[20] Those who look back to the newspapers of 1799 and 1800 will see that considerable discussion went on at that time upon the question whether the year 1800 was entitled to open the 19th century or to close the 18th. Mr. Laureate Pye wrote a poem with a long and argumentative preface on the point. [21] From _Tait's Magazine_ for February 1837, where the title was "A Literary Novitiate."--M. LITERARY & LAKE REMINISCENCES CHAPTER I A MANCHESTER SWEDENBORGIAN AND A LIVERPOOL LITERARY COTERIE[21] It was in the year 1801, whilst yet at school, that I made my first literary acquaintance. This was with a gentleman now dead, and little, at any time, known in the literary world; indeed, not at all; for his authorship was confined to a department of religious literature as obscure and as narrow in its influence as any that can be named--viz. Swedenborgianism. Already, on the bare mention of that word, a presumption arises against any man, that, writing much (or writing at all) for a body of doctrines so apparently crazy as those of Mr. Swedenborg, a man must have bid adieu to all good sense and manliness of mind. Indeed, this is so much of a settled case, that even to have written _against_ Mr. Swedenborg would be generally viewed as a suspicious act, requiring explanation, and not very easily admitting of it. _Mr._ Swedenborg I call him, because I understand that his title to call himself "Baron" is imaginary; or rather he never _did_ call himself by any title of honour--that mistake having originated amongst his followers in this country, who have chosen to designate him as the "Honourable" and as the "Baron" Swedenborg, by way of translating, to the ear of England, some one or other of those irrepresentable distinctions, _Legations-Rath_, _Hofrath_, _&c._, which are tossed about with so much profusion in the courts of continental Europe, on both sides the Baltic. For myself, I cannot think myself qualified to speak of any man's writings without a regular examination of some one or two among those which his admirers regard as his best performances. Yet, as any happened to fall in my way, I have looked into them; and the impression left upon my mind was certainly not favourable to their author. They laboured, to my feeling, with two opposite qualities of annoyance, but which I believe not uncommonly found united in lunatics--excessive dulness or matter-of-factness in the execution, with excessive extravagance in the conceptions. The result, at least, was most unhappy: for, of all writers, Swedenborg is the only one I ever heard of who has contrived to strip even the shadowy world beyond the grave of all its mystery and all its awe. From the very heaven of heavens, he has rent away the veil; no need for seraphs to "tremble while they gaze"; for the familiarity with which all objects are invested makes it impossible that even poor mortals should find any reason to tremble.