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40 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
Russia, Poland and Denmark, and was moreover consuming by famine and
pestilence. The bishop’s influence animated that patriotic fortitude, which
sustained such burthens and misery, and blazed in so many battles ! His popu-
larity gave particular energy to some public regulations, whic h lessened the
havoc of pestilence : a judicious and pathetic address to the people convinced
them, that interring in new grounds was a necessary measure, though a tempo-
rary 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 superintendent of the Swedish mission about Delaware. His letters
to the clergy and the congregations, which are preserved on his records, bear
witness to his zeal, kindness, and love of science. He requested of the mis-
sionaries 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 ob-
ject of his indignation. In a parish of his diocese, a female still-born child had
a monstrous excrescence 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 efiect 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 fontangcs, 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 ^vhile abroad, witness that few can travel so usefully. An indefatigable
curiosity directed to various important objects, is conspicuous in all. Mathe-
matics, astronomy, and mechanics seem to have been his favourite sciences,
and he had already made great progress in these. Everywhere he became ac-
quainted with the most renowned mathematicians and astronomers, as Flam-
stead, Delahire, Varignon, &c. This pursuit of knowledge was also united with
a constant zeal to benefit his country. No sooner was he informed of some
useful discovery, than he was solicitous to render it beneficial to Sweden, by
purchase, or sending home models. When a good book was published, he not
only gave immediate notice of it, but contrived to procure it for the library of
the university.’
" That Swedenborg, on his return, was honored by frequent conversations
with Charles the Xllth, may well be believed by all who knew the real charac-
ter of that king : he was not a mere warrior, but fond of useful sciences, though
impeded from their promotion by a long unremitted warfare, which was indeed,
after the defeat at Pultowa, a necessary struggle for the independence of his
country. He had also acquired some knowledge of the Mathematics, and used.
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