variety and audacity of thoughts and words are incomparable, not less so their fervour and beauty. 'No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.' This proverb might serve as motto to the book; it is one of many 'Proverbs of Hell,' as forcible and as finished."
In the great work thus greatly praised, Blake incidentally delivers his soul on Swedenborg; but in fairness to Dr. Wilkinson, it must be remarked that he was probably unacquainted with it when he wrote the above-cited preface, as it is not mentioned therein. In one of the "Memorable Fancies" of the book, and in the chapter of Comments succeeding it ("Life," i. 85, 86; more fully, Swinburne, 219, 221), Blake, wishing for such an alacrity in sinking as Falstaff attributed to his size (the which, by the way, we should have thought tended to buoyancy), desiring indeed to sink to about the depth indicated by the illustrious Sir John's, "if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down"; what enormous dead weight, what irresistible plummet of myriadfold leaden ponderosity, did he take to ensure his descent? Read:—
". . . then I flung myself with him directly into the body of the sun; here I clothed myself in white, and taking in my hand [it must have been a large one!] Swedenborg's volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed all the planets till we came to Saturn: here I stayed to rest, and then leaped into the void between Saturn and the fixed stars."
So much for Swedenborg in the Fancy; now for him in the Comments:—
"I have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.
