their author, is to us, and, we believe, to every Englishman, utterly incomprehensible. The story of the burning of the papers about 1691 or 1692, is entirely fabulous ;1 but even if it were true, it produced no effect upon Newton's mind. His illness at that time, the want of his usual consistency of mind, a condition which every deepthinker must have experienced, arose, as he himself distinctly declares, from want of sleep and appetite during the preceding year.

"Is it then," says M. Biot, "going too far to see in the incoherence of these letters (the letters to Flamsteed) a fatal resemblance to those which Newton wrote to Pepys and Locke two years before, and almost in the same months? Do we not equally discover in them the morbid irritability of a mind fatigued by the continuity of its meditations, and which, according to the avowal of Newton himself, could no longer sustain such great efforts ?2 And if it be true that, at the end of 1692, the fire which destroyed a part of his works had already produced in him moral symptoms of the same kind, still more distressing, why should we be surprised to see him brought back to it by the renewal of researches as profound and as fatiguing on account of the vagueness of the data at his command, as were those which he executed and attempted on refractions and the lunar theory, from the months of October 1694 to September 1695, as we have already related. This was his last spark.”3

M. Biot has expressed his surprise at the sensitiveness of Englishmen, on the allegation that Newton" had

1 We have already shewn that this accident happened before 1684.

2 Newton has made no such avowal. Biot quotes, in support of his allegation, Newton's declaration to Locke, that "he had not his former consistency of mind," —a mere temporary state, from which he completely recovered. 3 Journal des Savans, November 1836, p. 657.

fallen into phrenitis,"—that is, was insane in 1692; but, however great that surprise may be, it cannot be equal to that which they feel at his persisting in the statement, and at the offensive aggravation of it, which is contained in the preceding extract. Before M. Biot had read the letters to Flamsteed, he had declared that Newton's intellect was permanently weakened by his illness of 1692, and yet he now finds, by the perusal of these letters, that Newton had put forth his highest powers two years after that event! But what surprises and offends us, and what must offend every friend of truth and of genius, at his new allegation, that Newton's great intellectual efforts in 1694 and 1695 brought him back into his phrenitis of 1692, from which he never recovered his usual powers of invention and discovery. His letters to Flamsteed exhibit no such symptoms,-no incoherence of mind, and no failure of a mental or moral nature. In 1696, when he exchanged the daily pursuit of science for the active and engrossing duties of official life, he was capable of developing the highest powers of his genius. He displayed them in the preparation of the second edition of the Principia, and in his Optics. They appeared fresh and vigorous during the fluxionary controversy. They shone with a more subdued light in the discharge of his duties at the Mint; and no period of his life can be named when his intellectual arm was shortened, or his mental eye was dim. Even in extreme old age, his robust frame protected from decay the bright spirit which it inclosed, and, ripe for the spiritual world which he had ever contemplated as his home, he adorned the last years of his long and honoured life with the humility of the sage and the graces of the Christian.

CHAPTER XIX.

NO MARK OF NATIONAL GRATITUDE CONFERRED UPON NEWTON-FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN HIM AND CHARLES MONTAGUE, AFTERWARDS EARL OF HALIFAX-MONTAGUE APPOINTED CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER IN 1694-HE RESOLVES UPON A RE-COINAGE-HIS LETTER NOMINATING NEWTON WARDEN OF THE MINT IN 1696-NEWTON APPOINTED MASTER OF THE MINT WHEN MONTAGUE WAS FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYHIS REPORT ON THE COINAGE-ANECDOTE OF HIS INTEGRITY WHEN OFFERED A BRIBE-HE OBTAINS FOR HALLEY THE DEPUTY-COMPTROLLERSHIP OF THE MINT AT CHESTER-QUARRELS AMONG THE OFFICERS THERE-DISTURBANCES IN THE LONDON MINT-NEW MISUNDERSTANDING WITH FLAMSTEED-REMARKABLE LETTER TO HIM FROM NEWTON -NEWTON'S Conduct defended-the frENCH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES REMODELLED-NEWTON ELECTED ONE OF THE EIGHT FOREIGN ASSOCIATES-M. GEOFFROY DESCRIBES TO DR. SLOANE THE CHANGE IN THE ACADEMY-NEWTON RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP AT CAMBRIDGE-WHISTON APPOINTED HIS SUCCESSOR-NEWTON ELECTED MEMBER FOR THE UNIVERSITY IN 1701, AND PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY IN 1703-QUEEN ANNE CONFERS UPON HIM THE HONOUR of KNIGHTHOOD IN 1705-LOVE-LETTER TO LADY NORRIS-HIS LETTER TO HIS NIECE, MISS C. BARTON-ACCOUNT OF SIR WILLIAM AND LADY NORRIS-LETTERS OF NEWTON ABOUT STANDING FOR THE UNIVERSITY IN 1705-LETTERS OF HALIFAX TO NEWTON ON THAT OCCASIONNEWTON AND GODOLPHIN DEFEATED.

HITHERTO We have viewed Newton chiefly as a philosopher, leading a life of seclusion within the walls of a college, and either engaged in the duties of the Lucasian Chair, or constantly occupied in mathematical and scientific inquiries. He had now reached the fifty-third year of his age, and though his friends had exerted themselves to procure him some permanent appointment, they had failed in the attempt. An event, however, now occurred

which relieved him from his labours at Cambridge, and placed him in a situation of affluence and honour.

Among his friends at Cambridge, Newton had the good fortune to number Charles Montague, fourth son of George Montague, Esq. of Harton in Northamptonshire, whose father was Henry, first Earl of Manchester. He was born on the 16th April 1661, and exhibited early indications of genius and talent. From Westminster school, where he was elected King's Scholar, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Fellow Commoner on the 19th November 1679, and received the degree of M. A. by royal mandate on the 6th October 1681. Here he became acquainted with Newton, and though devoted to literary pursuits, an ardent friendship arose between them which various causes contributed to strengthen and maintain. In the year 1685, when Montague was only twenty-three years of age, we find him co-operating with Newton and others in establishing a Philosophical Society at Cambridge; but though both of them had made personal application to different individuals to become members, yet the plan failed from the want of persons willing to try experiments, and from the refusal of one individual on whom they relied for that species of assistance.

While yet at college, Mr. Montague was brought into notice by a poem which he wrote on the death of Charles II. in 1685. The Earl of Dorset, who happened to admire it, invited him to London, where an incident occurred which led him on to fortune." Having, in conjunction with Matthew Prior, published a poem entitled "The Hind and the Panther, transversed to the Story of the Country Mouse, and the City Mouse," his patron the Earl of Dorset introduced him to King William in the following manner: "May it please your Majesty, I have brought

a mouse to have the honour of kissing your hand,” and having learned the reason why Mr. Montague was so called, he smiled and replied, " you will do well to put me in the way of making a man of him," and he immediately gave orders that a pension of five hundred pounds per annum should be paid to him out of the privy purse till an opportunity should occur of giving him an appointment. When Prior learned the good fortune of the more favoured mouse, he wittily exclaimed

"My friend Charles Montague's preferred,

Nor could I have it long observed

That one mouse eats, while t'other's starved."

In 1687, when Newton was occupied with the completion of his Principia, he was in correspondence with Montague, whom he characterizes as his "intimate friend," and notwithstanding the contrariety of their pursuits, and the great difference of their age, the young statesman cherished for the philosopher all the veneration of a disciple, and his affection for him gathered new strength as he rose to the highest offices and honours of the state.

Mr. Montague sat along with Newton in the Convention Parliament, and such were his habits of business, and the powers which he displayed as a public speaker, that he was appointed a Commissioner of the Treasury, and soon afterwards a Privy Councillor. In 1694 he was elevated to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer; and as the current coin of the realm had been adulterated and debased, one of his earliest designs was to re-coin it and restore it to its original value. In 1698 he was appointed First Commissioner of the Treasury, and one of the Lords Jus

1 See Vol. I. APPENDIX, p. 455.