202 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



The most active and powerful minds at Cam- 

 bridge became at once disciples and followers of 

 Newton. Samuel Clarke, afterwards his friend, 

 defended in the public schools a thesis taken from 

 his philosophy, as early as 1694; and in 1697 pub- 

 lished an edition of Rohault's Physics, with notes, 

 in which Newton is frequently referred to with 

 expressions of profound respect, though the lead- 

 ing doctrines of the Principia are not introduced 

 till a later edition, in 1703. In 1699 Bentley, 

 whom we have already mentioned as a Newtonian, 

 became master of Trinity College ; and in the same 

 year, Whiston, another of Newton's disciples, was 

 appointed his deputy as professor of mathematics. 

 Whiston delivered the Newtonian doctrines, both 

 from the professor's chair, and in works written 

 for the use of the University ; yet it is remarkable 

 that a taunt respecting the late introduction of the 

 Newtonian system into the Cambridge course of 

 education, has been founded on some peevish ex- 

 pressions which he uses in his Memoirs, written at 

 a period when, having incurred expulsion from his 

 professorship and the University, he was naturally 

 querulous and jaundiced in his views. In 1709-10 

 Dr. Laughton, who was tutor in Clare Hall, pro- 

 cured himself to be appointed moderator of the 

 University disputations, in order to promote the 

 diffusion of the new mathematical doctrines. By 

 this time the first edition of the Principia was be- 

 come rare, and fetched a great price. Bentley urged 



