liEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



611 



decimo printed in 1685. Its title is "A Moral Essay, preferring 

 Solitude to Publick Employment, and all its appanages, such as Fame, 

 Command, Riches, Pleasures, Conversation, &c., by Sir George 

 Mackenzie, His Majesties Advocate in Scotland, and author of Moral 

 Gallantry axi(k Jus Regium. 2 Kings 4, 13. — Wouldst thou be spoken 

 of to the king or to the captain of the^ Host 1 And she answered, 

 I dwell among my own People." This was, in its day, a famous 

 book, and was answered by John Evelyn in 1667. "Mackenzie," 

 Isaac Disraeli says, in his Curiosities of Literature, ii, 50, " though 

 he wrote in favour of Solitude, passed a very active Kfe, first as a 

 pleader, and afterwards as a judge. While Evelyn, who wrote in 

 favour of public employment being preferable to solitude, passed his 

 days in the tranquillity of his studies, and wrote against the habits 

 which he himself most loved. By this it may appear," observes 

 Disraeli, " that that of which we have the least experience ourselves, 

 will ever be what appearp most Jelightfiil." I cannot but think that 

 among the number of those who have turned the pages of this copy 

 •of Mackenzie's Essay, Sir Isaac Newton must be reckoned. Himself 

 a solitary student for many years in Trinity, the subject of the Essay 

 would attract him. Newton's rooms in Trinity used often to be 

 visited by me when in the occupation of Mr. Carus. They are over 

 the principal entrance to the college, in the massive tower which 

 constitutes the gateway. Above, in a higher storey, was his observa- 

 tory, where he put to such noble use the humble reflector-telescope, 

 constructed by himself, which is still preserved at Cambridge. 



I now descend to contemporaries. I have a written relic of 

 William Whewell, an illustrious Master of Trinity. There are 

 many men in Universities who enjoy, and quite justly, a great 

 repute locally, but who are little heard of outside University 

 limits. Whewell, however, won for himself a name in the general 

 world of British, if not European, science. He firet appeared as 

 the author of a number of elementary treatises on Mechanics, 

 -Statics, Dynamics, Geometry, and Conic Sections, which were used 

 very generally as text-books in the lecture-rooms ; but his reputation 

 rests chiefly on two works. The History of the Inductive Sciences, 

 and The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. He wrote also one 

 of the Bridgewater treatises. In the intellectual arena of Cambridge, 

 Whewell, as Tutor, Professor, and finally. Master of his College 

 ^(Trinity), was regarded with considerable awe, on account of the 



