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ABBÉ PERNETY. 637
Pernety’s connection with that society subjected him to imprison
ment."
Dieudonné Thiebault, another member of the Academy of Berlin,
in his “ Souvenir de vingt ans de séjour à Berlin," finds fault with
Pernety on account of his attachment to Swedenborg’s Revelations,
but on the whole he speaks very favourably of him . He says, “ In
general, my colleague, M. Pernety, was very learned (I speak of
that learning which is a matter of the memory); but his learning was
a crude and undigested mass (rudis indigestaque moles); in other
respects he was an excellent man , moderate and good -natured, so
that he scarcely ever got into difficulty with any body; yea, he was
obliging when it lay in his power. In society he preserved habitu
ally a precious evenness of temper, and was willing to believe to
any extent, without disputing with any one. But in spite of this
weakness he was universally loved; especially as, to all his other
social qualities, he added a discretion which stood all tests; never
did a word from his mouth require the least explanation, or cause
any entanglement.” Compare also " Biographie Universelle,” Vol. 33,
p. 388, et seq., where his various publications are enumerated.
Notwithstanding his great learning and his many good qualities,
Pernety was not an accurate scholar, nor a reliable translator, as
may appear from the following criticism which was made on his
translation of “Heaven and Hell,” by the French translators of Sweden
borg’s " Intercourse between the Soul and the Body," published in
London in 1785. In their Preliminary Discourse," p. 55, they say,
"The French translator of the treatise on Heaven and Hell’has
committed a real wrong in misrepresenting his author almost from
beginning to end; in abridging him wherever he could, when yet
he is nowhere too long; and especially in impressing upon his reader
an error at the end of his note to the paragraph treating of the
saints of the Catholics, where he says positively that these saints
may be invoked , in contradiction to what the author himself teaches
in several places of his writings, by the express order of the Lord
from whom he received his mission ."
In much stronger terms of condemnation the Marquis de Thomé
writes to C. F. Nordensköld on this subject, in a letter dated Paris,
August 11, 1783: “Report, Sir, has not deceived you with regard
to the attachment which I have vowed to the new revelation. No
one is more intimately convinced and persuaded that the works of
your countryman have in reality emanated from the Lord for the
* Some further account of this society may be found in Hindmarsh’s "Rise and Progress
of the New Jerusalem Church, " pages 41 to 49, from which it appears that that society was
anything but a New Church Society.
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