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EXTRACTS.

Letter to Dean Swift just before the loss of his

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IF I tell my dear friend the value I put upon his undeserved friendship, it will look like suspecting you or myself. Though I have had no power since July 25, 1713, I believe now as a private man, I may prevail to renew your licence of absence, conditionally you will be present with me; for to-morrow morning I shall be a private person. When I have settled my domestic affairs here, I go to Wimpole; thence, alone, to Herefordshire. If I have not tired you, tête-a-tête, fling away so much time upon one who loves you. And, I believe, in the mass of souls ours were placed near each other. I send you an imitation of Dryden, as I went to Kensington:

To serve with love

And shed your blood,
Approved is above:

But here below

Th' examples show, 'Tis fatal to be good.'

Aug. 6, 1717.

'Two years' retreat has made me taste the conversation of my dearest friend with a greater relish, than even at the time of my being charmed with it in our frequent journeys to Windsor, Three of your letters have come safe to my hands: the first about two years since (that, my son keeps as a familymonument); the other two arrived since the first of July. My heart is often with you; but I delayed

writing, in expectation of giving a perfect answer about my going to Brampton: but the truth is, the warmth of rejoicing in these parts is so far from abating, that I am persuaded by my friends to go into Cambridgeshire, where you are too just not to believe you will be welcome before any one in the world. The longing your friends have to see you must be submitted to the judgement yourself makes of all circumstances. At present, this seems to be a cooler climate, than your island is likely to be when they assemble, &c. Our impatience to see you should not draw you into uneasiness. We long to embrace you, if you find it may be of no inconvenience to yourself,'

245

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.*

[1642-1726.]

MR. ISAAC NEWTON, the father of the Philosopher, was descended from an ancient family, which resided successively at Newton in Lancashire, and Westby and Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. At the latter place, a hamlet of Colsterworth, this prodigy of philosophical learning was born on Christmas Day, 1642, about three months after his father's death.

Two years afterward, his mother (a lady of an ancient family of the name of Ayscough) engaged in a second marriage, by which she had three other children. Being a woman of good sense, she did not neglect to take a becoming care of her son's education. At twelve years of age, she put him to the Grammar School at Grantham, where he was remarked for his mechanical inventions and models; having even discovered a rude method of estimating the course of the wind, by observing how much farther he could leap in it's direction than the contrary way. But, as his mother did not intend to breed him a scholar, after he had remained there some

* AUTHORITIES. Biographia Britannica, Pemberton's Review of Newton's Philosophy,' Birch's History of the Royal Society,' and Whiston's Memoirs.

years, she took him home, that he might betimes become interested in his own affairs, and be the sooner able to manage them himself. Upon trial, however, he showed so little disposition to turn his thoughts that way, and at the same time attached himself so closely to his studies, that on the suggestion of an uncle of his, a clergyman, she thought it best to send him back to Grantham; whence, at eighteen years of age, he removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his uncle above-mentioned had been a member, and still retained many friends.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the study of the mathematics had been introduced into that University. The elements of geometry and algebra thenceforth became, generally, one branch of a tutor's lectures; and Newton, on his admission, found Mr. (afterward Dr.) Barrow Fellow of his College. Mr. Lucas, also, dying shortly afterward, left by his will an appointment for founding his mathematical lecture, which was settled in 1663, and honoured by Barrow as it's first Professor.

Newton therefore, by turning his thoughts to mathematical studies, seems to have complied at once with his own particular passion, and the general taste of the place; with a genius however infinitely superior to all who had gone before him, or who have followed.

In his outset, he took up Euclid's Elements;' and after once running his eye over it, became master of every proposition. The youthful vigour of his understanding would not suffer him coolly to contem-. plate the singular excellence of that author's mode of demonstration, by which the whole series and

connexion of the truths advanced is continually kept in view. This neglect he discovered, and lamented, in his riper age: but his ingenuousness in confessing to Dr. Pemberton an error, which otherwise nobody could have surmised, and that too after he was equally full of years and honours, was in him only a slender instance of the most amiable simplicity of disposition.

The truth is, when he first went to Cambridge, the popular theorist was Des Cartes, who had greatly extended the bounds of algebra in the way of expressing geometrical lines by algebraical equations, and had thus introduced a new method of treating geometry.

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This new analytical way Newton speedily examined, and appreciated; but having sounded the depth of that author's understanding, without feeling the extent of his own, he proceeded to read those pieces of Dr. Wallis which were then printed, and particu larly his Arithmetica Infinitorum.' Here he first found what set his boundless talents to work, and led him by degrees to the invention of his New Method of Infinite Series and Fluxions,' which after about two years' close application to the best mathematical writers then extant, he published in 1665.

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About this period he observed, that the principal Professors were busied in making improvements upon telescopes; and he threw aside all abstract speculations, to engage in this more useful study.

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Des Cartes in his Dioptrics,' the best of his phi losophical performances, conceiving that light was homogeneous, had upon this principle first discovered the laws of refraction, and demonstrated that the

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