The trite observation that the lives of literary men are devoid of those incidents which make up a stirring and lively biography, applies with great truth to the career of Swedenborg. His quiet and unostentatious life afforded but few materials for anecdotes; hence we have but faint traces of his outward course. While writing the works we have just noticed, from 1747 to 1758, the principal portion of his time must have been passed in London. Few men in those days were capable of sympathy or communion with the elevated and spiritualized mind of Swedenborg. Yet though living as it were alone, he could not have been melancholy or desolate. Under the care and guidance of the Lord, favored with the company and converse of angels, and enjoying the consciousness of fulfilling high and holy duties, he had every reason to be the cheerful and contented man that contemporary testimony represents him. His evenings he used often to spend with his printer, Mr. Hart, of Poppin’s court, Fleet street. Mrs. Lewis, his publisher’s wife, knew him, and “thought him a good and sensible man, but too apt to spiritualize things.” Beyond a few particulars such as these, we know nothing of his private life. On the 19th of July, 1759, we find Swedenborg at Gottenburg. Here occurred the following circumstance, of which Immanuel Kant, the celebrated transcendentalist, is the narrator. “On Saturday, at 4 o’clock, P. M.,” says Kant, “when Swedenborg arrived at Gottenburg from England, Mr. William Castel invited him to his house, together with a party of fifteen persons. About 6 o’clock, Swedenborg went out, and after a short interval returned to the company, quite pale and alarmed. He stated that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, at Sundermalm, (distant three hundred miles from Gottenburg,) and that it was spreading very fast. He was restless, and went out often. He said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At 8 o’clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed: ‘Thank God! the fire is extinguished the third door from my house.’ This news occasioned great commotion among the company. It was announced to the governor the same evening. The next morning, Swedenborg was sent for by the governor, who questioned him concerning the disaster. Swedenborg described the fire precisely, how it had begun, in what manner it had ceased, and how long it had continued. On the same day the news was spread through the city; and as the governor had thought it worthy of attention, the consternation was considerably increased, as many were in trouble on account of their friends and property, which might have been involved in the disaster. On Monday evening, a messenger arrived at Gottenburg, who was despatched during the time of the fire. In the letters brought by him, the fire was described precisely in the manner stated by Swedenborg. On Tuesday morning, a royal