_Anastasius Hope_
Keswick, 15 _July_, 1831.
... Have you seen the strange book which Anastasius Hope left
for publication, and which his representatives, in spite of all
dissuasion, have published? His notion of immortality and heaven is,
that at the consummation of all things he, and you, and I, and John
Murray, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat man, and the living
skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot Venus, and Thurtell,
and Probert, and the twelve Apostles, and the noble army of martyrs,
and Genghis Khan, and all his armies, and Noah with all his ancestors
and all his posterity--yea, all men and all women, and all children
that have ever been or ever shall be, saints and sinners alike--are
all to be put together, and made into one great celestial eternal
human being. He does not seem to have known how nearly this approaches
to Swedenborg's fancy. I do not like the scheme. I don't like the
notion of being mixed up with Hume, and Hunt, and Whittle Harvey, and
Philpotts, and Lord Althorpe, and the Huns, and the Hottentots, and
the Jews, and the Philistines, and the Scotch, and the Irish. God
forbid! I hope to be I myself; I, in an English heaven, with you
yourself--you, and some others, without whom heaven would be no heaven
to me. God bless you!