vest; and he was frequently sent on Saturday's to Grantham market, with corn and other commodities to sell, and to carry home what necessaries were proper to be bought at a market town for a family; but, on account of his youth, his mother used to send a trusty old servant along with him, to put him in the way of business. Their inn was at the Saracen's head, in West-gate, where, as soon as they had put up their horses, Isaac generally left the man to manage the marketing, and, retiring to Mr. Clark's garret, where he used to lodge, entertained himself with a parcel of old books till it was time to go home again; or else he would stop by the way, between home and Grantham, and lie under a hedge studying, till the man went to town and did the business, and called upon him in his way back. When at home, if his mother ordered him into the fields to look after the sheep, the corn, or upon any other rural employment, it went on very heavily under his management. His chief delight was to sit under a tree with a book in his hands, or to busy himself with his knife in cutting wood for models of somewhat or other that struck his fancy, or he would get to a stream and make mill-wheels.

This conduct of her son induced his mother to send him to Grantham school again for nine months; and then to Trinity college, Cambridge, where he was admitted June 5, 1660, and where he was soon noticed by Dr. Isaac Barrow, who perceived his talents, and contracted a great friendship for him. The progress of his studies here was of no common kind. He always informed himself beforehand of the books which his tutor intended to read, and when he came to the lectures he found he knew more of them than his tutor himself. The first books which he read for that purpose were Saunderson's Logic, and Kepler's Optics. A desire to know whether there was any thing in judicial astrology, first put him upon studying mathematics. He discovered the emptiness of that study as soon as he erected a figure; for which purpose he made use of two or three problems in Euclid, which he turned to by means of an index. He did not then read the rest, looking upon it as a book containing only plain and obvious things. This neglect of the ancient mathematicians, we are told by Dr. Pemberton, he afterwards regretted. The modern books which he read gave his mind, as he conceived, a wrong bias, vitiated his taste, and prevented him from attaining that elegance of demonstration which he

admired in the ancients. The first mathematical book that he read was Des Cartes's Geometry, and he made himself master of it by dint of genius and application, without going through the usual steps, or having the assistance of any person. His next book was the "Arithmetic of Infinites," by Dr. Wallis. On these books he wrote comments as he read them, and reaped a rich harvest of discoveries, or more properly, indeed, made almost all his mathematical discoveries as he proceeded in their perusal.

In 1664 he bought a prism, as appears by some of his own accounts of expences at Cambridge, to try some experiments upon Des Cartes's doctrine of colours, and soon satisfied himself that that philosopher's hypothesis was destitute of foundation; and the further prosecution of the subject satisfied him respecting the real nature of light and colours. He soon after drew up an account of his doctrine, which was published in the Philosophical Transactions, and unfortunately gave origin to a controversy between him and some foreign opticians, which produced an unhappy effect on his mind, and prevented him from publishing his mathematical discoveries, as he had originally intended. He communicated them, however, to Dr. Barrow, who sent an account of them to Collins and Oldenburg, and by that means they came to be known to the members of the royal society. He laid the foundation of all his discoveries before he was twenty-four years of age.

In contemplating his genius, it becomes a doubt which of these endowments had the greatest share, sagacity, penetration, strength, or diligence; and, after all, the mark that seems most to distinguish it is, that he himself made the justest estimation of it, declaring, that, if he had done the world any service, it was due to nothing but industry and patient thought; that he kept the subject under consideration constantly before him, and waited till the first dawning opened gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light *. And hence no doubt arose that unusual

*It is said that when he had any mathematical problems or solutions in his mind, he would never quit the subject on any account. And his servant has said, when he has been getting up in a morning, he has sometimes begun to dress, and with one leg in his breeches, sat down again on the bed, where he has remained for hours before he has got his clothes on and

that dinner has been often three hours ready for him before he could be brought to table. Upon this head several little anecdotes are related; among which is the following: doctor Stukely coming in accidentally one day, when Newton's dinner was left for him upon the table, covered up, as usual, to keep it warm till he could find it convenient to come to table

kind of horror which he had for all disputes; a steady unbroken attention, free from those frequent recoilings inseparably incident to others, was his peculiar felicity; he knew it, and he knew the value of it. No wonder then that controversy was looked on as his bane, when some objections, hastily made to his discoveries concerning light and colours, induced him to lay aside the design he had of publishing his optic lectures; we find him reflecting on that dispute, into which he was unavoidably drawn thereby, in these terms: "I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so real a blessing as my quiet to run after a shadow." It is true, this shadow, as Fontenelle observes, did not escape him afterwards, nor did it cost him that quiet which he so much valued, but proved as much a real happiness to him as his quiet itself; yet this was a happiness of his own making; he took a resolution, from these disputes, not to publish any more about that theory, till he had put it above the reach of controversy, by the exactest experiments, and the strictest demonstrations; and, accordingly, it has never been called in question since.

In 1665, when he retired to his own estate on account of the plague, the idea of his system of gravitation first occurred to him in consequence of seeing an apple fall from a tree. This remarkable apple-tree is still remaining, and is usually shown to strangers as a curiosity. At that time, not being in possession of any accurate measure of the earth's surface, he estimated the force of gravity erro neously, and found, in consequence, that it was not capable alone of retaining the moon in her orbit. This in

the doctor lifting the cover, found under it a chicken, which he presently ate, putting the bones in the dish, and replacing the cover. Some time after, Newton came into the room, and after the usual compliments sat down to his dinner; but, on taking up the cover, and seeing only the bones of the fowl left, he observed, with some little surprise, "I thought I had not dined, but I now find that I have."-Of the mildness of his temper, the following instance has been given. Sir Isaac had a favourite little dog, which he called Diamond. Being one day called out of his study into the next room, Diamond was left behind. When sir Isaac returned, having been absent but a few minutes, he had the mortificaVOL. XXIII.

tion to find that Diamond having overset a lighted candle among some papers, the nearly finished labour of many years was in flames, and almost consumed to ashes. This loss, as sir Isaac was then very far advanced in years, was irretrievable; yet, without once striking the dog, he only rebuked him with this exclamation, "Oh Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done!" He was indeed of so meek and gentle a disposition, and so great a lover of peace, that he would rather have chosen to remain in obscurity, than to have the calm of life ruffled by those storms and disputes, which genius and learning always draw upon those that are the most eminent for them.

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duced him to dismiss his hypothesis at that time as erroneous. But afterwards, when Picard had measured a degree of the earth's surface with tolerable accuracy, he was enabled to make a more precise estimate, and found that the force of gravity exactly accounted for the moon's motion in her orbit. He applied his doctrine to the planets and the whole solar system, and found it to account, in a satisfactory manner, for the whole phænomena of the motions of these bodies.

In

In 1664 he took his bachelor's degree, and in 1667 he was elected fellow of Trinity college. The following year he took his master's degree, and in 1669 Dr. Barrow resigned his mathematical professorship to him. In 1671 he was elected fellow of the royal society. It has been asserted that at this time he was so poor that he was obliged to apply to the society for a dispensation from the usual contribution of a shilling a week, which all the fellows of the society regularly paid. But this, in the opinion of his excellent biographer, whom we principally follow, seems doubtful. His estates, for he had two, were worth about 80%. a year, which, added to his fellowship and professorship, must have been sufficient for such a trifling expence. He had indeed his mother and her family to support, but when we consider the expence of living at this time, Mr. Newton, with about 200l. a year, his probable income, could not be reckoned a poor man. 1675 he had a dispensation from king Charles II. to retain his fellowship without taking orders. In 1687 he was chosen one of the delegates to represent the university of Cambridge, before the high commission court, to answer for their refusing to admit father Francis master of arts upon king James's mandamus, without his taking the oaths. prescribed by the statutes; and was greatly instrumental in persuading his colleagues to persist in the maintenance of their rights and privileges. So strenuous indeed was the defence which he made, that James, infatuated as he was at this time, thought proper to drop his pretensions. In 1688 he was chosen by the university of Cambridge, member of the convention parliament, and was again chosen in 1701. In 1696, the earl of Halifax, at that time Mr. Montague, and chancellor of the exchequer, who was a great patron of the learned, wrote to him that he had prevailed on the king to make him warden of the mint, a place worth five or six hundred pounds a year, and which Mr. Mon

tague stated would not require more attendance than he could spare. In this office he did signal service in the great re-coinage which took place soon after, and is said to have saved the nation 80,000l. In 1699 he was made master and worker of the mint, in which situation he continued until his death, and behaved himself with an universal character of integrity and disinterestedness. He had frequent opportunities of employing his skill in mathematics and chemistry, particularly in his "Table of Assays of Foreign Coins," which is printed at the end of Dr. Arbuthnot's book of coins.

In 1701 he made Mr. Whiston his deputy professor of mathematics at Cambridge, and gave him all the salary from that time, though he did not absolutely resign the professorship till 1703, in which year he was chosen president of the royal society, and continued to fill that honourable situation till the time of his death. On April 16, 1705, he was knighted by queen Anne, at Trinity college lodge, Cambridge.

While at the university, he spent the greatest part of his time in his closet, and when he was tired with the severer studies of philosophy, his relief and amusement was going to some other study, as history, chronology, divinity, chemistry; all which he examined with the greatest attention, as appears by the many papers which he left behind him on those subjects. After his coming to London*, all the time he could spare from his business, and from the civilities of life, in which he was scrupulously exact and complaisant, was employed in the same way; and he was hardly ever alone without a pen in his hand, and a book before him: and in all the studies which he undertook, he had a perseverance and patience equal to his sagacity and invention. His niece, afterwards married to Mr. Conduitt, who succeeded him as master of the mint, lived with him about twenty years during his residence in London. He always lived in a very handsome, generous manner, though without ostentation or vanity; always hospitable, and, upon proper occasions, he gave splendid entertainments. He was generous and charitable without bounds; and he used to say that they who gave away

* His London residence was chiefly at a house at the corner of Long's court, in St Martin's street, Leicesterfields, on the roof of which he built a

small observatory. This was afterwards occupied for many years by the late venerable Dr. Burney.