24* Biographical Account of [Oct. 



as she could, she recalled her son from school, in order to make 

 him serviceable al Woolsthorp, in managing the farm and 

 country business. Here he was employed in superintending the 

 tillage, grazing, and harvest; and he was frequently sent on 

 Saturdays to Grantham market, with corn and other commodi- 

 ties 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 Westgate, where, as soon as they had put 

 up their horses, Isaac generally left the man to manage the 

 marketing, and, retiring to Mr. Clarke'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 on 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, in Cambridge, where he was admitted theoth of June, 

 1660. 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 him- 

 self. 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, he conceived, a wrong bias, vitiated his 

 taste, and prevented him from attaining that elegance of demon- 

 stration which he admired in the ancients. The first mathema- 

 tical book that he read was Descartes' Geometry; and he made 

 himself master of it by dint of genius and application, without 



» The preceding details were collected upon the spot, by Dr. Stukely, from 

 Sir Isaac'i schoolfellows, and the companions of his boyhood. 



