4 
out before it went to the press His carriage, then, 
was very meek, sedate, and humble, never seemingly angry, 
of profound thought, his countenance mild, pleasant and 
comely. I cannot say I ever saw him laugh but once which 
was at that passage which Dr. Stukeley mentioned in his 
letter to your honour*', which put me in mind of the Ephesian 
philosopher who laughed only once in his life time, to see an 
ass eating thistles when plenty of grass was by. He always 
kept close to his studies, very rarely went a visiting, and had 
as few visitors I never knew him to take any 
recreation or pastime either in riding out to take the air, 
walking, bowling, or any other exercise whatever,* thinking 
all hours lost that was not spent in his studies, to which he 
kept so close that he seldom left his chamber except at term 
time, when he read in the schools as being Lucasian professor, 
where so few went to hear him, and fewer that understood him, 
that oft times he did in a manner, for want of hearers, read 
to the walls So intent, so serious upon his studies, 
that he ate very sparingly, nay, ofttimes he has forgot to eat 
at all, so that, going into his chamber, I have found his mess 
untouched of which, when I have reminded him, he would 
reply,— u Have I?” and then making to the table, would eat a 
bit or two standing for I cannot say I ever saw him sit at table 
by himself .... He very rarely went to bed before two or 
three of the clock, sometimes not till five or six, lying about 
four or five hours especially at spring and fall of the leaf, at 
which times he used to employ about six weeks in his labora- 
tory, the fire scarcely going out either night or day, he sitting 
up one night and I another till he had finished his chemical 
experiments, in the performance of which he was most 
accurate, strict, exact. What his aim might be, I was not 
# When Sir Isaac once laughed ’twas upon occasion of asking a friend to 
whom he had lent Euclid to read, what progress he had made in that author, 
and how he liked him? He answered by desiring to know what use and 
benefit in life that study would be to him, upon which Sir Isaac was very 
merry. 
