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SWEDENBORG’S SKULL. 1205
who attended on this second occasion I (Robert Hindmarsh225) was one ;
having a curiosity to be gratified, and a desire to see whether any
decomposition of the elementsof the body had begun to take place,
and if it had, how far it had proceeded, while the external air had
been excluded for so many years, by means of a well-soldered leaden
coffin. The first thing I did, after descending into the vault with a
lighted taper in my hand, was to examine the outer coffin, and to
satisfy myself, that it did in reality contain the body ofthe greatest
man living or dead. The inscription upon the lid of the coffin, with
his name, the day of his decease, and the age he had attained,
afforded sufficient evidence, that the contents were indeed the remains
of Emanuel Swedenborg. On removing the lid, and the upper part
of the leaden coffin within, which had been sawed through at the
time of the first visit, to enable the beholder to see the face of the
deceased, we all stood for a few minutes in silent astonishment to
observe the physiognomy of that material frame, now prostrate in
the hands of death, which had once been the organ of so much in
tellect, so much virtue, and such extraordinary powers of mind, as,
together with the peculiar privilege he enjoyed of holding undoubted
and long-continued consort with angels and happy spirits, distin
guished him from all other men, and placed him high above the
rest of his kind. The features were still perfect, the flesh firm, and
the whole countenance, as the only remaining criterion whereby to
judge ofthe fidelity ofthe painter who had taken his portrait while living,
yielded the most satisfactory proof, that the artist had been par
ticularly successful in handing down to posterity the true likeness of
a man, whose celebrity in philosophy, but above all, in theological
pursuits, though already great beyond that of his contemporaries, is
only now beginning to excite the admiration of mankind, and must
inevitably increase in every succeeding age of the world. After
surveying him a while, I placed my hand on his forehead; and I
then observed, that the lower part of the nose gave indication of
approaching decomposition: but whether this was the effect of air
admitted to the body since the first visit, when the leaden coffin was
opened, or whether the slow ravages of time, independent of such
adventitious cause, had previously began the work of pulverization,
to which all material bodies are subject, I was not able to determine.
This, however, is certain, because it was afterwards found to be true,
that the whole frame was speedily reduced to ashes, leaving only the
bones to testify to future inspectors of the coffin, that a man had
once lived and died.
"To return to the story of the abstracted skull. After the two
visits above described, things continued in the same state till the
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