solution of the mystery. The course of his reflections seems to have been something like the following:

1. These apples fall in a direct line toward the centre of the earth. The same force causes a cannon ball to curve toward the same point. Everything in the world is drawn and held by it.

2. If these apples fell from a tree a half a mile high, they would not the less seek the earth's centre, and the law of acceleration would still hold good. If they fell from the top of the highest mountain, it would be the same.

then what?

3. Suppose an apple should fall from the moon, It appears to have been at this point that the great CONJECTURE Occurred to his mind: Perhaps the same force that draws the apples to the ground holds the moon in its orbit! Now, but for the labors of the giants who had preceded him, this mighty thought would have remained a conjecture. Those giants, however, had learned the magnitude of the moon, its distance from the earth, and the force of the earth's attraction at any distance. Newton could, therefore, at once put his conjecture to the test of arithmetic. He could ascertain two things with the greatest exactness: 1. How much force was required to keep the moon in its orbit; and, 2. With how much force the earth did attract the moon, supposing that the law of attraction, as established by Galileo, held good. If these two calculations agreed, his conjecture was a discovery.

He tried them. They did not agree. Busy with other investigations, he laid aside this inquiry for nineteen years. He then learned that he, in common with all the English astronomers, was in error as to the distance of the moon from the earth. This error being corrected, he repeated his calculations. When he had brought them so near to a conclusion that he was all but sure of the truth of his theory, he became so agitated that he was unable to go on, and he was obliged to ask a friend to complete them. When they were brought to a close, he saw that his youthful thought was indeed a sublime, demonstrated truth. Thus it was that the great law of the attraction of gravitation was discovered, the most brilliant and valuable discovery ever achieved by a human mind.

The apple-tree under which the philosopher was seated in his mother's orchard stood until the year 1814, when it was blown down. The wood of it was preserved and made into various articles, and several trees still exist which were raised from the seeds of its fruit. It is a curious circumstance that the preservation of the apple anecdote is chiefly due to Voltaire, who heard it in 1727, from the lips of Madame Conduit, the wife of Newton's nephew and heir.

Newton resided at the University of Cambridge for thirtythree years, devoted to profound researches in chemistry and astronomy. His discoveries in the nature of light and color remain to this day the accepted system in all countries. He was accustomed to make his apparatus with his own hands, even to his brick furnaces and brass-work. He seemed to become, at length, all mind, spending his days in meditation, insensible to all that usually interests mankind. Nevertheless, he was pleasant and amiable in his demeanor, and exceedingly bountiful in gifts to his dependents and relatives. So little did he value the glory of his discoveries, that he was with difficulty induced to make them known to the world, having a mortal dread of being drawn into controversy. Some of his most brilliant discoveries remained unpublished for several years. And when, at last, his Principia had appeared, which contained the results of his studies, he had to be much persuaded before he would consent to issue a second edition.

He was not, however, so dead to the world as to be unmindful of his duties as a citizen in a great national crisis. When James II. was endeavoring to render England a Catholic country, Newton exerted himself so strenuously against it that the University elected him to Parliament, in which he sat for eighteen months, a silent but useful member.

At the age of fifty-three, he was called by the government to an office in the Royal Mint, of which he was finally appointed governor. Transferred to London, and enjoying a handsome income, he now lived liberally, kept a carriage, and entertained company. The duties of his office were performed by him with signal ability and purity. He was offered, on one occasion, a bonus of six thousand pounds for a contract for the coinage of

copper money. Sir Isaac refused the offer on the ground that it was a bribe in disguise. The agent argued the matter with him without effect, and said, at length, that the offer came from "a great duchess." The philosopher roughly replied,

"I desire you to tell the lady that if she was here herself, and had made me this offer, I would have desired her to go out of my house; and so I desire you, or you shall be turned out."

He was twice in love. The beautiful daughter of a physician, who resided near his school, won his boyish affections, and he paid court to her by making dolls and doll-furniture for her and her companions. His affection was returned by the young lady, and nothing prevented their early marriage but Newton's poverty. For several years his income was derived from a college fellowship, which would cease on the day of his marriage; and later, when he was appointed professor, his income was still insufficient to maintain a family. It is interesting to know, that, during the ten years when he made his greatest discoveries, he was so poor, that the two shillings a week which he paid as a member of the Royal Society was a serious burthen to him, and some of his friends wished to get him excused from the payment. But this he would not permit.

His poverty was doubtless one of the reasons why he made and repaired his brick furnaces and all his apparatus, without calling in the aid of workmen. When, at length, he was in better circumstances, the object of his youthful love was married, and he himself was wedded to science. Never, however, did he return to the home of his fathers without visiting the lady; and when both had reached fourscore he had the pleasure of relieving the necessities of her old age.

He appeared to have thought no more of love or marriage till he was sixty. Rich and famous then, he aspired to the hand of Lady Norris, the widow of a baronet, and he wrote her a quaint and curious love-letter. He began by remonstrating with her upon her excessive grief for the loss of her husband, telling her, that "to be always thinking on the dead is to live a melancholy -life among sepulchres." He asks her if she can resolve to spend the rest of her days in grief and sickness, and wear forever a widow's weeds, a costume "less acceptable to company," and

"The proper remedy

keeping her always in mind of her loss. for all these griefs and mischiefs,” he adds, "is a new husband," whose estate, added to her own, would enable her to live more at ease. He says in conclusion: "I doubt not, but in a little time, to have notice of your ladyship's inclinations to marry; at least that you will give me leave to discourse with you about it."

The lady's answer has not been preserved; but as the marriage never took place, we may presume that the great Sir Isaac Newton had to figure in the character of a rejected lover. The experiments of the greatest philosophers do not always succeed.

He was, nevertheless, a grand and noble-looking gentleman at sixty. His more active life in London had given fulness to his countenance and figure; and, though at thirty his hair began to turn gray, and at sixty was as white as silver, the long curling wig, then in fashion, concealed his gray locks, and added something of majesty to his aspect. His later portraits show that he had lost the look of the student, and assumed the appearance and bearing of a gentleman of the great world.

We have the evidence that, both at school and at college, Newton loved the pleasures natural to youth. Two of his schoolboy memorandum books were preserved, kept when he was seventeen, which contain entries of his expenses. From these we learn that he indulged, occasionally, in cherries, tarts, bottled beer, custards, cake, milk, and similar dainties. We notice also that he was a prodigious lender of money. On one page of a memorandum-book he enters fourteen loans, varying in amount from a few pence to a pound. We have one of his college memorandum-books, of his twenty-third year, which is highly interesting. The following are some of the entries: "Drills, gravers, a hone, a hammer, and a mandril, 5s. ;" "a magnet, 16s. ;""compasses, 2s. ;" "glass bubbles, 4s. ;""at the tavern several other times, £1;""spent on my cousin, 12s. ;"" on other acquaintance, 10s. ;" "Philosophical Intelligences, 9s. 6d.;" "lost at cards twice, 15s. ;""at the tavern twice, 3s. 6d. ;" "to three prisms, £3;" "four ounces of putty, 1s. 4d. ;" "Bacon's Miscellanies, 1s. 6d. ;" "a bible binding, 3s. ;" "for oranges to my sister, 4s. 2d. ;" "for aquafortis, sublimate, oyle

J

Y

pink, fine silver, antimony, vinegar, spirit of wine, white lead, salt of tartar, £2;" "Theatrum chemicum, £1 8s."

He was always a very exact man in pecuniary matters, abhorring debt, and, though bountifully liberal in gifts, strict in requiring from others the performance of their engagements. He was not a man to be imposed upon. If a tenant did not keep his farm in the stipulated repair, Sir Isaac was after him with a sharp reminder. And, though he cared little for the credit of his discoveries, he was much offended if any one attempted to rob him of that credit and confer it upon another. His sense of justice, as a man, was offended at such conduct more than his pride, as a philosopher.

Who would have thought to find Newton an alchemist? It is a fact, that for several years this great man was intensely occupied in endeavoring to discover a way of changing the baser metals into gold. This is, perhaps, the reason why he added little to our knowledge of chemistry, though he seems to have labored at this science a longer time and with more pleasure than at any other. Being in pursuit of a chimera, he lost his time. There were periods when his furnace fires were not allowed to go out for six weeks; he and his secretary sitting up alternate nights to replenish them. This is recorded by the secretary himself, who had not the least notion of the object of his master's experiments.

His most intimate friend at the university was a foreign chemist of much note and skill. Newton enjoyed his conversation exceedingly, until, one day, the Italian told him "a loose story of a nun," which so much offended his sense of decency that he would never associate with him again.

The gentleman who served him five years as secretary, relates that in all that time he never saw him laugh but once. Newton had lent a copy of Euclid's Geometry to a friend, and, meeting him some time after, he asked him what progress he had made in the work, and how he liked it. His friend replied by asking of what use such a study as that would be to him in life; "upon which Sir Isaac was very merry."

On

Several anecdotes are preserved of his absence of mind. one occasion, when he was giving a dinner to some friends at