422 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



members of the Royal Society, appear to have embraced the system 

 immediately and zealously. Men whose pursuits had lain rather in 

 literature than in science, and who had riot the knowledge and habits 

 of mind which the strict study of the system required, adopted, on the 

 credit of their mathematical friends, the highest estimation of the Priii- 

 cipia, and a strong regard for its author, as Evelyn, Locke, and Pepys. 

 Only five years after the publication, the principles of the work were 

 referred to from the pulpit, as so incontestably proved that they might 

 be made the basis of a theological argument. This was done by Dr. 

 Bentley, when he preached the Boyle's Lectures in London, in 1692. 

 Newton himself, from the time when his work appeared, is never men- 

 tioned except in terms of profound admiration ; as, for instance, when 

 he is called by Dr. Bentley, in his sermon, 1 " That very excellent and 

 divine theorist, Mr. Isaac Newton." It appears to have been soon sug- 

 gested, that the Government ought to provide in some way for a per- 

 son who was so great an honor to the nation. Some delay took place 

 with regard to this; but, in 1695, his friend Mr. Montague, afterwards 

 Earl of Halifax, at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer, made him 

 Warden of the Mint; and in 1699, he succeeded to the higher office 

 of Master of the Mint, a situation worth 1200 or 1500 a year, which 

 he filled to the end of his life. In 1703, he became President of the 

 Royal Society, and was annually re-elected to this office during the 

 remaining twenty-five years of his life. In 1705, he was knighted in 

 the Master's Lodge, at Trinity College, by Queen Anne, then on a visit 

 to the University of Cambridge. After the accession of George the 

 First, Newton's conversation was frequently sought by the Princess, 

 afterwards Queen Caroline, who had a taste for speculative studies, and 

 was often heard to declare in public, that she thought herself fortunate 

 in living at a time which enabled her to enjoy the society of so great 

 a genius. His fame, and the respect paid him, went on increasing to 

 the end of his life; and when, in 1727, full of years and glory, his 

 earthly career was ended, his death was mourned as a national calam- 

 ity, with the forms usually confined to royalty. His body lay in state 

 in the Jerusalem chamber; his pall was borne by the first nobles of 

 the land ; and his earthly remains were deposited in the centre of 

 Westminster Abbey, in the midst of the memorials of the greatest and 

 wisest men whom England has produced. 

 It cannot be superfluous to say a word or two on the reception oi 



1 Scrm. vii. 21. 



