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Doc. 290.] PROFESSOR ATTERBOM’S ANECDOTE. 719
to have obtained an answer, and in the answer a cause for
renewed questions. He took it for granted that the person
whose voice he heard was Swedenborg himself; and he noticed
that the old gentleman seemed highly pleased with his visitor.
It was impossible for him, however, to learn who the visitor
was, the only thing he could discover being that the con
versation concerned some matters and some persons in Rome
during the time of the Emperor Augustus ; and some par
ticulars were mentioned to which he listened with increasing
interest, as they were entirely new to himself. But while he
was more and more carried away by the subject itself, and
was entirely forgetting the strange circumstances connected
therewith, the door was opened, and Swedenborg, whom he
recognized by his portraits and the descriptions he had received
of him, stepped into the saloon with a countenance beaming
with joy. He beckoned to the visitor who had just arrived
with a friendly nod, but merely in passing ; for his chief attention
was directed to the invisible being, which he amid repeated
bows accompanied through the room to the opposite door,
addressing to it several obliging speeches in most beautiful and
flowing Latin, and begging it soon to pay him another visit.
Upon re-entering the room immediately afterwards, he at once
approached his new visitor , and after vigorously shaking
his hand, addressed him thus, ’Welcome with all my heart,
my learned friend , excuse my having made you wait;
but , as you perceived, I had a visitor. The visitor was
astonished and perplexed , and said , ’Yes , I perceived it.’
Swedenborg; ’Can you guess who it was.’-’Impossible.’
’Just think of it, it was Virgil; and I can tell you, he is a
capital and most agreeable man. I always had a good opinion
of him, and he deserves it. He is as modest as he is witty,
and entertaining in a most amiable manner.’ ’Such has
always been my idea of Virgil.’ ’You are quite right ; and
he is still the same. You are probably aware that in early
youth I was much occupied with Roman literature, and that
I composed some Carmina, which I had printed at Skara.’ -
’
I know it, and they are much esteemed by all connoisseurs.’
’I am glad of it; and it matters not that they concern my
first love. Many years, many different studies, occupations,
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