LITERARY REMINISCENCES. CHAPTER I. LITERARY NOVITIATE. It was in the year 1801, whilst yet at school, that I made my first literary acquaintance. This was with a gentleman now dead, and little, at any time, known in the literary world; indeed, not at all; for his authorship was confined to a department of religious literature as obscure and as narrow in its influence as any that can be named-viz. Swedenborgianism. Already, on the bare mention of that word, a presumption arises against any man, that, writing much (or writing at all) for a body of doctrines so apparently crazy as those of Mr. Swedenborg, a man must have bid adieu to all good sense and manliness of mind. Indeed, this is so much of a settled case, that even to have written against Mr. Swedenborg would be generally viewed as a suspicious act, requiring explanation, and not very easily admitting of it. Mr. Swedenborg I call him, because I understand that his title to call himself Baron,' is imaginary; or rather he never did call himself by any title of honor that mistake having originated amongst his followers in this country, who [11] have chosen to designate him as the Honorable' and as theBaron' Swedenborg, by way of translating, to the ear of England, some one or other of those irrepresentable distinctions, Legations, Rath, Hofrath, &c., which are tossed about with so much profusion in the courts of continental Europe, on both sides the Baltic. For myself, 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. Yet, as any happened to fall in my way, I have looked into them; and the impression left upon my mind was certainly not favorable to their author. They labored, to my feeling, with two opposite qualities of annoyance, but which I believe not uncommonly found united in lunatics-excessive dulness or matter-of-factness in the execution, with excessive extravagance in the conceptions. The result, at least, was most unhappy: for, of all writers, Swedenborg is the only one I ever heard of who has contrived to strip even the shadowy world beyond the grave of all its mystery and all its awe. From the very heaven of heavens, he has rent away the veil; no need for seraphs to tremble while they gaze; for the familiarity with which all objects are invested, makes it impossible that even poor mortals should find any reason to tremble. Until I saw this book, I had not conceived it possible to carry an atmosphere so earthy, and steaming with the vapors of earth, into regions which, by early connection in our infant thoughts with the sanctities of death, have a hold upon the reverential affections such as they rarely lose. In this view, I should conceive that Swedenborg, if it were at all possible for him to become a popular author, would, at the same time, become immensely mischievous. He would dereligionize men beyond all other authors whatsoever. 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. He 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. |