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126 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
Sweden’s residence, at the extraordinary transaction
respecting Swedenborg, which your ladyship will un
doubtedly have heard. The authenticity thus given to
the account surprised me. For it can scarcely be
believed, that one ambassador should communicate a
piece of information to another for public use, which
related to the queen of the court where he resided, and
which he himself, together with a splendid company, had
the opportunity of witnessing, if it were not true. Now
in order not to reject blindfold the prejudice against
apparitions and visions by a new prejudice, I found it
desirable to inform myself as to the particulars of this
surprising transaction. I accordingly wrote to the officer
I have mentioned at Copenhagen, and made various
inquiries respecting it. He answered that he had again
had an interview concerning it with the Count Dietrich
stein ; that the affair had really taken place in the manner
described ; and that Professor Schlegel, also, had declared
to him, that it could by no means be doubted. He
advised me, as he was then going to the army under
General St. Germain, to write to Swedenborg himself, in
order to ascertain the particular circumstances of the ex
traordinary case. I then wrote to this singular man, and
the letter was delivered to him, at Stockholm, by an
English merchant. I was informed that Swedenborg
politely received the letter, and promised to answer it;
but the answer was omitted. In the mean time I made
the acquaintance of an English gentleman who spent the
last summer at this place, whom, relying on the friend
ship we had formed, I commissioned, as he was going to
Stockholm, to make particular inquiries respecting the
miraculous gift which Swedenborg is said to possess. In
his first letter, he states, that the most respectable people
in Stockholm declare, that the singular transaction alluded
to had happened in the manner you have heard described.
He had not then had an interview with Swedenborg, but
hoped soon to embrace the opportunity ; although he
found it difficult to persuade himself that all could be
true which the most reasonable persons of the city
asserted, respecting his communication with the spiritual
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