which his life, i. e. his life's love in this world, works out his destiny in the next; and the sooner this result is accomplished, the better. When his sublime and supremely rational disclosures of the allotment of souls in the other life have supplanted the vague and sentimental fancies that now prevail on the subject, it will be seen whether familiarity with the scenes depicted, "will leave poor mortals nothing to tremble at." As well might it be said that Belshazzar had nothing to tremble at when the mystic writing on the wall was decyphered. But this harsh and disparaging estimate of Swedenborg we can forgive to the author for the sake of the admirable sketch which he has given of the character, person, and domestic life of the Rev. John Clowes, a man to whom the N. C. can never fail to look up with the profoundest respect as one of its earliest propagators and brightest lights. Who can but be grateful that such a testimony as the following is elicited from one whose general impression of the system of Swedenborg would doubtless have predisposed him to a lower estimate of the mental and moral worth of his venerated friend. "Little could this character of Swedenborg's writings-this, indeed, least of all-have been suspected from the temper, mind, or manners of my new friend. He was the most spiritual-looking, the most saintly in outward aspect, of all human beings whom I have known throughout life. He was rather tall, pale, and thin; the most unfleshly, the most of a sublimated spirit dwelling already more than half in some purer world, that a poet could have imagined. He was already aged when I first knew him, a clergyman of the Church of England; which may seem strange in connection with his Swedenborgianism, but he was however so. He was rector of a large parish in a large town, the more active duties of which parish were discharged by his curate; but much of the duties within the church were still discharged by himself, and with such exemplary zeal, that his parishioners, afterwards celebrating the fiftieth anniversary, or golden jubilee of his appointment to the living, (the twenty-fifth anniversary is called in Germany the silver-the fiftieth, the golden jubilee,) went farther than is usual, in giving a public expression and a permanent shape to their sentiments of love and veneration." I am surprised, on reflection, that this venerable clergyman should have been unvexed by Episcopal censures. might, and I dare say would, keep back the grosser parts of Swedenborg's views from a public display; but, in one point, it would not be easy for a man so conscientious to make a compromise between his ecclesiastical duty and his private belief; for I have since found, though I did not then know it, that Swedenborg held a very peculiar creed on the article of atonement. From the slight pamphlet which let me into this secret I could not accurately collect the exact distinctions of his creed; but it was very different from that of the English Church. He However, my friend continued unvexed for a good deal more than fifty years, enjoying that peace, external as well as internal, which, by so eminent a title, belonged to a spirit so evangelically meek and dovelike. I mention him chiefly for the sake of describing his interesting house and household, so different from all which belong to this troubled age, and his impressive style of living. The house seemed almost monastic; and yet it stood in the centre of one of the largest, busiest, noisiest towns in England; and the whole household seemed to have stepped out of their places in some Vandyke, or even some Titian picture, from a forgotten century and another climate. On knocking at the door, which of itself seemed an outrage to the spirit of quietness which brooded over the place, you were received by an ancient man-servant in the sober livery which belonged traditionally to Mr. Cl-'8 family; for he was of a gentleman's descent, and had had the most finished education of a gentleman. This venerable old butler put me in mind always, by his noiseless steps, of the Castle of Indolence, where the porter or usher walked about in shoes that were shod with felt, lest any rude echoes might be roused. An ancient housekeeper was equally venerable, equally gentle in her deportment, quiet in her movements, and inaudible in her tread. One or other of these upper domestics, for the others rarely crossed my path, ushered me always into some room, expressing, by its furniture, its pictures, and its colored windows, the solemn tranquillity which, for half a century, had reigned in that mansion. Among the pictures were more than one of St. John, the beloved apostle, by Italian masters. Neither the features nor the expression were very wide of Mr. Cl's own countenance; and, had it been possible to forget the gross character of Swedenborg's reveries, or to substitute for these fleshly dreams the awful visions of the Apocalypse, one might have imagined easily that the pure, saintly, and childlike evangelist had been once again recalled to this earth, and that this most quiet of mansions was some cell in the island of Patmos. Whence came the stained glass of the windows, I know not; and whether it were stained or painted. The revolutions of that art are known from Horace Walpole's account; and, nine years after this period, I found that, in Birmingham, where the art of staining glass was chiefly practised, no trifling sum was charged even for a vulgar lacing of no great breadth round a few drawing-room windows, which one of my friends thought fit to introduce as an embellishment. These windows, however, of my clerical friend were really storied windows,' having Scriptural histories represented upon them. A crowning ornament to the library or principal room, was a sweet-toned organ, ancient, and elaborately carved in its woodwork, at which my venerable friend readily sat down, and performed the music of anthems as often as I asked him, sometimes accompanying it with his voice, which was tremulous from old age, but neither originally unmusical, nor (as might be perceived) untrained. "Often, from the storms and uproars of this world, I have looked back upon this most quiet, and believe most innocent abode (had I said saintly, I should hardly have erred), connecting it in thought with Little Gidding, the famous mansion (in Huntingdonshire, I believe) of the Farrers, an interesting family in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Of the Farrers there is a long and circumstantial biographical account, and of the conventual discipline maintained at Little Gidding. For many years it was the rule at Gidding-and it was the wish of the Farrers to have transmitted that practice through succeeding centuries-that a musical or cathedral service should be going on at every hour of night and day in the chapel of the mansion. Let the traveller, at what hour he would, morning or evening, summer or winter, and in what generation, or century soever, happen to knock at the gate of Little Gidding, it was the purpose of Nicholas Farrer-a sublime purpose-that always he should hear the blare of the organ, sending upwards its surging volumes of melody, God's worship for ever proceeding, anthems of praise for ever ascending, and jubi lates echoing without end or known beginning. One stream of music, in fact, never intermitting, one vestal fire of devotional praise and thanksgiving, was to connect the beginnings with the ends of generations, and to link one century into another. Allowing for the sterner asceticism of N. Farrer-partly arising out of the times, partly out of personal character. and partly, perhaps, out of his travels in Spainmy aged friend's arrangement of the day, and the training of his household, might seem to have been modelled on the plans of Mr. Farrer, whom, however, he might never have heard of. There was also, in each house, the same union of religion with some cultivation of the ornamental arts, or some expression of respect for them. In each case, a monastic severity, that might, under other circumstances, have termi nated in the gloom of La Trappe, and been softened, by English sociality, and by the habits of a gentleman's education, into a devotional pomp, reconcilable with Protestant views. When, however, remembering this last fact in Mr. C's case (the fact I mean of his liberal education), I have endeavored to explain the possibility of one so much adorned by all the accomplishments of a high-bred gentleman, and one so truly pious, falling into the grossness-almost the sensuality-which appears to beseige the visions of Swedenborg; I fancy that the whole may be explained out of the same cause which occasionally may be descried, through a distance of two complete centuries, as weighing heavily upon the Farrers-viz. the dire monotony of daily life, when visited by no irritations either of hope or fear-no hopes from ambition, no fears from poverty. "Nearly (if not quite) sixty years did my venerable friend inhabit the same parsonage-house, without any incident more personally interesting to himself than a cold or a sore throat; and I suppose that he resorted to Swedenborg-reluctantly, perhaps, at the first-as to a book of fairy tales connected with his professional studies. And one thing I am bound to add, in candor, which may have had its weight with him, that more than once, on casually turning over a volume of Swedenborg, I have certainly found most curious and felicitous passages of commentpassages which extracted a brilliant meaning from numbers, circumstances, or trivial accidents, apparently without significance or object, and gave to things, without a place or a habitation in the critic's regard, a value as hieroglyphics or cryptical ciphers, which struck me as elaborately ingenious. This acknowledgment I make not so much in praise of Swedenborg, whom I must still continue to think a madman, as in excuse for Mr. Cl. It may easily be supposed, that a person of Mr. Cl's consideration and authority, was not regarded with indifference by the general body of the Swedenborgians. At his motion it was, I believe, that a society was formed for procuring and encouraging a translation into English, of Swedenborg's entire works, most of which are written in Latin. Several of these transla tions are understood to have been executed personally by Mr. Cl; and in this obscure way, for any thing I know, he may have been an extensive author. But it shows the upright character of the man, that never, in one instance, did he seek to bias my opinions in this direction. Upon every other subject he trusted me confidentially-and, notwithstanding my boyish years (15-16), as his equal. His regard for me, when thrown by accident in his way, had arisen upon his notice of my fervent simplicity, and my unusual thoughtfulness. Upon these merits I had gained the honorable distinction of a general invitation to his house, without exception as to days and hours, when few others could boast of any admission at all. The common ground on which we met was literature-more especially the Greek and Roman literature; and much he exerted himself, in a spirit of the purest courtesy, to meet my animation upon these themes. But the interest on his part was too evidently a secondary interest in me, for whom he talked, and not in the subject. He spoke much from memory, as it were of things that he had once felt, and little from immediate sympathy with the author; and his animation was artificial, though his courtesy, which prompted the effort, was the truest and most unaffected possible. "The connection between us must have been interesting to an observer; for, though I cannot say with Wordsworth, of old Daniel and his grandson, that there were ninety good years of fair and foul weather' between us, there were, however, sixty, I imagine, at least; whilst, as a bond of connection, there was nothing at all that I know of beyond a common tendency to reverie, which is a bad link for a social connection. The little ardor, meantime, with which he had, for many years, participated in the interests of this world, or all that it inherits, was now rapidly departing. Daily and consciously he was loosening all ties which bound him to earlier recollections; and, in particular, I remember-because the instance was connected with my last farewell visit as it proved-that for some time he was engaged daily in renouncing with solemnity (though often enough in cheerful words), book after book of classical literature, in which he had once taken particular delight. Several of these, after taking his final glance at a few passages to which a pencil reference in the margin pointed his eye, he delivered to me as memorials in time to come of himself. The last of the books given to me under these circumstances, was a Greek 'Odyssey,' in Clark's edition. This,' said he, 'is nearly the sole book remaining to me of my classical library, which for years I have been dispersing among my "Words to this effect, uttered with his usual solemnity, accompanied his gift; and, at the same time, he added, without any separate comment, a little pocket Virgil the one edited by Alexander Cunningham, the bitter antagonist of Bentley -with a few annotations placed at the end. The act was in itself a solemn one; something like taking the veil for a nun-a final abjuration of the world's giddy agitations. And yet to him-already and for so long a time linked so feebly to any thing that could be called the world, and living in a seclusion so profound it was but as if an anchorite should retire from his outer to his inner self. Me, however, it impressed powerfully in after years; because this act of self-dedication to the next world, and of parting from the intellectual luxuries of this, was also, in fact, though neither of us at the time knew it to be such, the scene of his final parting with myself. Immediately after his solemn speech, on presenting me with the 'Odyssey,' he sat down to the organ, sang a hymn or two, then chanted part of the liturgy, and finally, at my request, performed the anthem so well known in the English Church service, the collect for the seventh Sunday after Trinity (Lord of all power and might, &c.). It was summer, about half after nine in the evening; the light of day was still lingering, and just strong enough to illuminate the Crucifixion, the Stoning of the Proto-martyr, and other grand emblazonries of the Christian which adorned the rich windows of his library. Knowing the early hours of his household, I now received his usual fervent adieus, which, without the words, had the sound and effect of a benediction-felt the warm pressure of his hand, saw dimly the outline of his venerable figure, more dimly his saintly countenance, and quitted that gracious presence, which, in this world, I was destined no more to revisit. The night was one in the first half of July, 1802; in the second half of which, or very early in August, I quitted school clandestinely, and consequently the neighborhood of Mr. Cl. Some years after I saw his death announced in all the public journals, as having occurred at Leamington Spa, then in the springtime of its medicinal reputation. Farewell, early friend! holiest of men whom it has been my lot to meet! Yes, I repeat, thirty-five years have passed since then, and I have yet seen few men approaching to this venerable clergyman in paternal benignity-none certainly in childlike purity, apostolic holiness, or in perfect alienation of heart from the spirit of this fleshly world. This, so far as the venerable subject is concerned, is just what we could have desired. As to the author, we feel deep regret that he should not have prosecuted the investigation so far as to have disabused himself of the false impressions under which he labored, especially when invited by the "curious and felicitous passages of comment-passages which extracted a brilliant meaning from numbers, circumstances, and trivial accidents." But with De Quincey, as with thousands of others who have merely dipped into the writings, the veil of unbelief was permitted to remain on their eyes, from the lack of the requisite moral conditions for seeing. How fearfully thick was that veil in the present case, the reader will too plainly perceive from the following additional paragraph: |