ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



NOVEMBER, 1813. 



Article I. 



Biographical Account of Sir Isaac Newton, 



(Continued from p. 247.) 



AT the University of Cambridge, he spent the greatest part of 

 his time in his closet ; and when he was tired with the severer 

 studies of philosophy, his relief and amusement was going to 

 some other study, as history, chronology, divinity, chemistry; 

 all of which he examined with the greatest attention, as appears 

 hy the many papers which he left behind him on those subjects. 

 After his coming to London, all the time that he had to spare 

 from his business, and from the civilities of life, in which he 

 was scrupulously exact and complaisant, was employed in the 

 same way : he was hardly ever alone without a pen in his 

 hand, and a book before him ; and in all the 9tudies which he 

 undertook, he had a perseverance and patience equal to his 

 sagacity and invention. His niece, afterwards married to Mr, 

 Conduitt, who succeeded him as Master of the Mint, lived with 

 him about twenty years, during his residence in London. He 

 always lived in a very handsome, generous manner, though with- 

 out ostentation or vanity ; always hospitable, and, upon proper 

 occasions, he gave splendid entertainments. He was generous 

 and charitable without hounds ; and he used to say, that they 

 who gave away nothing till they died never gave. 'I bis, perhaps, 

 was one reason why lie never made a will. Scarcely any man of 

 bis circumstances ever gave away so much, during his own life 

 time, in alms, in encouraging ingenuity and learning, and to his 



Vol. II. iV V. X 



