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210 [Doc. 40.
SWEDENBORG’S CORRESPONDENCE.
Would you not like to have for the use of the Library a
good air-pump, with all the apparatus belonging to it, and the
improvements invented by members of the Royal Society ? I
will send you shortly the book about it, the price, and a list
of everything belonging to it. Three have been sent to Russia;
for there are many Russians here ; they study mostly mathe
matics and navigation, applying themselves to the tastes of
their chief, who took a wonderful interest in these subjects
during his visit here. The Czar purchased also from Mr. Edmund
Halley,55 for eighty pounds, his “incomparable quadrant," which
he used in discovering the southern stars at St. Helena, and
with which he took pretty good observations of the moon and
the planets in 1683, 1684, and other years.
The books you asked me to get for you I have enquired for
at all the bookshops, and also at book-auctions, but some I have
not succeeded in finding. Vol. I of Cotelerii Ecclesiæ Græce
Monumenta I found at a bookseller’s in Paternoster Row ; but
I had to pay for it almost the value of the whole work. I pur
chased the old edition of Norris’ Reflections upon the Conduct
of Human Life since nothing new has appeared separately, but
only together with his other works, i. e. his Christian Blessed
ness, Christian Monitor, Dialogue between two Protestants,
Poetic Miscellany, &c., the whole of which may be bought for
twenty or twenty -four shillings. I read his little book through,
and found it very clever and ingenious ; but he seemed to me to
take too many roundabout ways, and not to touch upon the sub
ject he was to treat, keeping one always in suspense, and wonder
ing where he would end, and at what he would arrive. Baker’s
Reflections upon Learning I have read twice, finding in him my
first delight; but I wonder why he does not approve of any
thing, but considers everything that has been discovered and
written, imperfect and unworthy of his esteem ; and, unless
this has been the author’s object, it may be used against him ,
for his own refutation ; for he must include his own work among
the number.
I visit daily the best mathematicians here in town. I have
been with Flamsteed,66 who is considered the best astronomer
in England, and who is constantly taking observations, which,
together with the Paris Observations, will give us some day a
56
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