Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/62

48 The reference was to a girl who was supposed to have lived for years without food and drink, and who had been celebrated by Bishop Swedberg as another proof of the Lord's marvelous powers, along with the misbegotten calf of Gotland.

But Emanuel was entitled to some of the income from his mother's iron furnaces, and money came at last. On January 16, 1712, he took coach for Oxford. He was there about six months. He talked with Edmund Halley here about finding the longitude at sea by means of the moon, but the stay does not seem to have been devoted entirely to scientific studies.

This was another England than noisy, smelly London. Oxford shed its peace on him. He said himself to Benzelius that since his speculations had made him not so sociable as was "serviceable and useful" he had taken up stadium poeticum "in order thereby to freshen myself," but also in order to publish something later and thus to become "renowned." But he would not desert science, and if anyone would encourage him he meant to make more discoveries "than anyone in our age," but without encouragement "this were to torment oneself."

It was really a good, chastened frame of mind for being lulled in Oxford, for the freshness of meadows by the Thames and for browsing in the Bodleian, to whose librarian Benzelius had given him an introduction. Even if England showed its customary indifference to his coming greatness as inventor or poet he must have had time and chance at Oxford to consider the values for which England stood, values which were to influence his whole life.

There was the England of free speech. This often took a form that strangers could not help noticing. While he was in London Emanuel had informed his brother-in-law that "almost the whole city is witnessing the internal dissensions between the Anglican church and the Presbyterians, who burn with a mutual hatred that is almost deadly. The torch and trumpet of the disturbance is Doctor Sacheverel, whose name is heard from every lip, in all quarters, and his book is read in every coffee house."

This curious form of religiosity did indeed run high. Before going to Oxford, Emanuel had been showing London to his cousin Andreas Hesselius, there on a visit, and they were probably together in the newly completed St. Paul's when Dr. Sacheverel expressed