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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE
DAILY FLAMBEAU.

TOWARDS the close of 185-, from reasons which the
curious are at liberty to guess, I was persuaded to
give up my practice at the bar of Ditchville, and
amalgamate my prospects. with those of the Daily
Flambeau, a penny paper projected in that city by
a limited liability company.

PRICE 1d.

obeyed. Even to-day, on this bright June day, some pair of wood-cutters leaning for a minute on their axes; some coterie of blue-aproned weavers sunning themselves for a moment round the shop-door in the village-street; some brace of mechanics working at the same bench in Ditchville; some civic authorities pausing on the street to exchange snuff-boxes and blow their noses at each other-by one or other of these, I warrant, Peter is even now quoted as a party mercifully removed before local affairs had reached this alarming crisis, or as one by whose advice Mr Gladstone might profit; or, generally, as a 'terrible hand,' whose like, take him for all in all, will never be seen again.

Peter died long before the repeal of the stamp-duty, and his decease might be cited as his most politic act; for there would have been little room for him, when newspaper development, escaping the compression of taxes, sprang up a steam-snorting giant, scattering broad-sheets like snow-flakes.

The project sprang, phoenix-like, from the ashes of an old weekly, one of those once well-fed fourpencehalfpenny concerns which turned faint when the stamp-act was repealed, prophesied woes and disasters from the influx of cheap trash, and after subsisting a while on its own fat, died inch by inch. This weekly, the Saturday Watchman, was in its day no mean power in the state. Prior to '32, it had hinted at mysterious messages from the sergeant-atarms; it had been quoted in the Commons by O'Connell; it was seldom for three months at a time clear of the When the Watchman expired, the proprietors found law-courts, and was often mulcted in heavy damages. it impossible to dispose of the buildings, furnishings, Few people now a days know, or care to know, the and plant, except at a ruinous sacrifice. It then name of the editor of their newspaper; but the occurred to them that they could not decently withWatchman was nothing to its readers if not Peter draw themselves as public ameliorators; and they Rusk-one of the olden school who did not so much projected the Daily Flambeau Company (limited), as know what a literary elegancy was, who had only capital L.5000, in shares of one pound each. They an incidental regard for grammar itself, but who drove took out the value of their stock in shares, which his opinions through all opposition with a coach-and- amounted to about one-half of the whole capital. four-like air of overbearing decision. No dyspeptic Another thousand shares were disposed of by dint of gentleman who, writing with nervous propriety, hard canvassing, and the company was registered. ventures to think,' or 'takes leave to suggest,' and The people thus brought together as proprietors were who is seldom seen except by the printer's boy, was of a very miscellaneous description, and some of them Peter Rusk; his thoughts and suggestions were had strange motives for connecting themselves with neither ventured nor submitted, but thundered out a newspaper. There were semi-literary people, who with unequivocal dogmatism, as if the stability of believed they would now have an outlet for their the universe depended on them. His nose of beet- genius. There was a confectioner and fancy-baker, root richness, grisly chin, and gnarled forehead who hoped that the reports of the soirees he purveyed were familiar as the principal features of a head- would spread his name, and authenticate the superior piece which figured near the chairman at all sorts quality of his goods. There were a dozen compoof public meetings. Farmers, prompted by honest sitors, determined to prove practically their faith in admiration, called on him when they came to co-operative principles, and who, I regret to say, town on market-days. Kegs of butter, baskets of were a source of much sorrow afterwards. There eggs, and fresh pork were freely sent him by country was a clique of three gentlemen, who formed a subscribers. He had testimonials of handsome small but determined minority in the town-council, clocks, gold watches, writing-desks, and books, for of whose periodical onslaughts upon the magistrates his able advocacy of this and the other cause. The the existing journals had long given over recording Watchman had a kind of executive power which a single word. Finally, there were the directly I think few papers have now. It was feared and antipathetic elements of licensed victuallers and

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other rival tradesmen. The constituents of a limited
liability company are apt to be very motley indeed.
From the first, it was evident that some ingenuity
was required to marshal the miscellaneous, often con-
flicting, hopes and wishes of our proprietors. Every
one had got it into his head, that he was in some
measure responsible for the policy and opinions of
the forthcoming journal. Speeches without end were
made, full of suggestions-merely suggestions-to 'our
Editor.' The more impenetrably stupid kind of
proprietor submitted instructions which ought to be
laid upon our editor, whom he considered a machine
for sorting the sentiments of those whose bread he
was privileged to eat. A licensed victualler hinted
that the energies of the new institution should be
directed against the quarter-sessions, and the detest-
able system of espionage carried on by the police,
both of which he considered foreign to the spirit of
the constitution. A teetotaller argued, that the best
way to get rid of all grievances of this class, would
The president of
be to advocate the Maine Law.
the Ditchville Reform Association, in a speech of
astonishing eloquence, declared that the mission of
our journal was to convince the People of their
exalted position in the universe, the absolute depend-
ence of society on the People, and the People's
consequent right to dictate its own terms to society.
One of the semi-literary species, on the other hand,
hoped our editor would not be so presumptuous as
to break down the eternal barriers of nature. The
chairman of the directors, looking towards me, said
he had no doubt our able editor would profit by all
these admirable suggestions.

Ditchville was already enlightened by two diurnal luminaries the Post and the Morning Bugle; oldestablished journals, which had only abated one penny of their price in deference to the hair-brained spirit of cheapness that was raging through the land. Whosoever had twopence, and no other, could purchase the Post or the Bugle. In announcing the Daily Flambeau, then, twenty-eight large closely printed columns for a penny, we were justified in heading our posters in the most brilliant reds and blues, New Era in the Ditchville Press!' These bills, in the composition of which I protest I had no hand, announced 'original articles by distinguished writers;' which line I appropriated as an indivisible compliment to myself. We promised metropolitan intelligence a day earlier than was hitherto possible-and up to this moment I have no idea of what we meant by that. We also promised the fullest local reports, and intimated that we had laid a net of correspondents over the country, through which only a small event-a mere minnow of an event-could possibly escape.

It was four o'clock on the morning of publication before I left the office with a copy of the first impression of the Daily Flambeau, and the day was not far advanced when I returned and hurried into the room of Mr Sorrell, our indefatigable manager, against whom the worst that could be alleged was, that there was not much of him; being, indeed, hardly worth mentioning as a physical fact.

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right-hand fingers against the table, and assuming a
demonstrative attitude; the Daily Flambeau may,
That's a question for the
or may not, carry on.
proprietors. But all I have to say is, that this
morning's experience proves penny-papers to be an
absolute necessity in Ditchville.'

How many?" I asked, a little fearful lest the oriental glow that was stealing over me might be suddenly frost-struck.

'Fifteen thousand,' he answered in a careless voice. 'It's my opinion,' said I, after a momentous pause'it's my decided opinion that we are an INSTITUTION!' An expression, the originality of which so tickled Mr Sorrell, that he invited me and himself to lunch forthwith in the White Swan at the Institution's expense. Neither manager nor editor, however, need have taken much credit to themselves for this success. The vast majority of our readers had bought the Flambeau, chiefly for the reason that it was not The next impression published the previous day. had fewer readers by many thousands; the next, fewer still; and at the end of a fortnight, our morning issue was a fact as unnoticeable as the rising of the sun.

Was

Our enemy

No; we were not, Minerva-like, to take up a We position in full-proportioned maturity at once. were to creep and stagger, and meet with innumerable obstacles, as is the manner of extremely youthful concerns. Those who fought the early battle of the penny-press will confirm me here, I am sure. it not a tough, exciting, disagreeable, animating struggle? an inch by inch victory? was a Prejudice, which may have been natural, but which was, nevertheless, excessively stubborn. The character we had given the penny failed to make He was looked on as the most him respectable. disreputable coin going. A first material obstacle to progress was the hostility of the news-agents and booksellers. Looking to-day at the cart-loads of penny sheets that come and go through the premises of these Ditchville gentlemen, I take the liberty of indulging in a revengeful sneer at their purblindness in those days. They told us, with calm aristocratic placidity, that it was not worth their while to finger a coin of which such an infinitesimal particle adhered to them. They continually prophesied that another week would see the end of the thing. They smiled in a superior manner when we ventured to hint they did not know their own interests. A few took the paper, but none, save one individual whose private fortune to the extent of a pound was sunk in it, endeavoured to push it. We were therefore obliged to throw ourselves into the hands of the street-boys. These youths were zealous enough, as I can testify, who was more than once constrained to purchase a copy of my own paper, in order to have unmolested passage along the street. A circulation propelled through these mediums is, however, very precarious. The first year, we averaged about four thousand daily.

Our receipts for

The Prejudice dogged our steps into the presence of advertisers. Our canvassers did not, I fear, scruple as to a cipher, when it came to figures. But what did it matter?' The Prejudice was there to brand any statement, true or not, with its 'Don't believe it!" The canvassers of the Bugle endeavoured to cut our throat, by averring that our ascertained circulation, over and above the presentation-copies appropriated by the staff, was twenty-five! advertising during the first year were generally about thirty pounds a week, and a large share of that sum was received in consideration of proclaiming the virtues of certain panaceas, of which, one would think, there could not be a man, woman, or child in these realms ignorant. Many a thriving journal, now stout on its own legs, would never have got through some early days of weakness but for 'Well,' said he, pressing the extreme tips of his the crutch-help of what are referred to as 'quack

'Well?' I asked, thinking it unnecessary to consume words and time in elaborating an inquiry which a deaf man might apprehend.

Well!' he answered, innocently surprised, and not with any intention, I do believe, of trifling with my feelings.

A success?' I suggested confidently.

advertisements.' We need not, therefore, approve of them, any more than of slavery, by the agency of which so many now free colonies were erected; but let the fact be recorded in both cases.

There was no branch of the establishment to which the Prejudice shewed a more decided hostility than to the reporting staff. It was long before anything more respectable than the committee of a scavengers' soiree, or the manager of a penny-show, recognised our existence as an invitable, sight-seeing, tea-drinking, dinnerconsuming concern. We had to purchase tickets, and even money failed to procure us admission to some gatherings. All constituted authority frowned on us, or ignored our existence: I suppose no town official higher than a beadle or a policeman had the courage to read a penny paper; and even these had to carry it for that purpose into the deepest privacy, in deference to public opinion. Advices as to the where and when of civic meetings were withheld from us till we hit on an ingenious revenge. We reported, and announced we reported, the observations and speeches of the chief magistrates literally and verbally, and this custom soon bred so many doubts of their sobriety, if not sanity, that the desired entree was surrendered with great discretion.

Then the Post and the Bugle, which had been cudgelling each other from time immemorial, turned, by mutual instinct, jointly against this new thing, the Flambeau. In provincial towns, the reporters of rival journals are obliged to amalgamate in friendly union sometimes; for it happens occasionally that half-a-dozen railway meetings are fixed for the same hour of the same day; it will also fall out that that day, of all days in the year, has been selected by the Gorilla Mission for its annual exhibition of tamed specimens; by the Trades' Tribunal, on which to consider the great barbers' strike; and by the trustees of the Poets Asylum, to compliment each other extravagantly. A ubiquitous pencil, or a sufficiently near approach to one, is on such days obtained by the junction of many pencils. From all the advantages of such combination, we were persistently excluded. Even when their joint powers were unequal to the work, the Post and Bugle excluded us; tacitly setting forth that the co-operation of twopenny pencils and penny pencils was for ever impossible under any exigency. They would turn out their clerks and light porters first.

Ordinarily, however, our three reporters were equal to the occasion. For weeks in succession they would have nothing to do, except to saunter once or twice a day to the police-offices, partly to learn if any stupid people had been run down by vehicles, partly to see if there were any burglaries, thefts, or suicides worth mentioning; but mainly to make sure that they did not miss a good murder.

As for us inside the sub-editor and myself-we felt our isolated position as persons implicated in the production of a penny paper, by negative tokens. No parcels of fresh books, no particoloured magazines, arrived with the publisher's compliments, for us. A solitary poet called with a copy of his poems, printed for the author, which he formally presented to us in a speech, expressive of his gratification that the country had now an independent organ, likely to do justice to literary talent. No magistrates, chamberlains, secretaries, or others called with exclusive information. We could not even injure any one sufficiently to induce him to call and expostulate in person. One day, only, a delusive hope of some refreshing excitement of this nature came and went in the person of a draper, who had been guilty of some offence which was a little strongly stated in our paper. He called, accompanied with a mute and meek friend; he spread out a copy of the paper before me, and with his finger on the noxious paragraph, observed, with impressive formality: This paper, I believe, is the Daily Flambeau-you, I believe, are the editor. Your

name is Scratch, I believe. My name is Biggle. These scandalous remarks apply to me. Of course, you won't give up the name of the writer. But you will be good enough to say if I am right?' And he glanced just a moment at his friend as if to say: Now, then, take particular notice of the ruffian's answer!' I replied that I was bound to say he had stated nothing from which I could reasonably dissent. He looked at his friend significantly, then folded up the paper with much nicety, as though it were a valuable document, on no account to be roughly handled, buttoned up his coat, and departed. He merely said 'Good-morning,' but the tone and air left me under the impression that he had really said: 'I am a gentleman, not accustomed to use unseemly violence, or waste words; this is a case much too serious to be handled by any but the representatives of the Crown.'

From that day, nevertheless, I heard no more of the matter. My attention was usually divided between the leading columns and the correspondence, including the reports sent in by our paid correspondents in the district towns and villages. Much might be said of these country correspondents. It is they who give us the dimensions of preternatural cabbages and eggs. It is they who tell us of three-headed lambs, and calves with a five legs. They wield the 'we,' and advise and threaten with ludicrous pomposity. I know some who make a good income by ringing the changes on one theme alone the weather. In their own districts they are held in great terror. I belong to the press,' they say in a conclusive way, when anybody happens to interrupt their progress towards anything which it has pleased them to patronise. They write reports of enormous length, always accompanied with a private note to the editor explanatory of their importance. They refer to their paragraphs as 'articles,' and write vengeful letters when the beauty of the composition is marred by a typographical error. On the whole, they think the press a great institution, and themselves its main pillars.

Of myself I may further say, that I had to suffer the indignity of being every other day shewn up in the Bugle as a distressed barrister, an amputated limb of the law, and an imbecile generally. My paper was called the penny-whistle, the street-ballad, the beggar's news, or, in the virulence of concentrated malice, the sheet.' All which abuse we judiciously repaid in kind. It is good for a new journal to get itself noised abroad by any means; and we frequently endeavoured to provoke a dispute with the Post. But that respectable journal crushed us with overwhelming silence.

Our position was to change, however. We began to make good our threat of heating the seats of certain councillors a degree or two above the average temperature. We began to expose monster nuisances; to convince the people they were slowly dying by means of bad sewerage, bad water, unconsumed smoke, and the effluvia of illegal works. We agitated the gas question; collated the statistics of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, from which we proved that Ditchville was in the hands of an unscrupulous monopoly. Finally, we divided parties at the civic elections on the momentous question of whether that ancient functionary, the town-bellman, whose office was now a sinecure, was entitled to have goldlace on his hat? There was an exciting election. We carried our men in several wards, which circumstance, as we stated in announcing it, proved that the backbone of the old oligarchy was broken for ever. While we were thus advancing the work of the nineteenth century, we at the same time advanced ourselves with satisfactory rapidity. We were finally set upon our legs by a great trial, whose protracted course the nation, in breathless anxiety, stood still to witness. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand per day, as many as we

were able to print, were greedily absorbed. Night and day the big engine fly-wheel gyrated; the presses groaned; the publishing-office was choked. Once for all the penny had got a polish. Its respect ability was established in Ditchville. The Prejudice was knocked on the head, and never more heard of in these parts. We did not, as one would expect, come down to our old level with the ebbing tide of interest. Our circulation was permanently increased five or six thousand. For the convenience of the statist the fact may be stated thus: when a crowd, under extraordinary pressure, purchase a paper once, one out of every nine will continue to buy it after the pressure has

been removed.

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Our second year was one of increasing prosperity. The sale averaged twenty thousand a day, and the advertisements about a hundred pounds per week; which enabled us to pay 25 per cent. per annum on the paid-up capital. We were an acknowledged power now. Cries of Oh, oh, and laughter,' did not mark any reference to us in the council-hall. The railway newsboys led off their not unmusical cries with our name: Flambeau, Post, and Bugle.' I daresay we should have had a monopoly of the steam-boats if there had been such things within a hundred miles of Ditchville. Ecclesiastical hierarchs, who had looked on us and most cheap things as tending to immorality, did now not unfrequently condescend to advise us, by autograph epistle, of the utter incapacity of our reporter when he happened to mistake tweedledum for tweedledee in their reverences' speeches. Theatrical managers sent us envelopes crammed with complimentary orders. The great metropolitan stars, when they, as is their annual custom, became provincial comets, dropped us their cards in token that we had liberty to admire them. If we did not always do this, some of the lesser luminaries became portentous stars to us, threatening to fall into our sweet ale like the star which is called wormwood.

We had too many invitations now; our chief reporter, whose stomach was none of the best, was fast hurrying himself to a premature grave by his conscientious endeavour to arrive, by the only reliable process, at a fair judgment on annual dinners, complimentary banquets, assembly suppers, and what not. We had callers of every shade of respectability. Shameful gentlemen, who had lost their watches in shameful places, called to beg that their names might be omitted in the police reports. Tradesmen convicted of using light-weights, called to represent the utter ruin that the publication of the offence would entail on them. Publicans fined, called to tell us their cases were of no earthly importance, and might be quashed. The public-meeting bore called with the manuscript of his speech, to save the reporters the trouble of transcribing notes they had never taken. Defeated litigants called, with appalling bundles of documents, in order that we might rehearse the case, and announce the judge a rogue bribed, or a fool deceived. Private committees called with two or three columns of complimentary speeches made at the presentation of a pair of spectacles to our well-known townsman, Mr Dash, which they expected us to publish in consideration of their taking twenty copies. We had also a vast increase of letters, stating all kinds of grievances, the second paragraph generally beginning with 'Now, sir.'

Blue-books and other light parliamentary literature now demanded a large share of my attention. Many provincial editors write the leading articles and a summary of news daily, besides attending to the management. The thing is possible; but you remember what Robert Hall said? A man of genius, sir, may produce one sermon in the week; a person of average talent may compose two; but nobody but a fool, sir, can write three!' As two leading articles are equal in length to one sermon, I was at this rate a

fool when the Flambeau was at its earliest and lowest; when it got up a bit, I became a person of average talent; and lastly, I culminated into a man of genius. There was, and, according to popular rumour, is, not any lack of writers; and again and again we declined the repeated offers of certain associations in London to supply us with political leaders, reviews, and metropolitan letters, at, if I remember rightly, ten-and-sixpence an article. To me, who was yet little more than an amateur, there seemed something quite discouraging in the wholesale manufacture of such delicate stuff as literature. Think of an association for the regular production of three-volumed novels! or epic poems! or dramas! Think of the History of England by the Clio Company (limited)! Another year of steady prosperity. As a fixed institution, we toned down to a less revolutionary policy; we began to see more clearly the amenities of established things. Personally, I may have dreamed of long service, a jubilee commemoration, and a shrubscreened cottage away from the thunder of printingmachinery, and those haunting sprites who never speak except their two appointed words: Copy, sir!'

Disasters generally choose the best days in order to set themselves off to most advantage. A certain sunshiny June morning had put me on cheerful terms with myself and the universe round me, even before I descended into our little breakfast-parlour, overlooking a grass-plot, with a young lime-tree in the centre, which served me as a barometer or indicator of the summer. From a pleasing reverie I was startled by the voice of my wife. Coffee's ready, dear,' she said. One is hardly prepared to understand in a moment why this fact should be heart-rending. But my wife spoke in a voice as hollow and sad as if she had been obliged to announce, Calcraft's ready, my dear!' I was overpowered by a sense of imminent disaster. I inquired what was wrong. She replied faintly, 'Nothing.' I told her not to tell me that: I prayed, I urged, I demanded to know what troubled her, promising, if she had been in fault, to forgive her unconditionally. She was silent, and I took up the morning papers to prove my unconcern in that case. Scarcely had I opened the Bugle when I announced to my excellent wife, by a low prolonged whistle, that I had discovered her secret. On and after 1st June next, the Morning Bugle will be published at one penny!' So I read. Oh, well,' I said, ‘it will affect us a little, doubtless, but here is nothing absolutely tragical.' 'Oh, no!' she answered, more melancholy than ever. I took up the Post, and you must really imagine with what feelings I read: 'On and after To-morrow, the Daily Post will be reduced in price to one penny!' To-morrow! not a single day's respite. To-morrow!

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The story of our decline and fall is too melancholy to be lingered over; it is a spot in the annals of Ditchville which all the multitudinous seas will not cleanse. In one day the Post, the penny Post, abducted five thousand of our circulation. We diminished by hundreds every day after. In vain we hinted in a thousand ways, that we had compelled (as indeed we had) this revolution in the press, and were therefore confident of support. In vain we talked of our secure position. In vain we fell back on nuisances. We were going down by general consent: we, the father of the cheap press! Suggestions of every shade of absurdity for redeeming our position were made by the kindest, but stupidest of friends. What we wanted was capital. We were but a poor limited liability company. The shareholders had drawn the profits, and spent them. Our contemporaries, on the contrary, belonged to single proprietors, who could lay out money at a temporary loss. The result was not long doubtful. One fine morning we put up the shutters. Bugle screeched an agony of triumph. The Post recognised our existence for the first time, in recording

The

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WHO was Emanuel Swedenborg? An impostor, a madman, a fanatic,' reply those who hold curt and ready opinions on all subjects. An apostle, whose writings are an infallible code of divine and heavenly truths,' answers a disciple; neither of which opinions commend themselves to the acceptance of a cautious inquirer.

money and measures; on the motion and position of the earth and planets; on the depth of the sea, and greater force of the tides in the ancient world, proved from appearances in Sweden; and on docks, sluices, and salt-works. He was very anxious to set up an observatory, and to commence salt-making, and had plans for a machine by which a man might go under the sea, and do great damage to the fleets of the enemy; an air-gun, from which a thousand balls might be discharged from one tube in a moment; a musical instrument, on which the inexperienced musician may play any tune; an aquatic clock shewing the motions of the heavenly bodies; a flying chariot; a chariot full of tools, set in motion by the movement of the horses; and so on.

In 1721 he went to Amsterdam, and there printed in Latin some treatises on chemistry, iron and fire, docks and dykes, and on his method of finding the longitude by the moon. At Leipsic, in 1722, he published a volume of miscellaneous observations on geology, vitrification or the change of particles into glass, on stoves, fireplaces, wind and draught furnaces, on chemistry as atomic geometry, and many other matters. On his return to Sweden, he issued a pamphlet on the Swedish currency. From this enumeration we may conceive the range and versatility of Swedenborg's mind.

Emanuel Swedenborg enjoyed a long life of eightyfour years, commencing in Stockholm on 29th January 1688, and ending in London, on 29th March 1772. He was never married. His lifetime divides itself into two distinct periods-the first ending with his fifty-fifth year, was given to business, science, and philosophy; the second, of nearly thirty years, was exclusively consecrated to theology and spiritualism. Jesper Swedberg, the father of Emanuel, was a chaplain in the Swedish army at the time of his son's birth; he afterwards held a professorship in the university of Upsal, and was finally appointed to the bishopric of Skara, and his family ennobled, changing their name from Swedberg to Swedenborg. We often He now betook himself to the duties of his assessorsee Swedenborg's name with Count or Baron prefixed ship, and for eleven years stayed at home and published to it; but this is done in error. He had a seat in nothing. In 1724, he was offered the professorship of the house of nobles, but was neither count nor baron. mathematics at Upsal, but he declined the honour, Jesper Swedberg came of humble stock; his father having a strong dislike to merely speculative matheworked as a miner in the copper-mines of Fahlun; matics. Writing to a brother at this time, he remarks: but he was endowed with that energy and persever-It is the fatality of mathematicians to remain chiefly ance which are sure to raise their owner into the in theory. I have often thought it would be a capital high places of the world. He became a shrewd, thing, if, to each ten mathematicians, one good pracbustling, pious priest, who preached with his whole tical man were added, to lead the rest to market: he heart, wrote countless books and tracts, looked after would be of more use and mark than all the ten.' his flock with a worrying and incessant care, pushed Yet though silent, his pen was not at rest. Living his sons into the best offices he could command, and among mines and miners, he set himself the task of made for his daughters the best marriages he could their systematic description; and not content with contrive. To a son, not making his way in the world the narration of the technical details of mining and quite so rapidly as he thought he ought, he wrote: smelting, he struggled with the insoluble problem, It is of no use your coming to Stockholm to fritter how copper, and iron, and matter, and Nature herself away your best years in idleness. You write well, came to exist and subsist. Having accumulated a you reckon well, and, thank God, you are not married! great mass of manuscript, he went to Leipsic in 1733, See that you get a good wife and something with her. and commenced printing, and in 1734, completed, in Pray to God to lead you in His good way. In these three massive folios, adorned with his portrait and few pithy lines, we have the bishop of Skara. many plates, his Opera Philosophica et Mineralia; the Duke of Brunswick paying the whole cost of the publication. The second and third volumes of the work are given up to a description of the manufacture of copper, iron, and brass, and contain an exhaustive record of the best methods in use last century. The first volume, entitled Principia, or the First Principles of Natural Things, being new Attempts towards a Philosophical Explanation of the Elementary World, has alone any general interest. It is an elaborate theory of the origin of the universe from what he defines as points of pure motion produced immediately from the Infinite.' The Principia is a dream, but a dream of genius full of sagacious hints and far-reaching thoughts. At this time he fell in with the writings of Wolf, and was overjoyed to discover how thoroughly their ideas coincided, and he sought and made his acquaintance. Wolf was in those days the pride of the metaphysical world. Frederick the Great, in 1736, wrote to Voltaire concerning him as the most celebrated philosopher of our age, who, for having carried light into the darkest places of metaphysics, is cruelly accused of irreligion and atheism.' Encouraged by Wolf's sympathy, Swedenborg brought out another work at Leipsic in 1734, on The Infinite, and the Final Cause of Creation; and the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, carrying the doctrine of the Principia into higher regions, and resolving the soul into a collection of points of motion and one in

Emanuel was educated at Upsal, and having graduated as Doctor of Philosophy, travelled for four years in England, Holland, France, and Germany. In his absence, his father plied the government of Charles XII. for some office into which he might at once step on his return, with a pertinacity which would take no repulse. After many delays and some temporary employment, the father was rejoiced by his son's appointment to the assessorship of mines.

With Charles XII., Swedenborg had much intercourse, and they talked over many mathematical and arithmetical questions together. One day Charles remarked, that he who knew nothing of mathematics did not deserve to be considered a rational man;' a sentiment, thought Swedenborg, truly worthy of a king. In the prosecution of the siege of Frederickshald, he was of service to Charles in carrying two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop overland for fourteen miles, on rolling-machines of his own contrivance. The cannon-ball from Frederickshald, which, on 11th December 1718, killed Charles, and gave peace to Scandinavia, dissolved a connection in which Swedenborg's engineering skill would have had many chances of display.

6

His brain at this time was teeming with mechanical and economical designs. He published short works on algebra, giving the first account in Sweden of the differential and integral calculus; on a way of finding the longitude by means of the moon; on decimal | substance with the sun.

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