162 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 35., Aug. 30. '56. 



belonged to a collection of Newton papers bought 

 by the late Mr. Rodd in 1847. The address is 

 wanting ; but it is written to some Sir John of 

 Lincolnshire ; and the catalogue entry conjectures 

 that it is written to Sir John Newton (of Gunwar- 

 ley or Gunnerly, styled by Sir D. Brewster of 

 Hather), whom Newton acknowledged as a distant 

 relation. This matter is of little consequence, 

 and that little merely as follows : a distant relation 

 is more likely than no relation at all to have been 

 among the persons privy to the fact of the mar- 

 riage, if marriage there were. The letter is as 

 follows (I have put a few words in Italics) : — 



" Leicester Fields, 23 May, 1715. 

 " Sr John, — I am concerned that I must send an 

 excuse for not waiting upon you before your journey into 

 Lincolnshire. The concern I am in for the loss of my 

 Lord Halifax, and the circumstances in which I'stand re- 

 lated to his family will not suffer me to go abroad till his 

 funeral is over. And therefore I can only send this 

 letter to wish you and your Lady and family a good 

 journey into Lincolnshire, and all health and happiness 

 during your stay there. And upon your first return to 

 London I will wait upon you and endeavour by fre- 

 quenter visits to make amends for the defect of them at 

 present. I am, Sir, your most humble* and most obedient 

 servant, Isaac Newton." 



Newton thus distinctly informs us, that circum- 

 stances in which he stands related to Halifax's 

 family are such as conspire to prevent him from 

 paying visits till after the funeral : and that these 

 circumstances are worthy of being named next to 

 his concern for his oldest friend and political pa- 

 tron. Newton's relation to Halifax was of no 

 common kind. In 1680 they were working to- 

 gether to establish a Philosophical Society at 

 Cambridge. In 1688 they were jointly, and with 

 better success, trying their hands at a great revo- 

 lution, as members of the Convention. In 1696 

 they were again associated in the difficult opera- 

 tion of re-establishing the coinage. They had 

 been warm friends and official connexions through 

 the greater part of their working lives, and for 

 thirty-five years. The loss of Halifax would have 

 been very sufficient reason, and very notorious 

 reason, for Newton to assign in explanation of his 

 inability to pay visits before the funeral. But 

 there was something more ; something worthy to 

 be named after the first reason ; and something 

 sufficiently notorious for Sir John Newton, or 

 some other Sir John among Newton's visiting 

 friends, to understand without farther allusion. 



Did any circumstances relate Newton to any 

 other person of the blood of Charles Montague ? 



• A letter from Newton to Sir John Newton in the 

 April following (Edleston, Correspondence, Sfc, p. 307.), 

 begins " Sir John," and ends " Your affectionate kinsman 

 and most humble servant." But the variety of the 

 modes of address from one person to the same other 

 person at the period in question, and down to the end of 

 the century, must have been noticed by every one who 

 has paid attention to correspondence. 



The married names of two of the sisters, according 

 to the biographer, were Willmot and Cosby : of 

 another, according to Halifax's will, Lawton. The 

 index of Sir D. Brewster's book says, as to Mon- 

 tague, "see Halifax," and does not mention the 

 other names. Newton was not an executor. He 

 never received any patronage from any of Mon- 

 tague's family : they had none to give. Halifax 

 was himself the patron of his family, and had, not 

 long before his death, resigned the rich place of 

 Auditor of the Exchequer in favour of his nephew 

 George Montague, who succeeded him in the 

 barony. Other relatives, besides the successor and 

 sole executor, as named in the will, are Christo- 

 pher and James Montague, brothers; Edward 

 Montague and John Lawton, nephews ; Anne and 

 Grace Montague, nieces. With all or some of 

 these Newton was probably acquainted : but I am 

 not aware of positive evidence even of so much as 

 this. As to any circumstances relating Newton 

 to any one of them, or any other of Montague's 

 blood, there is not the smallest evidence of any 

 such things. For myself, as may be supposed, I 

 incline more strongly than before to the suppo- 

 sition that Halifax's family^ in the sense in which 

 the word is here used, consisted of a widow, 

 known as Catherine Barton, and Newton's niece. 

 I see in the phrase " circumstances in which I 

 stand related to his family," the cautious mode of 

 writing which I suppose to have become familiar 

 when allusion was made to the understood but 

 unacknowledged marriage. 



I now state another of the many little circum- 

 stances which all seem to converge to one point. 

 The periods are roughly stated. Newton lived in 

 London thirty years ; his niece must have finished 

 her education not long after he came to London 

 (1696). That she lived with him on leaving school 

 seems pretty certain. In 1700 Newton wrote a 

 letter (Brewster, ii. 213.) to her, then in the 

 country for recovery from the small-pox, which 

 has very much the air of a letter written to an 

 inmate of his own house during casual removal. 

 Sir D. Brewster puts it that she was (Do., 

 ii. 279.) boarded in Oxfordshire, where she had 

 the small-pox, and that she had not then ever 

 been an inmate of Newton's house : but the com- 

 mencement of the letter, in which Newton is 

 glad the air agrees with her, makes it appear 

 that she was removed there after the disorder : he 

 is glad that " the remains of the small-pox are 

 dropping off apace." And a little London cir- 

 cumstance is mentioned : " Sir Joseph Tilley is 

 leaving Mr. Toll's house, and it's probable I may 

 succeed him." Would the niece of twenty, 

 boarded till then in the country, be assumed by 

 Newton (hypotheses non fingo^ to be up to the 

 fact that Sir Joseph Tilley lived in Mr. Toll's 

 house ; or would Newton have previously laid 

 the foundation of this knowledge, apropos of no- 



