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30 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
to the people convinced them, that interring in new
grounds was a necessary measure, though a temporary
sacrifice to their laudable attachment to the consecrated
grounds in which the earthly remains of their beloved
relatives reposed. The bishop was for many years su
perintendent of the Swedish mission about Delaware.
His letters to the clergy and the congregations, which
are preserved on its records, bear witness to his zeal,
kindness, and love of science. He requested of the
missionaries to inform him of any extraordinary events,
in the moral and physical world, which happened in these
parts of America. Some of these relations are recorded :
one I find less credible, but founded on popular belief,
and in part on some very remarkable facts. As this
excellent man has been charged with a fondness for the
marvellous, and the same foible is imputed as hereditary
to the son, I will candidly mention the only fact within
my knowledge, which may be so construed: a female
head-dress, called in French fontange, made up of laces
or ribbons to a monstrous height of several stages, had
long been an object of his indignation. In a parish of
his diocese, a female still-born child had a monstrous ex
crescence on its head, very similar to this ornament of
the ladies. He regarded this as an ominous commination
from heaven against the sinful vanity, and published a
very spirited poem, with a drawing of the hideous forms.
Those who sarcastically criticise this, ought, however, to
reflect, that the most learned physiologists cannot yet
decide what effect monstrous figures may, by affecting
the mother, produce on the unborn babe. Certain it was,
that the bishop struck a death-blow to many thousand
fontanges, and so far saved many fathers and husbands
from expense and vexation.
"Swedenborg is silent on the merits of his youth,
which were great. The author of a dissertation on the
Royal Society of Sciences at Upsal, published in 1789,
mentions him as one of its first and best members,
thus : His letters to the Society while abroad, witness
that few can travel so usefully. An indefatigable curi
osity directed to various important objects, is conspicuous
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