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36 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
particular favor and kindness of them all; an advantage which virtue and
science will ever enjoy under an enlightened government : and what people is
more happy in this respect than are we ?
Swedenborg (and this I mention without intending to make a merit of it,) was
never married. This was not however owing to any indifference towards the
sex: for he esteemed the company of a fine and intelligent woman as one of the
most agreeable of pleasures : but his profound studies rendered expedient for him
the quiet of a single life. It may be truly said, that he was solitary, but never
sad.
He always enjoyed most excellent health, having scarcely ever experienced
the slightest indisposition.* Content within himself, and with his situation, his
life was, in all respects, one of the happiest that ever fell to the lot of man, till
the very moment of its close. During his last residence in London, on the 24th
of December, last year, he had an attack of apoplexy; and, nature demanding
her rights, he died on the 29th of March in the present year [1772], in the eighty-
fifth year of his age ; satisfied with his sojourn on garth, and delighted with the
prospect of his heavenly metamorphosis.
May this Royal Academy retain as long, a great number of such distinguished
and useful members
!
Thus the Chevalier closes his oration ; on which it is needless to add any remarks to
those which we have offered above in our introductory observations. It evinces, beyond
all possibility of contradiction, that Swedenborg was distinguished by all the virtues,
abilities, and attainments, that can shed a lustre on the character of man; and that,
notwithstanding his theological writings must have caused him, with many, to be re-
garded with suspicion, he retained among his countrymen the respect of those who knew
him best—of men distinguished both by rank and learning—till the last. It evinces, in
short, that his whole character and conduct were in the fullest accord with the state-
ments of his writings ;~that if the statements of his writings are true, his character and
conduct were such as to authenticate and sustain them. His writings thus come to the
reader with every possible claim to attention ; it is from the investigation of them that he
must finally form his conclusions.
II,
SWEDENBORG’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF;
IN A LETTER TO HIS FRIEND,
THE REV. THOMAS HARTLEY, M. A.,
RECTOR OF WINWICK, IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
The next account we shall adduce in regard to Swedenborg, is that which he gives of
himself in a letter to his friend, the Rev. T. Hartley, M.A., Rector of Winwick, in
Northamptonshire, who, having met with some of Swedenborg’s works, sought an ac-
* How inconsistent is this with the story which has been invented and propagated in
this country, that he was once attacked with a most violent fever, attended with deli-
rium, from the effects of which he never recovered ! In Sweden, where his personal
history must have been best known, nothing, it seems, of the kind was ever heard of.
—
Editors.
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