( 40 ) 
Thefe fafts, if facts they really be, feem 
ftrangely incongruous: yet they are well 
authenticated. It is moft probable that he 
was feduced by the King to plead guilty, in 
order to divert the Ciorm of enquiry from 
falling on the head of Buckingham. If this 
be true, his character, deliniated by Pope, 
in the following lines, was mofl juft. 
" If parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd, 
The wifeft, brighteft, meaneft of mankind." 
He feems to have been a fingular example 
of a mind capable of facrificing confcience, 
reputation and every rational fource of feli- 
city, at the fhrine of Pluto, yet without 
avarice; and, what is more extraordinary, 
without being, in any degree, a fenfualift. 
His moral character out of the queftion, 
he will always be remembered, as a prin- 
cipal ornament to the Univerfity in which 
he was educated, and as the prototype of 
the Newtonian philofophy. " He was, fays 
Mr. Walpole (in his Catalogue of Noble Au- 
thors) the Prophet of Arts (Sciences, he 
ftiould have faid) which Newton was fent 
afterwards to reveal." 
Probably the great Sir Ifaac would have 
found his way without a guide: neverthe-. 
