“At London and Oxford I tarried about a year. Then I went to Holland and saw its chief cities. At Utrecht I tarried a long time, while Congress was sitting and ambassadors were gathering there from nearly all the courts of Europe. Thence I went into France, and passed through Brussels and Valenciennes to Paris. Here and at Versailles I spent a year. At the end of this time I hastened, by public coach, to Hamburg, and thence to Pomerania and Greifswalde, where I remained some time, while Charles the Twelfth was coming from Bender to Stralsund. When the siege began, I departed in a small vessel, together with a lady named Feif, and by Divine Providence was restored to my own country after more than four years’ absence.” While traveling he was not idle; for we find that in 1715, while at Greifswalde, he published an oration on the return of Charles XII. from Turkey, and a small volume of Latin prose fables. On his return to Sweden, he issued, at Skara, a little book of poems, written for the most part during his journeyings. These have been republished at various times; but, as poems, much cannot be said of them. Wilkinson, in his “Biography of Swedenborg,” remarks: “These poems display fancy, but a controlled imagination. If we may convey to the English reader such a notion of Latin verses, they remind one of the Pope school, in which there is generally some theme, or moral, governing the flights of the Muse.” Indeed, it was well that Swedenborg was but slightly endowed with the poetic faculty. Much of his future mission lay in fields which require the coolest and calmest of minds to describe; the sight and contemplation of which, would have sent a Shaksperian or Byronic temperament into extatic frenzies. Swedenborg, himself the son of a bishop, was connected with high and influential families in Sweden. One of his sisters was married to Eric Benzelius, afterwards Archbishop of Upsal; and another to Lars Benzelstierna, governor of a province. Other members of the family held high and responsible offices in the kingdom. A young man thus situated would find little difficulty in settling for life in a sphere of usefulness adapted to all his tastes. While on his travels on the Continent he wrote letters to Eric Benzelius, detailing every novelty in mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics, which came under his observation; besides sending home models of all such inventions as he thought might be useful to his country. These letters and services won for him considerable notice; and on his return to Sweden, he assumed the editorship of a new periodical work, entitled “Dædalus Hyperboreus.” Among the contributors to this magazine, was the celebrated mathematician, Christopher Polheim, who has been called the Swedish Archimedes. Swedenborg’s connection with Polheim seems to have led to his appointment to the office of Assessor of the Board of Mines, which he held with distinguished honor for many years.