liam Cowper, the celebrated poet. The former, conceiv ing a high idea of the integrity and usefulness of Mr. Newton in this parish, determined to allow him a certain sum (2001. a year) with which he wished him to keep open house for such as were worthy of entertainment, and to help the poor and needy. Mr. Newton reckoned that he had received of Mr. Thornton upwards of 3000l. in this way during his residence at Olney, a sum which, however great, will not surprize those who knew the extent of Mr. Thornton's liberality. His intimacy with Cowper forms one of the most interesting periods of that poet's life. To what is said in our account of Cowper (vol. X. p. 405, &c.) we have only to regret in this place that much information has been lost to the public by the suppression of Mr. Newton's letters to his afflicted friend. These letters must have been in Cowper's possession; but what became of them after his death has never been explained. Had they appeared, they probably would have established beyond all power of contradiction, that no part of Cowper's deplorable melancholy was attributable to his connection with Mr. Newton, or with men of his principles. Mr. Newton was himself a man of remarkable cheerfulness of disposition, and had a particular talent in administering consolation to those whose uneasiness arose from religious affections, nor was he easily mistaken in separating real concern from affectation. It appears that Mr. Newton was once in possession of a life of Cowper, written by himself, at the ealmest period of his life; some facts from this have been communicated to the public by his biographer, but more remains, which we have been told would have thrown additional light on Mr. Cowper's remarkable history. In 1779 Mr. Newton was removed from Olney to be rector of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch Haw, Lombard-street, on the presentation of his steady friend Mr. Thornton, and continued his labours in this place during life. Few men had more the art of attracting friendship; and his congregation, which increased every day, became attached to him in a degree which time has not yet abated. One trait in his character added much to his usefulness; his benevolence was most extensive; his house was open to the afflicted of every description; gratitude appears to have been his predominant virtue; he never for a moment forgot the wretched state from which Providence had raised him, and this thankfulness continually operated in endeavours to relieve the wants of others. He never knew how to refuse applications from the distressed, and his sympathy often drew such nearer him than a man more studious of domestic quiet would have wished. However liberal in affording an asylum to poor persons of whom he had a good opinion, he was, like Dr. Johnson, often the only person in his house who exhibited a contented mind and a thankful heart. Among his other services of no small importance, was his kind patronage of young men intended for the church. Some of these he had frequently about him, and assisted them either from his own scanty means, or by recommending them to his opulent friends, with whom Mr. Newton's recommendations were decisive. It may now be mentioned, that the world owes the character and services of the late Dr. Claudius Buchanan to Mr. Newton, as will appear more particularly when the life of that gentleman shall be exhibited to the world. The early part of it was almost as unpromising as that of Mr. Newton himself. Mr. Newton died Dec. 31, 1807, and was buried in the rector's vault of his church. His faculties experienced some decay during the last two or three years, but his conversation at times exhibited his usual powers, and that original turn of thinking and expression which, in his former days, rendered his company equally pleasant and edifying. In 1750 he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. George Catlet, of Chatham, ip Kent, who died in 1790, but had no issue by her. His principal works, of which a complete edition was published soon after his death, consist of sermons, preached and published at various times; the narrative of his life, published in 1764; "Review of Ecclesiastical History," on the plan which Mr. Milner afterwards pursued; "Hymns," some of which are by Cowper; "Cardiphonia;" and the "Messiah," a series of sermons on the words of the celebrated oratorio. His "Life" was written by the late rev. Richard Cecil, and is published in 12mo. To this we owe the above sketch. ' - NEWTON (SIR ISAAC), the most splendid genius that bas yet adorned human nature, and by universal consent placed at the head of mathematics and of science, was born on Christmas-day, O. S. 1642, at Woolsthorpe, in the parish of Colsterworth, in the county of Lincoln. When 1 Life as above. born he was so little, that his mother used to say he might have been put into a quart mug, and so unlikely to live, that two women who were sent to lady Pakenham's, at North Witham, for something for him, did not expect to find him alive at their return. He was born near three months after the death of his father, who was descended from the eldest branch of the family of sir John Newton, bart. and was lord of the manor of Woolsthorpe. The family came originally from Newton, in the county of Lancaster, from which, probably, they took their name. His mother was Hannah Ayscough, of an ancient and honourable family in the county of Lincoln. She was married a second time to the rev. Barnabas Smith, rector of North Witham, a rich old bachelor, and had by him a son and two daughters. Previously, however, to her marriage, she settled some land upon Isaac. Isaac. He went to two little day-schools at Skillington and Stoke till he was twelve years old, when he was sent to the great school at Grantham, under Mr. Stokes, who had the character of being a very good schoolmaster. While at Grantham he boarded in the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary, whose brother was at that time usher of the school. Here he soon gave proofs of a surprizing genius, and astonished his acquaintances by his mechanical contrivances. Instead of playing among other boys, he always busied himself in making curiosities, and models of wood of different kinds. For this purpose he got little saws, hatchets, hammers, and all sorts of tools, which he knew how to use with great dexterity. He even went so far as to make a wooden clock. A new windmill was set up about this time near Grantham in the way to Gunnerby. Young Newton's imitating genius was excited, and by frequently prying into the fabric of it, as they were making it, he contrived to make a very perfect model, which was considered at least equal to the workmanship of the original. This sometimes he set upon the house-top where he lodged, and clothing it with sails, the wind readily turned it. He put a mouse into this machine, which he called his miller, and he contrived matters so that the mouse would turn round the mill whenever he thought proper. He used to joke too about the miller eating the corn that was put into the mill. Another of his contrivances was a water-clock, which he made out of a box that he begged from the brother of his landlord's wife. It was about four feet in height, and of a proportional breadth. There was a dial-plate at top with figures for the hours. The index was turned by a piece of wood which either fell or rose by water dropping. This stood in the room where he lay, and he took care every morning to supply it with its proper quantity of water. These fancies sometimes engrossed so much of his thoughts that he was apt to neglect his book, and dull boys were now and then put over him in his form. But this made him redouble his pains to overtake them, and such was his capacity that he could soon do it, and outstrip them when he pleased: and this was taken notice of by his master. He used himself to relate that he was very negligent at school, and very low in it till the boy above him gave him a kick which put him to great pain. Not content with having threshed his adversary, Isaac could not rest till he had got before him in the school, and from that time he continued rising until he was head-boy. Still, no disappointments of the above kind could induce him to lay aside his mechanical inventions; but during holidays, and every moment allotted to play, he employed himself in knocking and hammering in his lodging-room, pursuing the strong bent of his inclination, not only in things serious, but in ludicrous contrivances, calculated to please his school-fellows as well as himself; as, for example, paper kites, which he first introduced at Grantham, and of which he took pains to find out their proper proportion and figures, and the proper place for fixing the string to them. He made lanterns of paper crimpled, which he used to go to school by in winter mornings with a candle, and he tied them to the tails of his kites in a dark night, which at first frightened the country people exceedingly, who took his candles for comets. He was no less diligent in observing the motion of the sun, especially in the yard of the house where he lived, against the wall and roof, wherein he drove pegs, to mark the hours and half hours made by the shade. These, by some years' observation, he made so exact that any body knew what o'clock it was by Isaac's dial, as they usually called it. His turn for drawing, which he acquired without any assistance, was equally remarkable with his mechanical inventions. He filled his whole room with pictures of his own making, copied partly from prints, and partly from the life. Among others were portraits of several of the 2 kings, of Dr. Donne, and of Mr. Stokes, bis schoolmaster. He informed Mr. Conduitt, his nephew, that he had also a facility in making verses. This is the more remarkable, as he had been heard to express a contempt for poetry. Hence it is probable, that the following lines, which he wrote under the portrait of Charles I. were of his own composition. They were given by Dr. Stukely, from Mrs. Vincent, who repeated them from memory: "A secret art my soul requires to try, If prayers can give me what the wars deny. Is full of bliss, and of eternity." If Newton wrote these lines, it must be remembered that they were written when he was only a boy at school. Mrs. Vincent was neice to the wife of sir Isaac's landlord at Grantham, and lived with him in the same house. According to her account, he very seldom joined with his school-fellows in their boyish amusements, but chose rather to be at home, even among the girls, and would frequently make little tables, cupboards, and other utensils, for her and her play-fellows to set their babies and trinkets in. She mentioned likewise a cart, which he made with four wheels, in which he would sit, and by turning a windlass about, make it carry bim round the house wherever he pleased. He is said to have contracted an attachment to Mrs. Vincent, whose maiden name was Storey, and would have married her, but being himself a fellow of a college, with hardly any other income, and she having little or no fortune of her own, he judged it imprudent to enter into any matrimonial connection. But he continued to visit her as long as he lived, after her marriage, and repeatedly supplied her with money when she wanted it. During all this time the mother of sir Isaac lived at North Witham, with her second husband; but, upon his death, she returned to Woolsthorpe, and in order to save expences as much as she could, she recalled her son from school, in order to make him serviceable at Woolsthorpe, in managing the farm and country business. Here he was employed in superintending the tillage, grazing, and har |