entitled "Prodromus Principiorum Rerum Naturalium, sive

novorum tentaminum Chemiam et Physicam experimentalem geometrice explicandi." Swedenborg resigned his assessorship after holding it for ten years, and again went abroad. His "Opera Philosophica et Mineralia," 3 vols. folio, the cost of which was defrayed by the duke of Brunswick, were published in 1734 at Dresden and Leipsic. In that year also he was nominated a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. The "Œconomia Regni Animalis," a book of great interest and ability, was published at Amsterdam in 1740; and the "Regnum Animale," partly at the Hague and partly at London in 1744 and 1745. We have not space for a complete list of the voluminous works published in the first portion of his life. They embrace a great variety of subjects in mathematics, metallurgy, natural philosophy, physiology, and psychology; and they everywhere display great ability, and even form something like a systemization of human knowledge as it then stood. But the year 1745 was the turning point in Swedenborg's life. "I have been," he says, "called to a holy office by the Lord, who most graciously manifested himself, in person, to me his servant, and opened my sight into the spiritual world, endowing me with the gift of conversing with spirits and angels." This singular event, in regard to which Swedenborg's own sincerity is beyond question, happened about the middle of April, 1745, at an inn in London. Swedenborg's own sincerity may, as we have said, be easily credited. The consistency and simple-hearted loftiness, if we may say so, with which he maintained the assertion of his spiritual intercourse put it out of doubt. But it is one thing to believe in his sincerity, and another to believe in the reality of this extraordinary gift, and the great amount of credence which it obtained can only be accounted for by the general decay of living faith in Christianity which characterized that period. For a sceptical age, such is human nature, is sure to be one also of extreme credulity. Thus we find the Baron Grimm saying that the "fact is confirmed by authorities so respectable that it is impossible to deny it; but the question is, how to believe it." If you put the matter thus, the question certainly is, how to believe it. But that the true explanation of this seemingly mysterious affair is to be sought for, not in the possibility of intercourse between embodied and unembodied spirits, but in Swedenborg's own peculiar mental character and condition, will hardly be doubted by any one who has accustomed himself to observe the eccentricities, the deceitfulness, and the deceivableness of the human mind. We believe that the transaction to which Swedenborg refers took place solely in his own fancy, and that the remainder of his life, spent as it was in publishing the results of his alleged commerce with the angelic world, was one long and remarkably sober dream. The nature of his revelations is not of a sort to confirm his pretensions, and it is hardly in keeping with the title of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion, as these revelations have been absurdly styled, that their authenticity should need to be bolstered up with the quackery of clairvoyance. But while we refuse credence to his "fellowship with angels," we mean not the slightest reflection on his character or conduct. He was a good, and in some degree a great man; but the philosophy of christianity remains to be written, and it is questionable whether his writings, numerous and in many respects excellent as they are, have advanced the science of theology by a single step. His principal object is to awaken that "inward eye" which sees the spiritual not so much beneath, as in, the natural; but his principle of correspondence wears too much the aspect of identity. Hence the spiritural world with Swedenborg is rather a refined natural, than that absolutely different world, which both the reason and the conscience demand. His heaven is too earthly, and lies too near the confines of this "visible diurnal sphere." Strange as it may sound, Swedenborg's undeniable failure as a religious teacher is to be ascribed, more than to anything else, to his signal defect of spirituality. The last twenty-seven years of his life were passed, as we have already said, in writing and publishing his religious works These are also very voluminous. The most important are the "Apocalypse Revealed;" "Heaven and Hell;" "Divine Love;" "Divine Providence;" "On the White Horn mentioned in the Apocalypse;" "Conjugial Love;" and the "True Christian Religion," in which is contained a summary of the theology of what he calls the New Church. A great part of his latter years was spent at London and Amsterdam, where also his theological works were mostly published—the laws of his native country refusing them toleration. He died at London in Great Bath Street, Coldbath Fields, on the 29th of March, 1772, and was buried in the Swedish church in Ratcliff Highway. SWEYN, King of Denmark, who between the years 994 and 1013 ravaged various parts of England with his Danish hordes, exercised for a part of the time a usurped sway over a great portion of the dominions of the weak Saxon king, Ethelred. More than once he was bribed with money to relax his hold on England, but only to return with demands for more gold. At length he obtained possession of sixteen counties, and after his death his son Canute was elected king of England in 1016.—R. H. SWIETEN, Gerard van, a celebrated pupil of Boerhaave, was descended from a respectable and ancient family in the Low Countries. He studied philosophy at Louvain, where he greatly distinguished himself, and afterwards removed to Leyden to study medicine under Boerhaave; there he graduated M.D. in 1725. His reputation in science was already high, and he was very soon appointed to a professorship in the faculty. His lectures attracted a large number of students, but his success brought him enemies, who, availing themselves of an obsolete law, compelled him to resign his professorship on the ground that he held religious opinions not in accordance with the established religion of the state. Van Swieten retired, and employed his leisure in writing commentaries on Boerhaave's Aphorisms. He soon, however, received an invitation from the court of Vienna, and removed thither in 1745. There his profound learning and great abilities soon placed him at the head of the medical school. He accepted a professorial chair, and through his influence with the empress the college was rebuilt, with the addition of a chemical laboratory, schools of anatomy and surgery, and a clinical establishment at one of the hospitals. He also was instrumental in forming a botanical garden. He was appointed librarian to the royal collection, and introduced the liberal measure of allowing visitors to make notes and extracts from its contents. His chief works are—"Commentaria in Hermanni Boerhaavii Aphorismos de Cognoscendis et Curandis Morbis," 5 vols. 4to; and "Description des Maladies qui règnent communément dans les Armées, avec la Méthode de les Traiter," 8vo, Vienna, 1759. Van Swieten was raised to the dignity of a baron of the empire, and was an honorary member of almost every learned society in Europe. He died at Schönbrun, aged seventy-two, in the year 1772.—F. C. W. SWIFT, Deane, an English writer, was grandson of Godwin Swift, uncle to the celebrated Dr. Jonathan Swift, and was recommended by the dean to the notice of Pope as "the most valuable of any of his family." Deane Swift derived his christian name from Admiral Deane, his great-grandfather by the mother's side, who served the Commonwealth, and who "having been one of the regicides, had the good fortune to save his neck by dying a year or two before the Restoration." Deane Swift studied at St. Mary's hall, Oxford, and published in 1755 "An Essay upon the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Jonathan Swift." He edited the eighth quarto volume of the dean's works, published in 1765, and in 1768 two volumes of his letters. He died in 1783.—F. SWIFT, Jonathan, the celebrated dean of St. Patrick's, author of the "Tale of a Tub" and "Gulliver's Travels," was born at Dublin on the 30th November, 1667. His life may be divided, for purposes of reference, into the following periods—I. His family. II. His life till the death of his uncle, Godwin Swift. III. His residence with Sir William Temple. IV. His residence at Laracor and in London till 1713. V. His life in Dublin till the death of Stella. VI. His latter years.

I. Although born in Ireland, Swift was of English extraction. His grandfather, Thomas Swift, who was married to an aunt of Dryden the poet, had been a zealous royalist in the days of Charles I., in whose cause he had endured many sufferings and losses. He left behind him six sons. The eldest, Godwin Swift, settled in Ireland, having been appointed attorney-general of the palatinate of Tipperary. His brothers followed him in the hope of bettering their fortunes. One of these was Jonathan, father of the subject of this memoir. Jonathan died soon after his arrival in Ireland, leaving his widow, Abigail Erick, a lady of an ancient Leicestershire family, in destitute circumstances. She, with an only daughter, was thrown on the hospitality of her brother-in-law, Godwin, in whose house, seven months after his father's death, Jonathan Swift was born.

II. Swift's early upbringing was singular. His nurse, who