ioo6 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Decemhcr 1, 1913. 



as a scholar and poet. His Latin poems 

 placed him in the first rank of English 

 poets. He became " secretar}^ of foreign 

 tongues " under Oliver Cromwell. His 

 Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio (165 1) 

 made him famous all over Europe, but 

 cost him his eyesight. " Paradise Lost " 

 was dictated after he was blind. The 

 copyright in this marvellous poem was 

 sold for £^ (about ^^15 to-day). 



George Washington, one of the great- 

 est Englishmen ever born, died on De- 

 cember 14th, 1799. The life of Wash- 

 ington is the story of the birth, and pro- 

 gress of the United States. Isaac 

 Walton, the author of the inimitable 

 " Complete Anglers," died December 

 15th, 1682. Other notable births in this 

 month were John Greenleaf Whittier, 

 the Quaker poet, who was born Decem- 

 ber 17 th, 1807. Samuel Smiles, of 

 " Self-Help " fame, saw the light on De- 

 cember 23rd, 1 81 2, at Haddington, Scot- 

 land. George Crabbe, the poet, of Aid- 

 borough, was born December 24th, 1754. 

 Thomas Gray, whose Elegy is learned 

 wherever the English tongue is spoken, 

 was born in London, December 26th, 

 17 16. He was offered the Laureateship 

 and refused it. 



Sir Isaac Newton, the author of 

 " Principia," the demonstrator of the 

 law of gravitation, the inventor of the 

 sextant, one of the greatest men of all 

 tune, was born on December 25th, 1642, 

 in Lincolnshire. Curiously enough 

 Galileo died in that year. 



Brewster, in his life of Newton, gives 

 chis description of him as a schoolboy : 

 ■ — " According to information which Sir 

 Isaac Newton himself gave, he seems to 

 have been very inattentive to his studies, 

 and very low in the school. The boy. 



however, who was above him, having one 

 day given him a severe kick upon the 

 stomach, from which he suffered great 

 pain, Isaac laboured incessantly till he 

 got above him in school, and from that 

 time he continued to rise, until he was 

 the head boy. From the habits of appli- 

 cation which this incident had led him 

 to form, the peculiar character of his 

 mind was speedily displayed. During 

 the hours of play, when the other boys 

 were occupied with their amusements, 

 his mind was engrossed with mechani- 

 cal contrivances, either in imitation of 

 something which he had seen, or in exe- 

 cution of some original conception of 

 his own. For this purpose he provided 

 himself with little saws, hatchets, ham- 

 mers, and all sorts of tools, which he ac- 

 quired the art of using w^ith singular 

 dexterity. The principal pieces of 

 mechanism which he thus constructed 

 were a windmill, a water-clock, and a 

 carriage, put in motion by the person 

 what sat in it. 



" Although Newton was at this time 

 ' a sober, silent, thinking lad,' who 

 scarcely ever joined in the ordinary 

 games of his schoolfellows, )'et he took 

 great pleasure in providing them with 

 amusements of a scientific character. He 

 introduced into the school the flying of 

 paper kites ; and he is said to have been 

 at great pains in determining their best 

 forms and proportions, and in ascer- 

 taining the position and number of the 

 points b\' which the string should be 

 attached. He made also paper Ian- 

 thorns ; b\ the light of which he went 

 to school in the winter mornings, and 

 he frequeitl)' attached these lanthorns 

 to the tails of his kites on a dark night, 

 so as to inspire the country-people with 

 the belief that they were comets." 



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