Louth, Lincolnshire, Mr. J. Bogg.
Low Moor, near Clitheroe, Mr. H.
Hardaker.

Luton, Beds., Mr. H. Higgins.
Malton, Yorkshire, Mr. Robert Wise.
Meltham Mills, near Huddersfield, Mrs.
Elizabeth Woodcock, Spring-place.
Middlesborough-on-Tees, Mr. W. Mc.
Fadden, Chapel-place, Stockton-st.
Mold, Flintshire, Mr. John Harling,
Hope-station.

Montrose, Mr. W. Dawson, Lochside
brewery.

Newburgh, near Ormskirk, Mr. Edward
Leatherbarrow, draper, &c.

Newbury, Mr. Alfred Penn, North Brook-
street.

Parkham, near Bideford, Mr. Jas. Lane.
Peasenhall, Saxmundham, Mrs. E. Free-
man, grocer and draper.
Peterborough, Mr. John Barton, Eastern
Counties Railway Station.
Pickering, near, Mr. John Hood, Costa

Mill.

Plymouth, Mr. W. Carill, 49, York-st.
Poole, Dorsetshire, Mr. H. B. Smith.
Prescot, Lancashire, Mr. J. Chesworth,
watchmaker, Tan-yard.

Putford, West, North Devon, Mr. John
Lane.

Rilston, near Skipton, Mr. A. Maude,

Fleets.

Rochdale, Mr. Jackson, Oldham-road.
Rugeley, Mr. George Butterby, tanner,
Phoenix Tannery,

Sidmouth, Mr. T. Westcott, High-street

Sittingbourne, Mr. George Gouge, junr.,
West-end.
Skelmersdale, near Ormskirk, Mr. John

Almond, boot and shoe maker.
Skipton, Mr. Platt, gardener, Swadford.
Snape, near Saxmundham, Mr. H. Knight.
Southport, Lancashire, Mrs. Wilson,
Lord-street.

Stranton, West Hartlepool, Mr. Noble,
Mount Pleasant.

Stroud, Gloucester, Mr. R. Bragg, 1,
High-street.

Swansea, Mr. J. Maddock, S. W. Railway.
Tawton, North, Mr. H. Gibbings, draper.
Tiverton, Devon, Mr. J. Richards.
Todmorden, Yorkshire, Mr. Geo. Hinch-
cliffe, Studley Mill.

Tunbridge, Kent, Mr. C. Pugh, draper.
Twerton, near Bath, Mr. Thomas Sare,

manager at Woollen Mills.
Tunstal, Staffordshire, Mr. W. Chetham,
Hall's Cottage, High-street.
Toton, near Nottingham, Mr. D. Roper.
Tynemouth, Mrs. Jane Mills, 1, Tyne-
mouth-terrace.

Wakes-Colne, Essex, Mr. John London.
Waltham, near Great Grimsby, Mr. J.
Cheeseman, bootmaker.

Waterford, Mr. John Horn, Neptune
Engine Works.

West Bromwich, Mr. W. Dimock, near
the Junction Inn.

West Bromwich, near Birmingham, Mr.

George Cocks, bookseller, High-street. Woodbridge, Suffolk, Mr. J. Evans, Brewer-street.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

All communications to be sent to the Editor, the Rev. W. BRUCE, 43, Kensington Gardens Square, London, W. To ensure insertion in the forthcoming Number, communications must be received not later than the 15th of the month, except recent intelligence, which will be received till the 18th.

Received “J. H.,” “C. E. R.,” “Julian,” and two short poems without signatures. The Committee of the Summer-lane Society, Birmingham, request that all communications intended for the society or its officers be addressed to T. C. Lowe, B.A., Heathfield-road, Birmingham.

A Correspondent asks when the Essays for the prize offered in our pages may be heard of. Three have been received; they have been fully under examination, and we confidently anticipate our being able to communicate the result in our

next.

An article in the "Spiritual Magazine," entitled "Remarks on the Character of Swedenborg's Translation of Genesis, as given and explained in his Arcana Calestia," will receive due consideration next month.

The notice of the lectures at Ramsbottom is in type, and shall appear next month. News, In the March number, p. 180, in the poem on Liberia, first stanza, fifth

line, for "The Atlantic casts her winding shore." read "The Atlantic laves." In the third line of the second stanza, for "Breathes over the land," read "Breathes the land."

CAYE AND Savas, Printers by Steam Tower, Hunt's Bank, Manchester.

SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, AND
THE "SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE."

THE March Number of the "Spiritual Magazine" contains an article
entitled "Remarks on the Character of Swedenborg's Translation of
Genesis, as given and explained in his Arcana Calestia ;" and we are
assured in the editorial observations appended to it, that the
"Remarks" are from the pen of "
one of the first Hebrew scholars
of the day." As the strictures of this competent authority directly
tend to invalidate the assumption that Swedenborg possessed any
adequate knowledge of the Hebrew language, and as the question thus
raised is one to which our readers cannot be indifferent, it is incumbent
on us to examine the objections of our critic in detail, by the help of
such lights as we possess.

To clear the ground preliminarily, we feel called upon to repudiate the idea that Swedenborg himself ever did, or that any intelligent receiver of his doctrines ever could, pretend that he acquired such philological knowledge of Hebrew as he possessed-be it profound or superficial-by any merely miraculous gift, or by any other means than the ordinary industry by which we all learn dead languages, and other scientific facts of the external world. Our assertion finds its most conclusive evidence in his posthumous Diarium Majus (Part i. 1, p. 19.), bearing date 1747-thus two years after his spiritual sight was opened—where more than two pages are occupied with a kind of scheme which he drew up to impress his memory with the formal peculiarities in the conjugation of the regular and irregular Hebrew

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

All communications to be sent to the Editor, the Rev. W. BRUCE, 43, Kensington Gardens Square, London, W. To ensure insertion in the forthcoming Number, communications must be received not later than the 15th of the month, except recent intelligence, which will be received till the 18th.

Received "J. H.," ," "C. E. R.," "Julian," and two short poems without signatures. The Committee of the Summer-lane Society, Birmingham, request that all communications intended for the society or its officers be addressed to T. C. Lowe, B.A., Heathfield-road, Birmingham.

A Correspondent asks when the Essays for the prize offered in our pages may be heard of. Three have been received; they have been fully under examination, and we confidently anticipate our being able to communicate the result in our

An article in the "Spiritual Magazine," entitled "Remarks on the Character of Swedenborg's Translation of Genesis, as given and explained in his Arcana Calestia," will receive due consideration next month.

The notice of the lectures at Ramsbottom is in type, and shall appear next month. Errata. In the March number, p. 130, in the poem on Liberia, first stanza, fifth

line, for "The Atlantic leaves her winding shore," read "The Atlantic laves." In the third line of the second stanza, for "Breathes over the land," read "Breathes o'er the land."

CAVE AND SEVER, Printers by Steam Power, Hunt's Bank, Manchester.

SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, AND
THE "SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE."

THE March Number of the "Spiritual Magazine" contains an article
entitled "Remarks on the Character of Swedenborg's Translation of
Genesis, as given and explained in his Arcana Calestia ;" and we are
assured in the editorial observations appended to it, that the
66 Remarks" are from the pen of "
one of the first Hebrew scholars
of the day." As the strictures of this competent authority directly
tend to invalidate the assumption that Swedenborg possessed any
adequate knowledge of the Hebrew language, and as the question thus
raised is one to which our readers cannot be indifferent, it is incumbent
on us to examine the objections of our critic in detail, by the help of
such lights as we possess.

To clear the ground preliminarily, we feel called upon to repudiate the idea that Swedenborg himself ever did, or that any intelligent receiver of his doctrines ever could, pretend that he acquired such philological knowledge of Hebrew as he possessed-be it profound or superficial by any merely miraculous gift, or by any other means than the ordinary industry by which we all learn dead languages, and other scientific facts of the external world. Our assertion finds its most conclusive evidence in his posthumous Diarium Majus (Part i. 1, p. 19.), bearing date 1747-thus two years after his spiritual sight was opened—where more than two pages are occupied with a kind of scheme which he drew up to impress his memory with the formal peculiarities in the conjugation of the regular and irregular Hebrew

194

SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW,

verbs. It is further confirmed by an examination of his translation itself, in which the discrepancies between different renderings of the same words and phrases are, as it appears to us, best accounted for as indications of varying degrees of knowledge and exactness. It also seems to be, in a measure, naturally inferred from the fact that he always, as far as we know, based his translation on that of some predecessor, such as Seb. Schmidt, and contented himself with tacit corrections of its inaccuracies. There are even valid reasons why we should prefer—if allegiance to the truth allowed of options-to rate his knowledge of Hebrew as a non-miraculous faculty. We should escape placing ourselves in the unenviable position which the Church of Rome occupies with regard to Galileo and much modern science; and we should not commit the indiscretion of attempting, in a province manifestly belonging to the scientific faculties, to set up a stereotype standard, from the middle of the last century, which our remotest posterity should never have the audacity to surpass. So far are we from this, however, that we find it perfectly consistent with our ready acknowlegment of the immense stride of human intelligence which marks, and which was expected to mark, the era which he inaugurated, that we should be prepared to believe that the knowledge of Hebrew, as a language, must partake of that gigantic development which has manifested itself in the whole field of philology, no less than in all the natural sciences.

Seeing, then, that neither Swedenborg himself, nor any instructed adherent, has set up so pretentious a claim, it is palpably unfair to attempt to test his knowledge of Hebrew, taken by itself alone, by any higher standard than that of the professed Hebraists of the middle of the eighteenth century. Let him be cited before that tribunal, and we are fearless of the result. Such a trial would, we believe, most emphatically prove that the native modesty of his character, no less than the labouriously trained faculties of his mind, equally preserved him from deluding himself, or others, with the pretence of a knowledge which he did not possess. It is an axiom that the minds of the deepest and widest culture are precisely those that most clearly discern, and most readily recognise, both to themselves and others, the exact bounds of their reliable knowledge. Compound ignorance-the ignorance that not only does not know a given truth, but that does not even know that it does not know it is the badge of very shallow sciolists, or of interested deceivers.

But, although Swedenborg lays no claim to any supernatural illu