Chapter III: Part 3

Dr. Goldsmith died on April 4 of the following year, a year in which I was unable to pay my usual spring visit to London, and in which Johnson made a long autumn tour in Wales with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. In response to some inquiries of mine about poor Goldsmith, he wrote: "Of poor, dear Goldsmith there is little to be told more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of the opinion that he owed not less than £2,000. Was ever poet so trusted before?"

This year, too, my great friend again came out as a politician, for parliament having been dissolved in September, and Mr. Thrale, who was a steady supporter of government, having again to encounter the storm of a contested election in Southwark, Johnson published a short political pamphlet, entitled "The Patriot," addressed to the electors of Great Britain. It was written with energetic vivacity; and except those passages in which it endeavours to vindicate the glaring outrage of the House of Commons in the case of the Middlesex election and to justify the attempt to reduce our fellow-subjects in America to unconditional submission, it contained an admirable display of the properties of a real patriot, in the original and genuine sense.

_IX.--Johnson's Physical Courage and Fear of Death_

The "Rambler's" own account of our tour in the Hebrides was published in 1775 under the title of "A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland," and soon involved its author, who had expressed his disbelief in the authenticity of Ossian's poems, in a controversy with Mr. Macpherson. Johnson called for the production of the old manuscripts from which Mr. Macpherson said that he had copied the poems. He wrote to me: "I am surprised that, knowing as you do the disposition of your countrymen to tell lies in favour of each other, you can be at all affected by any reports that circulate among them." And when Mr. Macpherson, exasperated by this scepticism, replied in words that are generally said to have been of a nature very different from the language of literary contest, Johnson answered him in a letter that opened: "I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian."

Mr. Macpherson knew little the character of Dr. Johnson if he supposed that he could be easily intimidated, for no man was ever more remarkable for personal courage. He had, indeed, an awful dread of death, or, rather, "of something after death"; and he once said to me, "The fear of death is so much natural to man that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it," and confessed that "he had never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." But his fear was from reflection, his courage natural. Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned. One day, at Mr. Beauclerk's house in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them and beat them till they separated.

At another time, when Foote threatened to _take him off_ on the stage, he sent out for an extra large oak stick; and this mere threat, repeated by Davies to Foote, effectually checked the wantonness of the mimic. On yet another occasion, in the playhouse at Lichfield, as Mr. Garrick informed me, Johnson having for a moment quitted a chair which was placed for him between the side scenes, a gentleman took possession of it, and when Johnson on his return civilly demanded his seat, rudely refused to give it up; upon which Johnson laid hold of it, and tossed him and the chair into the pit.

My revered friend had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. As early as 1769 he had said to them: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them short of hanging." He had recently published, at the desire of those in power, a pamphlet entitled "Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress." Of this performance I avoided to talk with him, having formed a clear and settled opinion against the doctrine of its title.

In the autumn Dr. Johnson went to Ashbourne to France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and Mr. Baretti, which lasted about two months. But he did not get into any higher acquaintance; and Foote, who was at Paris at the time with him, used to give a description of my friend while there and of French astonishment at his figure, manner, and dress, which was abundantly ludicrous. He was now a Doctor of Laws of Oxford, his university having conferred that degree on him by diploma in the spring.

_X.--Johnson's "Seraglio"_

A circumstance which could not fail to be very pleasing to Johnson occurred in 1777. The tragedy of "Sir Thomas Overbury," written by his early companion in London, Richard Savage, was brought out, with alterations, at Covent Garden Theatre, on February 1; and the prologue to it, written by Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, introduced an elegant compliment to Johnson on his "Dictionary." Johnson was pleased with young Mr. Sheridan's liberality of sentiment, and willing to show that though estranged from the father he could acknowledge the brilliant merit of the son, he proposed him, and secured his election, as a member of the Literary Club, observing that "he who has written the two best comedies of his age ["The Rivals" and "The Duenna"] is surely a considerable man."

In the autumn Dr. Johnson went to Ashbourne to stop with his friend, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, and I joined him there. I was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of the "English Poets" for which he was to write prefaces and lives was not an undertaking directed by him, but that he was to furnish a preface and life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works if they should ask him. Johnson: "Yes, sir, and _say_ he was a dunce." My friend seemed now not much to relish talking of this edition; it had been arranged by the forty chief booksellers of London, and Johnson had named his own terms for the "Lives," namely, two hundred guineas.

During this visit he put into my hands the whole series of his writings in behalf of the Rev. Dr. William Dodd, who, having been chaplain-in-ordinary to his majesty, and celebrated as a very popular preacher, was this year convicted and executed for forging a bond on his former pupil, the young Earl of Chesterfield. Johnson certainly made extraordinary exertions to save Dodd. He wrote several petitions and letters on the subject, and composed for the unhappy man not only his "Speech to the Recorder of London," at the Old Bailey, when sentence of death was about to be pronounced upon him, and "The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren," a sermon delivered by Dr. Dodd in the chapel of Newgate, but also "Dr. Dodd's Last Solemn Declaration," which he left with the sheriff at the place of execution.

In 1778, I arrived in London on March 18, and next day met Dr. Johnson at his old friend's, in Dean's Yard, for Dr. Taylor was a prebendary of Westminster. On Friday, March 2d, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room allotted to me three years previously was now appropriated to a charitable purpose, Mrs. Desmoulins, daughter of Johnson's godfather Dr. Swinfen, and, I think, her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins herself told me he allowed her half-a-guinea a week.

Unfortunately his "Seraglio," as he sometimes suffered me to call his group of females, were perpetually jarring with one another. He thus mentions them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: "Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams--Desmoulins hates them both; Poll (Miss Carmichael) loves none of them."

On January 20, 1779, Johnson lost his old friend Garrick, and this same year he gave the world a luminous proof that the vigour of his mind in all its faculties, whether memory, judgement, and imagination, was not in the least abated, by publishing the first four volumes of his "Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Most Eminent of the English Poets." The remaining volumes came out in 1781.

In 1780 the world was kept in impatience for the completion of his "Lives of the Poets," upon which he was employed so far as his indolence allowed him to labour.

This year--on March 11--Johnson lost another old friend in Mr. Topham Beauclerk, of whom he said: "No man ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a _look_ that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come."

_XI.--Johnson's Humanity to Children, Servants, and the Poor_

I was disappointed in my hopes of seeing Johnson in 1780, but I was able to come to London in the spring of 1781, and on Tuesday, March 20, I met him in Fleet Street, walking, or, rather, indeed, moving along--for his peculiar march is thus correctly described in a short life of him published very soon after his death: "When he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that motion, independent of his feet." That he was often much stared at while he advanced in this manner may easily be believed, but it was not safe to make sport of one so robust as he was.

I waited on him next evening, and he gave me a great portion of his original manuscript of his "Lives of the Poets," which he had preserved for me.

I found on visiting his friend, Mr. Thrale, that he was now very ill, and had removed--I suppose by the solicitation of Mrs. Thrale--to a house in Grosvenor Square. I was sorry to see him sadly changed in his appearance. He died shortly after.

He told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine again, for he had lately returned to it. When I mentioned this to Johnson, he said: "I drink it now sometimes, but not socially." The first evening that I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously. He could practice abstinence, but not temperance.

"I am not a severe man," Johnson once said; "as I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man _a good man_ upon easier terms than I was formerly."

This kind indulgence--extended towards myself when overcome by wine--had once or twice a pretty difficult trial, but on my making an apology, I always found Johnson behave to me with the most friendly gentleness. In fact, Johnson was not severe, but he was pugnacious, and this pugnacity and roughness he displayed most conspicuously in conversation. He could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when, to show the force and dexterity of his talents, he had taken the wrong side. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus: "My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this. You'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune."

Goldsmith used to say, in the witty words of one of Cibber's comedies, "There is no arguing with Johnson, for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it."

In 1782 his complaints increased, and the history of his life this year is little more than a mournful recital of the variations of his illness. In one of his letters to Mr. Hector he says, indeed, "My health has been, from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease." At a time, then, when he was less able than he had once been to sustain a shock, he was suddenly deprived of Mr. Levett, who died on January 17. But, although his health was tottering, the powers of his mind were in no ways impaired, as his letters and conversation showed. Moreover, during the last three or four years of his life he may be said to have mellowed.

His love of little children, which he discovered upon all occasions, calling them "pretty dears," and giving them sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his disposition. His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was another unquestionable evidence of what all who were intimately acquainted with him knew to be true. Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness that he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat, for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor creature.

_XII.--The Last Year_

In April, 1783, Johnson had a paralytic stroke, which deprived him, for a time, of the powers of speech. But he recovered so quickly that in July he was able to make a visit to Mr. Langton, at Rochester, where he passed about a fortnight, and made little excursions as easily as at any time of his life. In August he went as far as the neighbourhood of Salisbury, to Heale, the seat of William Bowles, Esq.; and it was while he was here that he had a letter from his physician, Dr. Brocklesby, acquainting him of the death of Mrs. Williams, which affected him a good deal.

In the end of 1783, in addition to his gout and his catarrhous cough, he was seized with a spasmodic asthma of such violence that he was confined to the house in great pain, being sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a recumbent posture being so hurtful to his respiration that he could not endure lying in bed; and there came upon him at the same time that oppressive and fatal disease of dropsy. His cough he used to cure by taking laudanum and syrup of poppies, and he was a great believer in the advantages of being bled. But this year the very severe winter aggravated his complaints, and the asthma confined him to the house for more than three months; though he got almost complete relief from the dropsy by natural evacuation in February.

On Wednesday, May 5, 1784--the last year of Dr. Johnson's life--I arrived in London for my spring visit; and next morning I had the pleasure to find him greatly recovered. But I was in his company frequently and particularly remember the fine spirits he was in one evening at our Essex Head Club. He praised Mr. Burke's constant stream of conversation, saying, "Yes, sir; if a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, he would say, 'This is an extraordinary man.'"

He had now a great desire to go to Oxford, as his first jaunt after his illness; we talked of it for some days, and on June 3 the Oxford post-coach took us up at Bolt Court, and we spent an agreeable fortnight with Dr. Adams at Pembroke College.

The anxiety of his friends to preserve so estimable a life made them plan for him a retreat from the severity of a British winter to the mild climate of Italy; and, after consulting with Sir Joshua Reynolds, I wrote to Lord Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor, for such an addition to Johnson's income as would enable him to bear the expense.

Lord Thurlow, who highly valued Johnson, and whom Johnson highly valued, at first made a very favourable reply, which being communicated to Dr. Johnson, greatly affected him; but eventually he had to confess that his application had been unsuccessful, and made a counter proposal, very gratefully refused by Johnson, that he should draw upon him to the amount of £500 or £600.

On Wednesday, June 30, I dined with him, for the last time, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, no other company being present; and on July 2 I left London for Scotland.

Soon afterwards he had the mortification of being informed by Mrs. Thrale that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, a papist, and her daughter's music-master. He endeavoured to prevent the marriage, but in vain.

Eleven days after I myself had left town, Johnson set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and Derbyshire, flattering himself that he might be, in some degree, relieved; but towards the end of October he had to confess that his progress was slight. But there was in him an animated and lofty spirit, and such was his love of London that he languished when absent from it. To Dr. Brocklesby he wrote: "I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or of a residence in it. The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to public life, and I hope still to keep my station, till God shall bid me 'Go in peace.'"

He arrived in London on November 16. Soon after his return both the asthma and the dropsy became more violent and distressful, and though he was attended by Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren, and Dr. Butter, who all refused fees, and though he himself co-operated with them, and made deep incisions in his body to draw off the water from it, he gradually sank. On December 2, he sent directions for inscribing epitaphs for his father, mother, and brother on a memorial slab in St. Michael's Church, Lichfield. On December 8 and 9 he made his will; and on Monday, December 13, he expired about seven o'clock in the evening, with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly perceived when his dissolution took place. A week later he was buried in Westminster Abbey, his old schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, reading the service.

I trust I shall not be accused of affectation when I declare that I find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a "Guide, Philosopher, and Friend." I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend, which he uttered with an abrupt felicity: "He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best: there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."

* * * * *

SIR DAVID BREWSTER

Life of Sir Isaac Newton

Sir David Brewster, a distinguished physicist, was born at
Jedburgh, on December 11, 1781. He was educated at Edinburgh
University, and was licensed as a clergyman of the Church of
Scotland by the Presbytery of Edinburgh. Nervousness in the
pulpit compelled him to retire from clerical life and devote
himself to scientific work, and in 1808 he became editor of
the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia." His chief scientific interest
was optics, and he invented the kaleidoscope, and improved
Wheatstone's stereoscope by introducing the divided lenses. In
1815 he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and, later,
was awarded the Rumford gold and silver medals for his
discoveries in the polarisation of light. In 1831 he was
knighted. From 1859 he held the office of Principal of
Edinburgh University until his death on February 10, 1868. The
"Life of Sir Isaac Newton" appeared in 1831, when it was first
published in Murray's "Family Library." Although popularly
written, not only does it embody the results of years of
investigation, but it throws a unique light on the life of the
celebrated scientist. Brewster supplemented it in 1855 with
the much fuller "Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and
Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton."

_I.--The Young Scientist_

Sir Isaac Newton was born at the hamlet of Woolsthorpe on December 25, 1642. His father, a yeoman farmer, died a few months after his marriage, and never saw his son.

When Isaac was three years old his mother married again, and he was given over to the charge of his maternal grandmother. While still a boy at school, his mechanical genius began to show itself, and he constructed various mechanisms, including a windmill, a water-clock, and a carriage put in motion by the person who sat in it. He was also fond of drawing, and wrote verses. Even at this age he began to take an interest in astronomy. In the yard of the house where he lived he traced the varying movements of the sun upon the walls of the buildings, and by means of fixed pins he marked out the hourly and half-hourly subdivisions.

At the age of fifteen his mother took him from school, and sent him to manage the farm and country business at Woolsthorpe, but farming and marketing did not interest him, and he showed such a passion for study that eventually he was sent back to school to prepare for Cambridge.

In the year 1660 Newton was admitted into Trinity College, Cambridge. His attention was first turned to the study of mathematics by a desire to inquire into the truth of judicial astrology, and he is said to have discovered the folly of that study by erecting a figure with the aid of one or two of the problems in Euclid. The propositions contained in Euclid he regarded as self-evident; and, without any preliminary study, he made himself master of Descartes' "Geometry" by his genius and patient application. Dr. Wallis's "Arithmetic of Infinites," Sanderson's "Logic," and the "Optics" of Kepler, were among the books which he studied with care; and he is reported to have found himself more deeply versed in some branches of knowledge than the tutor who directed his studies.

In 1665 Newton took his Bachelor of Arts degree, and in 1666, in consequence of the breaking out of the plague, he retired to Woolsthorpe. In 1668 he took his Master of Arts degree, and was appointed to a senior fellowship. And in 1669 he was made Lucasian professor of mathematics.

During the years 1666-69, Newton was engaged in optical researches which culminated in his invention of the first reflecting telescope. On January 11, 1761, it was announced to the Royal Society that his reflecting telescope had been shown to the king, and had been examined by the president, Sir Robert Murray, Sir Paul Neale, and Sit Christopher Wren.

In the course of his optical researches, Newton discovered the different refrangibility of different rays of light, and in his professorial lectures during the years 1669, 1670, and 1671 he announced his discoveries; but not till 1672 did he communicate them to the Royal Society. No sooner were these discoveries given to the world than they were opposed with a degree of virulence and ignorance which have seldom been combined in scientific controversy. The most distinguished of his opponents were Robert Hooke and Huyghens. Both attacked his theory from the standpoint of the undulatory theory of light which they upheld.

_II.--The Colours of Natural Bodies_

In examining the nature and origin of colours as the component parts of white light, the attention of Newton was directed to the explanation of the colours of natural bodies. His earliest researches on this subject were communicated, in his "Discourse on Light and Colours," to the Royal Society in 1675.

Dr. Hooke had succeeded in splitting a mineral substance called mica into films of such extreme thinness as to give brilliant colours. One plate, for example, gave a yellow colour, another a blue colour, and the two together a deep purple, but as plates which produced this colour were always less than the twelve-thousandth part of an inch thick it was quite impracticable, by any contrivance yet discovered, to measure their thickness, and determine the law according to which the colours varied with the thickness of the film. Newton surmounted this difficulty by laying a double convex lens, the radius of the curvature of each side of which was fifty feet, upon the flat surface of a plano-convex object-glass, and in the way he obtained a plate of air, or of space, varying from the thinnest possible edge at the centre of the object-glass where it touched the plane surface to a considerable thickness at the circumference of the lens. When the light was allowed to fall upon the object-glass, every different thickness of the plate of air between the object-glasses gave different colours, so that the point where the two object-glasses touched one another was the centre of a number of concentric coloured rings. Now, as the curvature of the object-glass was known, it was easy to calculate the thickness of the plate of air at which any particular colour appeared, and thus to determine the law of the phenomena.

By accurate measurements Newton found that the thickness of air at which the most luminous parts of the first rings were produced were, in parts of an inch, as 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 to 178,000.

If the medium or the substance of the thin plate is water, as in the case of the soap-bubble, which produces beautiful colours according to its different degrees of thinness, the thicknesses at which the most luminous parts of the ring appear are produced at 1/1.336 the thickness at which they are produced in air, and, in the case of glass or mica, at 1/1.525 at thickness, the numbers 1.336, 1.525 expressing the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction which produce the colours.

From the phenomena thus briefly described, Newton deduced that ingenious, though hypothetical, property of light called its "fits of easy reflection and transmission." This property consists in supposing that every particle of light from its first discharge from a luminous body possesses, at equally distant intervals, dispositions to be reflected from, and transmitted through, the surfaces of the bodies upon which it is incident. Hence, if a particle of light reaches a reflecting surface of glass _when in its fit of easy reflection_, or in its disposition to be reflected, it will yield more readily to the reflecting force of the surface; and, on the contrary, if it reaches the same surface _while in a fit of easy transmission_, or in a disposition to be transmitted, it will yield with more difficulty to the reflecting force.

The application of the theory of alternate fits of transmission and reflection to explain the colours of thin plates is very simple.

Transparency, opacity and colour were explained by Newton on the following principles.

Bodies that have the greatest refractive powers reflect the greatest quantity of light from their surfaces, and at the confines of equally refracting media there is no reflection.

The least parts of almost all natural bodies are in some measure transparent.

Between the parts of opaque and coloured bodies are many spaces, or pores, either empty or filled with media of other densities.

The parts of bodies and their interstices or pores must not be less than of some definite bigness to render them coloured.

The transparent parts of bodies, according to their several sizes, reflect rays of one colour, and transmit those of another on the same ground that thin plates do reflect or transmit these rays.

The parts of bodies on which their colour depend are denser than the medium which pervades their interstices.

The bigness of the component parts of natural bodies may be conjectured by their colours.

_Transparency_ he considers as arising from the particles and their intervals, or pores, being too small to cause reflection at their common surfaces; so that all light which enters transparent bodies passes through them without any portion of it being turned from its path by reflexion.

_Opacity_, he thinks, arises from an opposite cause, _viz._, when the parts of bodies are of such a size to be capable of reflecting the light which falls upon them, in which case the light is "stopped or stifled" by the multitude of reflections.

The _colours_ of natural bodies have, in the Newtonian hypothesis, the same origin as the colours of thin plates, their transparent particles, according to their several sizes, reflecting rays of one colour and transmitting those of another.

Among the optical discoveries of Newton those which he made on the inflection of light hold a high place. They were first published in his "Treatise on Optics," in 1707.

_III--The Discovery of the Law of Gravitation_

From the optical labours of Newton we now proceed to the history of his astronomical discoveries, those transcendent deductions of human reason by which he has secured to himself an immortal name, and vindicated the intellectual dignity of his species.

In the year 1666, Newton was sitting in his garden at Woolsthorpe, reflecting on the nature of gravity, that remarkable power which causes all bodies to descend towards the centre of the earth. As this power does not sensibly diminish at the greatest height we can reach he conceived it possible that it might reach to the moon and affect its motion, and even hold it in its orbit. At such a distance, however, he considered some diminution of the force probable, and in order to estimate the diminution, he supposed that the primary planets were carried round the sun by the same force. On this assumption, by comparing the periods of the different planets with their distances from the sun, he found that the force must decrease as the squares of the distances from the sun. In drawing this conclusion he supposed the planets to move in circular orbits round the sun.

Having thus obtained a law, he next tried to ascertain if it applied to the moon and the earth, to determine if the force emanating from the earth was sufficient, if diminished in the duplicate ratio of the moon's distance, to retain the moon in its orbit. For this purpose it was necessary to compare the space through which heavy bodies fall in a second at the surface of the earth with the space through which the moon, as it were, falls to the earth in a second of time, while revolving in a circular orbit. Owing to an erroneous estimate of the earth's diameter, he found the facts not quite in accordance with the supposed law; he found that the force which on this assumption would act upon the moon would be one-sixth more than required to retain it in its orbit.

Because of this incongruity he let the matter drop for a time. But, in 1679, his mind again reverted to the subject; and in 1682, having obtained a correct measurement of the diameter of the earth, he repeated his calculations of 1666. In the progress of his calculations he saw that the result which he had formerly expected was likely to be produced, and he was thrown into such a state of nervous irritability that he was unable to carry on the calculation. In this state of mind he entrusted it to one of his friends, and he had the high satisfaction of finding his former views amply realised. The force of gravity which regulated the fall of bodies at the earth's surface, when diminished as the square of the moon's distance from the earth, was found to be exactly equal to the centrifugal force of the moon as deduced from her observed distance and velocity.

The influence of such a result upon such a mind may be more easily conceived than described. The whole material universe was opened out before him; the sun with all his attending planets; the planets with all their satellites; the comets wheeling in every direction in their eccentric orbits; and the system of the fixed stars stretching to the remotest limits of space. All the varied and complicated movements of the heavens, in short, must have been at once presented to his mind as the necessary result of that law which he had established in reference to the earth and the moon.

After extending this law to the other bodies of the system, he composed a series of propositions on the motion of the primary planets about the sun, which was sent to London about the end of 1683, and was soon afterwards communicated to the Royal Society.

Newton's discovery was claimed by Hooke, who certainly aided Newton to reach the truth, and was certainly also on the track of the same law.

Between 1686 and 1687 appeared the three books of Newton's immortal work, known as the "Principia." The first and second book are entitled "On the Motion of Bodies," and the third "On the System of the World."

In this great work Newton propounds the principle that "every particle of matter in the universe is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances." From the second law of Kepler, namely, the proportionality of the areas to the times of their description, Newton inferred that the force which keeps a planet in its orbit is always directed to the sun. From the first law of Kepler, that every planet moves in an ellipse with the sun in one of its foci, he drew the still more general inference that the force by which the planet moves round that focus varies inversely as the square of its distance from the focus. From the third law of Kepler, which connects the distances and periods of the planets by a general rule, Newton deduced the equality of gravity in them all towards the sun, modified only by their different distances from its centre; and in the case of terrestrial bodies, he succeeded in verifying the equality of action by numerous and accurate experiments.

By taking a more general view of the subject, Newton showed that a conic section was the only curve in which a body could move when acted upon by a force varying inversely as the square of the distance; and he established the conditions depending on the velocity and the primitive position of the body which were requisite to make it describe a circular, an elliptical, a parabolic, or a hyperbolic orbit.

It still remained to show whether the force resided in the centre of planets or in their individual particles; and Newton demonstrated that if a spherical body acts upon a distant body with a force varying as the distance of this body from the centre of the sphere, the same effect will be produced as if each of its particles acted upon the distant body according to the same law.

Hence it follows that the spheres, whether they are of uniform density, or consist of concentric layers of varying densities, will act upon each other in the same manner as if their force resided in their centres alone. But as the bodies of the solar system are nearly spherical, they will all act upon one another and upon bodies placed on their surface, as if they were so many centres of attraction; and therefore we obtain the law of gravity, that one sphere will act upon another sphere with a force directly proportional to the quantity of matter, and inversely as the square of the distance between the centres of the spheres. From the equality of action and reaction, to which no exception can be found, Newton concluded that the sun gravitates to the planets and the planets to their satellites, and the earth itself to the stone which falls upon its surface, and consequently that the two mutually gravitating bodies approach one another with velocities inversely proportional to their quantities of matter.

Having established this universal law, Newton was able not only to determine the weight which the same body would have at the surface of the sun and the planets, but even to calculate the quantity of matter in the sun and in all the planets that had satellites, and also to determine their density or specific gravity.

With wonderful sagacity Newton traced the consequences of the law of gravitation. He showed that the earth must be an oblate spheroid, formed by the revolution of an ellipse round its lesser axis. He showed how the tides were caused by the moon, and how the effect of the moon's action upon the earth is to draw its fluid parts into the form of an oblate spheroid, the axis of which passes through the moon. He also applied the law of gravitation to explain irregularities in the lunar motions, the precession of the equinoctial points, and the orbits of comets.

In the "Principia" Newton published for the first time the fundamental principle of the fluxionary calculus which he had discovered about twenty years before; but not till 1693 was his whole work communicated to the mathematical world. This delay in publication led to the historical controversy between him and Leibnitz as to priority of discovery.

In 1676 Newton had communicated to Leibnitz the fact that he had discovered a general method of drawing tangents, concealing the method in two sentences of transposed characters. In the following year Leibnitz mentioned in a letter to Oldenburg (to be communicated to Newton) that he had been for some time in possession of a method for drawing tangents, and explains the method, which was no other than the differential calculus. Before Newton had published a single word upon fluxions the differential calculus had made rapid advances on the Continent.

In 1704 a reviewer of Newton's "Optics" insinuated that Newton had merely improved the method of Leibnitz, and had indeed stolen Leibnitz's discovery; and this started a controversy which raged for years. Finally, in 1713, a committee of the Royal Society investigated the matter, and decided that Newton was the first inventor.

_IV.--Later Years of Newton's Life_

In 1692, when Newton was attending divine service, his dog Diamond upset a lighted taper on his desk and destroyed some papers representing the work of years. Newton is reported merely to have exclaimed: "O Diamond, Diamond, little do you know the mischief you have done me!" But, nevertheless, his excessive grief is said for a time to have affected his mind.

In 1695 Newton was appointed Warden of the Mint, and his mathematical and chemical knowledge were of eminent use in carrying on the recoinage of the mint. Four years later he was made Master of the Mint, and held this office during the remainder of his life. In 1701 he was elected one of the members of parliament for Oxford University, and in 1705 he was knighted.

Towards the end of his life Newton began to devote special attention to the theological questions, and in 1733 he published a work entitled "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John," which is characterised by great learning and marked with the sagacity of its distinguished author. Besides this religious work, he also published his "Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture," and his "Lexicon Propheticum."

In addition to theology, Newton also studied chemistry; and in 1701 a paper by him, entitled "Scala graduum caloris," was read at the Royal Society; while the queries at the end of his "Optics" are largely chemical, dealing with such subjects as fire, flame, vapour, heat, and elective attractions.

He regards fire as a body heated so hot as to emit light copiously; and flame as a vapour, fume, or exhalation, heated so hot as to shine.

In explaining the structure of solid bodies, he is of the opinion "that the smallest particles of matter may cohere by the strongest attractions, and compose bigger particles of weaker virtue; and many of these may cohere and compose bigger particles whose virtue is still weaker; and so on for diverse successions, until the progression end in the biggest particles on which the operations in chemistry and the colours of natural bodies depend, and which, by adhering, compose bodies of a sensible magnitude. If the body is compact, and bends or yields inward to pressure without any sliding of its parts, it is hard and elastic, returning to its figure with a force arising from the mutual attraction of its parts.

"If the parts slide upon one another the body is malleable and soft. If they slip easily, and are of a fit size to be agitated by heat, and the heat is big enough to keep them in agitation, the body is fluid; and if it be apt to stick to things it is humid; and the drops of every fluid affect a round figure by the mutual attraction of their parts, as the globe of the earth and sea affects a round figure by the mutual attraction of its parts by gravity."

In a letter to Mr. Boyle (1678-79) Newton explains his views respecting the ether. He considers that the ether accounts for the refraction of light, the cohesion of two polished pieces of metal in an exhausted receiver, the adhesion of quick-silver to glass tubes, the cohesion of the parts of all bodies, the phenomena of filtration and of capillary attraction, the action of menstrua on bodies, the transmutation of gross compact substances into aerial ones, and gravity. If a body is either heated or loses its heat when placed in vacuo, he ascribes the conveyance of the heat in both cases "to the vibration of a much subtler medium than air"; and he considers this medium also the medium by which light is refracted and reflected, and by whose vibrations light communicates heat to bodies and is put into fits of easy reflection and transmission. Light, Newton regards as a peculiar substance composed of heterogeneous particles thrown off with great velocity in all directions from luminous bodies, and he supposes that these particles while passing through the ether excite in it vibrations, or pulses, which accelerate or retard the particles of light, and thus throw them into alternate "fits of easy reflection and transmission." He computes the elasticity of the ether to be 490,000,000,000 times greater than air in proportion to its density.

In 1722, in his eightieth year, Newton began to suffer from stone; but by means of a strict regimen and other precautions he was enabled to alleviate the complaint, and to procure long intervals of ease. But a journey to London on February 28, 1727, to preside at a meeting of the Royal Society greatly aggravated the complaint. On Wednesday, March 15, he appeared to be somewhat better. On Saturday morning he carried on a pretty long conversation with Dr. Mead; but at six o'clock the same evening he became insensible, and continued in that state until Monday, the 20th, when he expired, without pain, between one and two o'clock in the morning, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

* * * * *

JOHN BUNYAN

Grace Abounding

During his life of sixty years Bunyan wrote sixty books, and
of all these undoubtedly the most popular are the "Pilgrim's
Progress," "The Holy War," and "Grace Abounding." His "Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," generally called simply
"Grace Abounding," is a record of his own religious
experiences. (Bunyan, biography: see FICTION.)

_I.--To the Chief of Sinners_

In this relation of the merciful working of God upon my soul I do in the first place give you a hint of my pedigree and manner of bringing up. My descent was, as is well-known to many, of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land. Though my parents put me to school, to my shame I confess I did soon lose that little I learnt. As for my own natural life, for the time that I was without God in the world, it was indeed according to the course of this world, and the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, for from a child I had but few equals for cursing, lying, and blaspheming. In these days the thoughts of religion were very grievous to me. I could neither endure it myself, nor that any other should. But God did not utterly leave me, but followed me with judgements, yet such as were mixed with mercy.

Once I fell into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning; and another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me alive. When I was a soldier, I and others were drawn to such a place to besiege it; but when I was ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my place, to which I consented. Coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet, and died. Here were judgement and mercy, but neither of them did awaken my soul to righteousness.

Presently, after this I changed my condition into a married state, and my mercy was to light upon a wife whose father was counted godly. Though we came together so poor that we had not so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both, yet she had two books which her father left her when he died: "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and "The Practice of Piety." In these I sometimes read with her, and in them found some things that were pleasing to me, but met with no conviction. Yet through these books I fell in very eagerly with the religion of the times, to wit, to go to church twice a day, though yet retaining my wicked life. But one day, as I was standing at a neighbour's shop-window, cursing after my wonted manner, the woman of the house protested that she was made to tremble to hear me, and told me I by thus doing was able to spoil all the youth in the whole town.

At this reproof I was put to shame, and that, too, as I thought, before the God of Heaven. Hanging down my head, I wished with all my heart that I might be a little child again. How it came to pass I know not, but I did from this time so leave off my swearing that it was a wonder to myself to observe it. Soon afterwards I fell in company with one poor man that made profession of religion. Falling into some liking to what he said, I betook me to my Bible, especially to the historical part. Wherefore I fell to some outward reformation, and did strive to keep the commandments, and thus I continued about a year, all which time our neighbours wondered at seeing such an alteration in my life. For though I was as yet nothing but a poor painted hypocrite, I loved to be talked of as one that was godly. Yet, as my conscience was beginning to be tender, I after a time gave up bell-ringing and dancing, thinking I could thus the better please God. But, poor wretch as I was, I was still ignorant of Jesus Christ, and was going about to establish my own righteousness.

But upon a day the good providence of God took me to Bedford, to work on my calling, and in that town I came on three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun and talking about the things of God. I listened in silence while they spoke of the new birth and the work of God on their hearts. At this I felt my own heart began to shake, for their words convinced me that I wanted the true tokens of a godly man. I now began to look into my Bible with new eyes, and became conscious of my lack of faith, and was often ready to sink with faintness in my mind, lest I should prove not to be an elect vessel of the mercy of God. I was long vexed with fear, until one day a sweet light broke in upon me as I came on the words, "Yet there is room." Still I wavered many months between hopes and fears, though as to act of sinning I never was more tender than now. I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad, and I thought I was so in God's eyes, too. I thought none but the devil could equalise me for inward wickedness; and thus I continued a long while, even some years together. But afterwards the Lord did more fully and graciously discover Himself to me, and at length I was indeed put into my right mind, even as other Christians are.

I remember that one day as I was travelling into the country, and musing on the wickedness of my heart, that Scripture came to my mind. "He hath made peace by the blood of His cross." I saw that the justice of God and my sinful soul could embrace each other through this blood. This was a good day to me. At this time I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford, whose doctrine was, by God's grace, much for my stability. My soul was now led from truth to truth, even from the birth and cradle of the Son of God to His ascension and His second coming to judge the world.

One day there fell into my hands a book of Martin Luther. It was his "Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians," and the volume was so old that it was ready to fall to pieces. When I had but a little way perused it, I found that my condition was in his experience so handled as if his book had been written out of my heart. I do here wish to set forth that I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians (excepting the Holy Bible) before all the books I have ever seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience. About this time I was beset with tormenting fears that I had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, and an ancient Christian to whom I opened my mind told me he thought so, too, which gave me cold comfort. Thus, by strange and unusual assaults of the tempter was my soul, like a broken vessel, tossed and driven with winds. There was now nothing that I longed for but to be put out of doubt as to my full pardon. One morning when I was at prayer, and trembling under fear that no word of God could help me, that piece of a sentence darted in upon me: "My grace is sufficient." By these words I was sweetly sustained for about eight weeks, though not without conflicts, until at last these same words did break in with great power suddenly upon me: "My grace is sufficient for thee," repeated three times, at which my understanding was so enlightened that I was as though I had seen the Lord Jesus look down from Heaven through the tiles upon me, and direct these words to me.