A DAY WITH ISAAC NEWTON

Evening Star, Issue 19550, 7 May 1927, Page 19

A DAY WITH ISAAC NEWTON

THE PHILOSOPHER AT HOME THE UNDIMMED LAMP [From the ‘ Observer.’] On a fine morning in the year of grace 1718, when Leicester Fields was drawing all the town to the great house where the Princess of Wales was newly installed, and London was beginning to think that the Hanoverians might be tolerated after all, when the _ Fields were gay with coaches and chairs—on this particular morning the heads of all the idlers are turned towards*the narrow opening of St. Martin’s street, from which a curious figure has just emerged, that of an old gentleman in a sad state of disarray, half-dressed, in fact. Before a house a few doors down on the east side and next to the chapel there stands a handsome carriage, the coachman gaping after the old gentleman. Out of one of the windows leans a handsome lady, giving some emphatic directions to a man servant, who starts off in pursuit, overtakes the old gentleman, and convoys him, deeply djstressed, back to the house, where the handsome lady awaits him between tears and laughter, whisks him upstairs, and hands him over to the ministrations of his body servant. The grinning sentries stand to attention again, the idlers go about their business, and presently Sir Isaac Newton, now fully dressed, comes downstairs again, steps solemnly into his carnage, and is driven away eastward. Since he was evidently unaware of observation, we took leave, on his first appearance, to study him with some particularity. We saw a thickset man of middle stature, slightly inclined to corpulence, a face in no way remarkable save for an expression _at once pleasing and venerable. The lively and piercing eye of twenty years ago is a little dimmed, and there is a certain languor in his gait. Yet a remarkably well-preserved man in this, his seventysixth vear, since, as his niece will tell you, he never wears spectacles and has lost but one tooth.

“ THE WITTY MISS BARTON.” We will not follow th© coach all the way to the Mint, where the Master has a conference, or to the Royal Society, where the president is to see a new experiment; but if we follow part of the way we shall see him suddenly stop the coach and descend. A country fellow is beating his horse, and Sir Isaac is demanding how he reconciles cruelty to brute beasts with Christian morality. The man is so startled by this unlookedfor interruption that he can only gape after the coach as it goes on its way. Meanwhile the pretty lady, the niece whom, •as Catherine Barton, Swift, now exiled in Dublin, had “ loved better than anyone here,” has called for her chair and gone across to Leicester House to visit the Maidsof Honor, leaving careful instructions with the servants about Sir Isaac’s dinner, which he must not be allowed to forget. “The famous witty Miss Barton,” once the toast of the Kit-Cat Club, is now the wife of John Conduitt, M.P., destined to succeed her uncle as Master of the Mint. When she comes to town she still makes her home with her uncle, and sees to it that the three men servants and three maid servants mind their duty. To-day Sir Isaac had invited a guest, who arrives punctually, only to be told that the master is still abroad. He waits, hut waiting is slow work for a hungry man, and he accepts with eagerness a suggestion that he should eat the chicken, which is in danger of being spoiled, another being got ready for Sir Isaac. The chicken demolished, in comes Sir Isaac, who sits down cheerfully and lifts the cover. “ Dear me,” says he, regarding the debris with interest, “I had no recollection of having dined.” A VISIT TO ROYALTY. When the guest has gone he ascends to his upper room and sets to work. This is the day on which, in every week, he addresses himself to that system of charity which he has summed up in the words “Those who give away nothing til! they are dead never give at all.” This done, a new edition of one of his treatises is wanted, and he must correct the sheets. Something was said by a Fellow of the Royal Society this morning which has started a train of thought, and ho falls into a brown study. Returning from her visit, his niece peeps into the room and goes quietly away again, coming back at last to remind him that he is expected at Leicester House. To-day he has promised to explain to the Princess the system of chronology which he has prepared for his own amusement. She finds him the copy which he is to present to Her Royal Highness, sees that he is suitably dressed, and pilots him across the square. At the house he is received with deference, and the pretty witty ladies in attendance put aside their cards to listen to the great man. When ho returns home the light is failing, and there are guests coming in, some for supper and some for talk. There are some distinguished Frenchmen present, and Sir Isaac gives them a handsome toast—“ The health of all honest men, to whatever.country they belong. We are all friends, because we unanimously aim at the only object worthy of men. which is the knowledge of truth.”

PHILOSOPHER AND DOG. Rapidly the circle grows; the entry to the street is blocked with chairs. Lady Betty Germaine and Lady Worsley have come to see their dear Catherine. Gay is there with his duchess, and Addison, now nearing the end of the journey. Halley and Whiston, Bentley and Butler arc deep in talk, in which the host takes little part, for he has no facility in conversation, but at last a point arises which calls for arbitration. Arbuthnot submits it with a compliment to the old man’s omniscience, but he puts it aside. “ OmniscientP” he says gently. “ Nay, sir, I do not know what I may seem to the world, but, as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

On that note the assembly breaks up and the philosopher, dog in attendance, climbs to that upper room where he has spent so many hours of happiness. , The watchman passing below—“past twelve of a fine, clear night”— looks up and sees the lamp burning steadily—that lamp which has shone in the world for two centuries—and is not dimmed.