456 MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS AND 



Of such a man we sbould be glad to learn even the pettiest de- 

 tails of his every day life— how he looked and lived, and in what 

 way he did all this work ; but unfortunately our information is very 

 scanty, for though a bulky correspondence survives, it is mostly on 

 scientific matters, and Boswells as yet were not. "We learn, how- 

 ever, that there was nothing remarkable in his person or appear- 

 ance ; his face of no very promising aspect, (though we suspect a 

 phrenologist would have told a different tale,) speakhur little in com- 

 pany, seeming full of thought, but languid in look and manner : in 

 disposition, kindly and generous ; careless of money though amass- 

 ing considerable wealth : liberal almost to excess : excessively 

 modest in the height of his greatness : not eager after fame, but on 

 the contrary shrinking from publicity with a bashf illness almost 

 painful, yet jealous of his reputation, and, when roused, standing 

 spiritedly on defence and using his weapon harshly enough. "We must 

 also confess that at times he was irritable, peevish and prone to 

 suspicion ; as Locke said, " JSTewton is a nice man to deal with." 

 We may also notice the singular and total deficiency of anything 

 like mirthfulness or humour about him : be is said never to have 

 laughed but once, and in all his writings and familiar letters we 

 cannot see the slightest approach to jocosity. The prime of his life 

 was wholly devoted to science ; and when engaged in a speculation, 

 he would concentrate himself wholly on this, indifferent to the outer 

 world, forgetting to eat and drink, sleeping little, and immersed for 

 weeks in the " patient thought" to which alone he himself humbly 

 ascribes all his successes : yet he could break off in the midst of his 

 profoundest labours to go to the sick bed of his mother and tend her 

 with assiduous care, and afterwards, when undertaking the drudgery 

 of the Mint, he abandoned his unfinished investigations on the 

 plea of their interfering with his duty to his sovereign. Labour so 

 incessant in his early life produced its natural results in failing 

 health and weariness of spirit, and we find him once complaining of 

 mathematical studies a3 being u dry and barren," and thinking of 

 betaking himself to law ! which can only remind us of the tailor who 

 turned light-house-keeper because "he did not like confinement;" 

 but this distrustful mood did not last long ; "his own thought drove 

 him like a goad," and he goes on in his career: icie das Gestirn, ohne 

 Hast, aher ohne Bast. His conscientiousness and love of truth were 

 singularly strong, and he carried the same into his scientific re- 

 searches, abandoning a theory, whatever trouble its construction had 

 cost him, it he found a fact against it. "It may be so," he said, 

 -•there, is no arguing against facts and experiments," when Moly- 



