DISCOTEEIES OF SIR ISAAC NEWTOB". 457 



neux thought he had discovered a phenomenon which would upset 

 the whole Newtonian system, and told Sir Isaac of it ; and this only 

 the year hefore his death. The sum of his moral character may he 

 given by Bishop Burnet's words — " He had the whitest soul I ever 

 knew." Such is Newton as we see him through the mist of a cen- 

 tury and a half, the Atlas of Philosophy, and as good as great. 



Popular tradition (or rather that pseudo-poetry which sneers at 

 the hard sciences and girds at Newton as the model mathematician) 

 has preserved some anecdotes of him, curiously contradicted by his- 

 toric fact ; thus every one has heard how Newton, having read 

 through the Paradise Lost, only asked, ""What does it all prove?" 

 We find, however, that Newton confesses to having been "a capital 

 hand at versifying," and to have had a fondness for poetry when 

 young, which, however, he lost in after-age, this latter being an ex. 

 perience not confined to philosophers. So also we have read much 

 of Newton's utter insensibility to female chaims, and how the fair 

 young lady, whom his friends wished him to marry, found her finger 

 used as a tobacco-stopper : in fact, Newton Avas in love with a Miss 

 Storey, when quite young, and though circumstances prevented tneir 

 marriage, he behaved very kindly to her in after-life : nay, even we 

 find him at sixty years of age writing a real love-letter and offer 

 of marriage, though whether for himself or a friend has not been 

 ascertained: it is certainly a most curious production, but is not the 

 first nor will it be the last example of " wit turned fool" in such a 

 case. The story about the apple, whose fall on his head is said to 

 have suggested gravitation, seems apocryphal ; and so also, Ave fear, 

 is that other touching story about dog Diamond and the burning of 

 the papers ; and indeed we rather suspect that if such an event had 

 occurred, dog Diamond would have been sent flying through the 

 window. 



It appears the function of our time to be the iconoclast of brilliant 

 reputations, the whitewasher of stained ones ; it Avas not, therefore, to 

 be expected that Newton should escape. Among his contemporaries 

 and successors, in all the furious controversies that raged about him, 

 none ever disputed the grandeur and originality of his discoveries, 

 the purity of his motives, the uprightness of his conduct ; this enviable 

 task has been reserved for some among us, and first stands S. T. 

 Coleridge, Avho, as usual, plagiarising in the fulness of ignorance from 

 German metaphysicians, thinks Newton much over-rated, that he 

 has unfairly appropriated Kepler's due, and that it Avould take three 

 Newtons to make one Kepler : and him indeed, dogmatising in this 

 foolish fashion, we may whistle down the wind without more concern. 



