LIFE
OF
Emanuel Swedenborg.
TOGETHER WITH
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HIS WRITINGS, BOTH PHILOSOPHICAL
AND THEOLOGICAL.
By WILLIAM WHITE.
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1880.
During the few past years many biographies of Swedenborghave been offered to the public. Dr. Tafel, of Tübingen, in1839, collected into one volume the testimonies of Swedenborg’spersonal friends, his letters, and various documents relating tohim which were scattered through many volumes. This “Bookof Documents” was translated into English, and edited by theRev. J. H. Smithson, of Manchester, in 1841; and was againreprinted in America and re-edited by Professor Bush, of NewYork, in 1847. From this “Book of Documents,” all the biographieswhich have appeared, have been more or less indebted.Nathanael Hobart, of Boston, arranged these documents intoa connected biographical form, interspersed with judicious remarksof his own, and published it as a “Life of Swedenborg.”This “Life” has passed through three editions, and well deservesthe success it has attained. In 1849, Elihu Rich published,in London, “A Biographical Sketch of Emanuel Swedenborg.”The edition was exhausted in the course of a fewmonths, and the work has not since been reprinted. In thesame year, J. J. G. Wilkinson produced his “Emanuel Swedenborg:a Biography,” a work which, alike for its artisticexcellence as a biography, and the originality and poetic beauty[4]of its thought, has, I believe, no equal in the English language.The comparative silence of our literary critics, in reference tothis work, proves that any one who cares to appreciate what isbest in the world, had better not be content to trust solely totheir eyes. From the quotations I have made in the course ofthe following narrative, the reader will be able to appreciate afew of the good things contained in this Biography by Wilkinson.In 1854, Edwin Paxton Hood published “Swedenborg:A Biography and an Exposition,” a work which has been themeans of introducing Swedenborg to a large circle hithertoalmost ignorant of his existence. In the same year, WoodburyM. Fernald published, in Boston, Mass., “A Compendium ofthe Theological and Spiritual Writings of Swedenborg,” towhich an excellent life of the Author was prefixed, compiled ingreat part from previous biographies. In other forms, manysketches of the life of Swedenborg have been published. TheRev. O. P. Hiller gives an excellent little biography in his volumeof “Gems from Swedenborg.” Emerson tells the storyof his life, in his own way, in “Representative Men;” and aLecture by George Dawson, on Swedenborg, is now circulating,as a tract, by thousands throughout the land. All these thingsevidence a growing interest in the greatest teacher of moderntimes.
The present work does not enter into competition with anythingthat has before been written. It pr