this device of the rascally bishop,' and advise him to fly the kingdom. He requited his nephew's favours by likening him to Judas Iscariot. A certain Dean Ekebom prosecuted in the Gottenburgh Consistory two of Swedenborg's scanty flock of disciples, Doctors Beyer and Rosen. 'But,' says Mr. White

Ekebom was a blundering adversary. He actually stated in his deposition I do not know Assessor Swedenborg's religious system, nor shall I take pains to come to a knowledge of it. I was told that it might

be learned from his treatises on the New

Jerusalem, Faith, and the Lord, which I do not possess, neither have I read or seen them.'

Unless our memory fails us, a very similar disclaimer of knowledge of the points under dispute was uttered during the Hampden controversy, by an eminent English divine: 'the wise saw and the modern instance,' however, were furnished not by a 'blundering' dean, but by a most accomplished and adroit bishop.

If the Swedes deserved the character given of them in Emanuel's Diarium Spirituale, exile from his native soil must have been a privilege to Swedenborg, and he might have echoed the banished Kent's valedictory words to Lear-Freedom is hence, while banishment is here.' He wrote of his country

men:

The Swedes are among the most wicked

of nations. They are supremely malicious. All goods are adulterated and all truths falsified in their minds. Their profession of Christianity is little less than oral. It is impossible to describe the profligacy of most of them. The worst give themselves up to sorcery after death; those who have practised arts requiring skill, such as mechanicians and gardeners, turn them to magic. These commit crimes which I am

not allowed to set forth; they are horrible beyond imagination.

The aged exile, now in his eightysecond year, resided for more than a year and a half at Amsterdam, and then bidding his Dutch friends a final farewell, he sailed for London. On Christmas Eve, 1771, he was

stricken with apoplexy. He awaited the approach of death with calmness and even with joy, foretelling, like others whom the world holds in higher esteem than it does Emanuel Swedenborg, the time of his own departure, and his last earthly breath was drawn on the 29th of March 1772.

We have endeavoured in the preceding sketch to hold the balance evenly between the real merits and the extraordinary pretensions of Emanuel Swedenborg, and perhaps have incurred the common fate of neutrals in a dispute. As to the merits of his biographer we think there can hardly be a question. Besides the enormous labour

he has with apparent cheerfulness undergone, Mr. White displays throughout his rather bulky volumes a fair and honest spirit. Believing Swedenborg's mission to have been authentic, he is tolerant towards unbelievers; and, alsometimes demands though he more faith than we can afford him,

he is not infected with the furor biographicus in any offensive degree. To his task he has brought a considerable acquaintance with literature and philosophy of many kinds; and though his subject does not admit of much enlivening, he has done all that was possible towards relieving the tediousness that he so often

bewails in the Opera Omnia of Swedenborg.

To the subject of the biography we apply the words of Adam Smith, writing of a philosopher who differed as widely from Swedenborg as Dugald Stewart does from Kant: Concerning the philosophical opinions of Mr. Hume, men will, no doubt, judge variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they happen to coincide or disagree with his own.' Apart from his visions and his writings, after he was indulged with or deluded by them, similar words may be applied to Swedenborg's

religious and philosophical opinions. We have no quarrel with him for rejecting creeds and catechisms, so frequently the horti sicci of churches, and which, at the best, are records of what men believed once rather than guides to the living faith without which all religions, though they may have a name to live, are really dead. So far as we can discover its character, the creed of the Swedish philosopher was a spiritual unitarianism; while, in his ontological views, and in philosophy in general, he was rather in advance of than behind his age. Of his scientific writings we have already spoken. What distinguished him from a materialistic age was that, while he shared in and reflected many of its characteristics, he brought to severe and practical science, and to his ethical theories, a spiritualistic energy that redeemed them from the general barrenness and intellectual drought of the The singularly uninviting nature of his language, his ignorance or disdain of the ordinary laws of composition, the haste with which he wrote, the fluctuations of his opinions, the struggle in his intellect between abstract truth and concrete representations of thought, have injured his philosophical credit with the world, and

time.

deprived him of the position he might perhaps have held as a leader of human opinion. In the system of speculation he is a comet, not a fixed star, or a planet obeying the laws of any cosmos. The longer he lived, the more eccentric was his orbit; and, after studying Mr. White's narrative, we are unable to decide whether there was a poet or a philosopher, a Dante or an Origen, marred in Emanuel Swedenborg. Among the great names of the Greek Church his would have found a place, had he written at a time when Alexandria, Antioch, or Constantinople were each a centre of theological fermentation. Among the schoolmen he might have attained a high rank for speculations not more extravagant than those in which they delighted. In the one case, his folios and quartos would have been shelved with the bulky tome of Dionysius the Areopagite; in the other, with the Summa Theologiæ. For his fame he was one born out of due time; and, in spite of the activity of his followers in disseminating his writings, we suspect that the volumes which we now close will, for the profane at least, prove the final, as it is the best, monument of their subject.

Your rajaship will observe (continued the Vampire, as Vikram began to show symptoms of ungovernable anger) that I have been concise in treating this digression. Had I not been so, it would have led me far indeed from my tale. Now to return.

When the old king became air mixed with air, the young king, though he found hardly ten pieces of silver in the paternal treasury and legacies for thousands of golden ounces, yet mourned his loss with the deepest grief. He easily explained to himself the reckless emptiness of the royal coffers as a proof of his dear kind parent's goodness, because he loved him.

But the old man had left behind him, as he could not carry it off with him, a treasure more valuable than gold and silver: one Churaman, a parrot, who knew the world, and who besides discoursed in the most correct Sanscrit. By sage counsel and wise guidance this admirable bird soon repaired his young master's shattered fortunes.

One day the prince said, 'Parrot, thou knowest everything: tell me where there is a mate fit for me. The shastras inform us, respecting the choice of a wife, "She who is not descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree is eligible by a high caste man for nuptials. In taking a wife let him studiously avoid the following families, be they ever so great, or ever so rich in kine, goats, sheep, gold, or grain: the family which has omitted prescribed acts of devotion; that which has produced no male children; that in which the Veda (scripture) has not been read; that which has thick hair on the body; and those in which members have been subject to hereditary disease. Let a person choose for his wife a girl whose person has no defect; who has an agreeable

name; who walks gracefully, like a young elephant; whose hair and teeth are moderate respectively in quantity and in size; and whose body is of exquisite softness."'

Great king,' responded the parrot Churaman, 'there is in the country of Magadh a raja, Magadheshwar by name, and he has a daughter called Chandravati. You will marry her; she is very learned, and, what is better far, very fair. She is of yellow colour, with a nose like the flower of the sesamum; her legs are taper, like the plaintaintree; her eyes are large, like the principal leaf of the lotus; her eyebrows stretch towards her ears; her lips are red, like the young leaves of the mango-tree; her face is like the full moon; her voice is like the sound of the cuckoo; her arms reach to her knees; her throat is like the pigeon's; her flanks are thin, like those of the lion; her hair hangs in curls only down to her waist; her teeth are like the seeds of the pomegranate; and her gait is that of the drunken elephant or the goose.'

On hearing the parrot's speech, the king sent for an astrologer, and asked him, 'Whom shall I marry?' The wise man, having consulted his art, replied, Chandravati is the name of the maiden, and your marriage with her will certainly take place.' Thereupon the young raja, though he had never seen his future queen, became incontinently enamoured of her. He summoned a Brahman, and sent him to King Magadheshwar, saying, 'If you arrange satisfactorily this affair of our marriage we will reward you amply' -a promise which lent wings to the priest.

Now it so happened that this talented and beautiful princess had a jay, whose name was Madanmanjari or Love-garland. She also possessed encyclopædic knowledge

after her degree, and like the parrot, she spoke excellent Sanscrit.

Be it briefly said, O warrior king -for you think that I am talking fables-that in the days of old, men had the art of making birds discourse in human language. The invention is attributed to a great philosopher, who split their tongues, and after many generations produced a selected race born with those members split. He altered the shapes of their skulls by fixing ligatures behind the occiput, which caused the sinciput to protrude, their eyes to become prominent, and their brains to master the art of expressing thoughts in words.

But this wonderful discovery, like those of great philosophers generally, had in it a terrible practical flaw. The birds beginning to speak, spoke so wisely and so well, they told the truth so persistently, they rebuked their brethren of the featherless skins so openly, they flattered them so little and they counselled them so much, that mankind presently grew tired of hearing them discourse. Thus the art gradually fell into disuetude, and now it is numbered with the things that

sugar. So the confidante retained a quantity of good advice which she was about to produce, and replied,

'I now see clearly the ways of Fortune. Raja Ram, king of Bhogavati, is to be thy husband. He shall be happy in thee and thou in him, for he is young and handsome, rich and generous, good-tempered, not too clever, and without a chance of being an invalid.'

Thereupon the princess, although she had never seen her future husband, at once began to love him. In fact, though neither had set eyes upon the other, both were mutually in love.

How can that be, sire ?' asked the young Dharma Dhwaj of his father. 'I always thought that

The great Vikram interrupted his son, and bade him not to ask silly questions. Thus he expected to neutralise the evil effects of the Baital's doctrine touching the amiability of parents unlike himself.

Now, as both these young people (resumed the Baital) were of princely family and well to do in the world, the course of their love was unusually smooth. When the Brahman sent by Raja Ram had reached Magadh, and had delivered his king's homage to the Raja Magadheshwar, the latter received him with distinction, and agreed to his proposal. The beautiful princess's father sent for a Brahman of his own, and charging him with nuptial gifts and the customary presents, sent him back to Bhogavati in company with the other envoy, and gave him this order,' Greet Raja Ram, on my behalf, and after placing the tilate or mark upon his forehead, return here with all speed. When you come back I will get all things ready for the marriage.'

Raja Ram, on receiving the deputation, was greatly pleased, and after generously rewarding the Brahmans and making all the necessary preparations, he set out in