E-ISCOYEEIES OE SIB ISAAC NEWTON. 463 



latterly by "Whewell in his Dissertations on Lib. III. ; by Herschel 

 in the Perturbations, and by "W. Thomson in Potentials. The fact 

 seems to be that in every nation there are epochs whether of 

 science, literature, statesmanhip, even morality. "Why have we 

 had no dramatist since Shakspere ? "Why that long dearth of 

 poetry between Pope and Wordsworth ? The fact seems indisputa- 

 ble though the cause may be obscure. In 1830 Sir John Herschel 

 wrote : " In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein and 

 given over a hopeless race." Even then, that assertion was more 

 modest than exact, considering the names of Airy, Peacock, Bab- 

 bage, Lubbock, and Herschel himself. At the present day, however, 

 a great revival has begun : England supports by voluntary subscrip- 

 tion two journals devoted exclusively to mathematics, a feat unpar- 

 alleled in any country : the British Association and the various 

 Societies are displaying great vigour; and a long list of English 

 names could be cited to compare with any continental celebrities : 

 when we say English, we of course include Scotch, for Scotland has 

 contributed far more than her share to this list, though, owing to 

 the poorness of her University prizes, her sons all repair to Cam- 

 bridge, still, as in the days of Newton, the citadel of s nence. Our 

 little sister of Dublin, so long silent, now discourses eloquent music, 

 and even Oxford has discovered that great men have lived since 

 Aristotle, and that the voyage of scientific discovery did not end 

 when the ark stranded on Mount Ararat. Many signs combine to 

 lead us to believe that we are on the verge of grand discoveries : 

 the new methods of analysis lately invented (notably by George 

 Boole and Sir "W. Hamilton) seem converging to a machinery which 

 will surpass that of Newton as Newton's surpassed that before him; 

 and the experimental discoveries of Earaday and others remind us 

 of those of Kepler, which only wanted the Newton to give them 

 the breath of life. May we live to hail the advent of one on whose 

 tomb shall be inscribed an epitaph more glorious even than that 

 which we here translate :* 



Here lies 



Isaac Newton, Knt., 



Who, by an almost divine power of mind, 



Was the first to demonstrate 



The motions and figures of the Planets, 



The paths of Comets, and the tides of Ocean, 



Mathematics of his own invention lighting him tbe way. 



The different refrangibilities of the rays of light 



* In his " literal translation" of this epitaph, Sir David Brewster has omitted two sentences, 

 for what reason we cannot conjocture. 



