The Pre-eminence of Sir Isaac Newton’s Reputation—The Interest attached to the Study of his Life and Writings—His Birth and Parentage—His early Education—Is sent to Grantham School—His early Attachment to Mechanical Pursuits—His Windmill—His Waterclock—His Self-moving Cart—His Sundials—His Preparation for the University.
The name of Sir Isaac Newton has by general consent been placed at the head of those great men who have been the ornaments of their species. However imposing be the attributes with which time has invested the sages and the heroes of antiquity, the brightness of their fame has been eclipsed by the splendour of his reputation; and neither the partiality of rival nations, nor the vanity of a presumptuous age, has ventured to dispute the ascendency of his genius. The philosopher,1 indeed, to whom posterity will probably assign the place next to Newton, has characterized the Principia as pre-eminent above all the productions of human intellect, and has thus divested of extravagance the contemporary encomium upon its author,
Nec fas est propius mortali attingere Divos.
Halley.
So near the gods—man cannot nearer go.
18 The biography of an individual so highly renowned cannot fail to excite a general interest. Though his course may have lain in the vale of private life, and may have been unmarked with those dramatic events which throw a lustre even round perishable names, yet the inquiring spirit will explore the history of a mind so richly endowed,—will study its intellectual and moral phases, and will seek the shelter of its authority on those great questions which reason has abandoned to faith and hope.
If the conduct and opinions of men of ordinary talent are recorded for our instruction, how interesting must it be to follow the most exalted genius through the incidents of common life;—to mark the steps by which he attained his lofty pre-eminence; to see how he performs the functions of the social and the domestic compact; how he exercises his lofty powers of invention and discovery; how he comports himself in the arena of intellectual strife; and in what sentiments, and with what aspirations he quits the world which he has adorned.
In almost all these bearings, the life and writings of Sir Isaac Newton abound with the richest counsel. Here the philosopher will learn the art by which alone he can acquire an immortal name. The moralist will trace the lineaments of a character adjusted to all the symmetry of which our imperfect nature is susceptible; and the Christian will contemplate with delight the high-priest of science quitting the study of the material universe,—the scene of his intellectual triumphs,—to investigate with humility and patience the mysteries of his faith.
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Sir Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, a hamlet in the parish of Colsterworth, in Lincolnshire, about six miles south of Grantham, on the 25th December, O. S., 1642, exactly one year after Galileo died, and was baptized at Colsterworth on the 1st January, 1642–3. His father, Mr. Isaac Newton,19 died at the early age of thirty-six, a little more than a year after the death of his father Robert Newton, and only a few months after his marriage to Harriet Ayscough, daughter of James Ayscough of Market Overton in Rutlandshire. This lady was accordingly left in a state of pregnancy, and appears to have given a premature birth to her only and posthumous child. The helpless infant thus ushered into the world was of such an extremely diminutive size,2 and seemed of so perishable a frame, that two women who were sent to Lady Pakenham’s at North Witham, to bring some medicine to strengthen him, did not expect to find him alive on their return. Providence, however, had otherwise decreed; and that frail tenement which seemed scarcely able to imprison its immortal mind was destined to enjoy a vigorous maturity, and to survive even the average term of human existence. The estate of Woolsthorpe, in the manor-house of which this remarkable birth took place, had been more than a hundred years in the possession of the family, who came originally from Newton in Lancashire, but who had, previous to the purchase of Woolsthorpe, settled at Westby, in the county of Lincoln. The manor-house, of which we have given an engraving, is situated in a beautiful little valley, remarkable for its copious wells of pure spring water, on the west side of the river Witham, which has its origin in the neighbourhood, and commands an agreeable prospect to the east towards Colsterworth. The manor of Woolsthorpe was worth only 30l. per annum; but Mrs. Newton possessed another small estate at Sewstern,3 which raised the annual value of their property to about 80l.; and it is probable that the cultivation of the little farm on which she resided20 somewhat enlarged the limited income upon which she had to support herself, and educate her child.
For three years Mrs. Newton continued to watch over her tender charge with parental anxiety; but in consequence of her marriage to the Reverend Barnabas Smith, rector of North Witham, about a mile south of Woolsthorpe, she left him under the care of her own mother. At the usual age he was sent to two day-schools at Skillington and Stoke, where he acquired the education which such seminaries afforded; but when he reached his twelfth year he went to the public school at Grantham, taught by Mr. Stokes, and was boarded at the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary in that town. According to information which Sir Isaac himself gave to Mr. Conduit, he seems to have been very inattentive to his studies, and very low in the school. The boy, however, who was above him, having one day given him a severe kick upon his stomach, from which he suffered great pain, Isaac laboured incessantly till he got above him in the school, and from that time he continued to rise till he was the head boy. From the habits of application which this incident had led him to form, the peculiar character of his mind was speedily displayed. During the hours of play, when the other boys were occupied with their amusements, his mind was engrossed with mechanical contrivances, either in imitation of something which he had seen, or in execution of some original conception of his own. For this purpose he provided himself with little saws, hatchets, hammers, and all sorts of tools, which he acquired the art of using with singular dexterity. The principal pieces of mechanism which he thus constructed were a windmill, a waterclock, and a carriage put in motion by the person who sat in it. When a windmill was erecting near Grantham on the road to Gunnerby, Isaac frequently attended the operations of the workmen, and acquired such a thorough21 knowledge of the machinery that he completed a working model of it, which excited universal admiration. This model was frequently placed on the top of the house in which he lodged at Grantham, and was put in motion by the action of the wind upon its sails. Not content with this exact imitation of the original machine, he conceived the idea of driving it by animal power, and for this purpose he enclosed in it a mouse which he called the miller, and which, by acting upon a sort of treadwheel, gave motion to the machine. According to some accounts, the mouse was made to advance by pulling a string attached to its tail, while others allege that the power of the little agent was called forth by its unavailing attempts to reach a portion of corn placed above the wheel.
His waterclock was formed out of a box which he had solicited from Mrs. Clark’s brother. It was about four feet high, and of a proportional breadth, somewhat like a common houseclock. The index of the dialplate was turned by a piece of wood, which either fell or rose by the action of dropping water. As it stood in his own bedroom he supplied it every morning with the requisite quantity of water, and it was used as a clock by Mr. Clark’s family, and remained in the house long after its inventor had quitted Grantham.4 His mechanical carriage was a vehicle with four wheels, which was put in motion with a handle wrought by the person who sat in it, but, like Merlin’s chair, it seems to have been used only on the smooth surface of a floor, and not fitted to overcome the inequalities of a road. Although22 Newton was at this time “a sober, silent, thinking lad,” who scarcely ever joined in the ordinary games of his schoolfellows, yet he took great pleasure in providing them with amusements of a scientific character. He introduced into the school the flying of paper kites; and he is said to have been at great pains in determining their best forms and proportions, and in ascertaining the position and number of the points by which the string should be attached. He made also paper lanterns, by the light of which he went to school in the winter mornings, and he frequently attached these lanterns to the tails of his kites in a dark night, so as to inspire the country people with the belief that they were comets.
In the house where he lodged there were some female inmates in whose company he appears to have taken much pleasure. One of these, a Miss Storey, sister to Dr. Storey, a physician at Buckminster, near Colsterworth, was two or three years younger than Newton, and to great personal attractions she seems to have added more than the usual allotment of female talent. The society of this young lady and her companions was always preferred to that of his own schoolfellows, and it was one of his most agreeable occupations to construct for them little tables and cupboards, and other utensils for holding their dolls and their trinkets. He had lived nearly six years in the same house with Miss Storey, and there is reason to believe that their youthful friendship gradually rose to a higher passion; but the smallness of her portion and the inadequacy of his own fortune appear to have prevented the consummation of their happiness. Miss Storey was afterward twice married, and under the name of Mrs. Vincent, Dr. Stukely visited her at Grantham in 1727, at the age of eighty-two, and obtained from her many particulars respecting the early history of our author. Newton’s esteem for her continued unabated during his life. He regularly visited her when23 he went to Lincolnshire, and never failed to relieve her from little pecuniary difficulties which seem to have beset her family.
Among the early passions of Newton we must recount his love of drawing; and even of writing verses. His own room was furnished with pictures drawn, coloured, and framed by himself, sometimes from copies, but often from life.5 Among these were portraits of Dr. Donne, Mr. Stokes, the master of Grantham school, and King Charles I. under whose picture were the following verses.
A secret art my soul requires to try, If prayers can give me what the wars deny. Three crowns distinguished here, in order do Present their objects to my knowing view. Earth’s crown, thus at my feet I can disdain, Which heavy is, and at the best but vain. But now a crown of thorns I gladly greet, Sharp is this crown, but not so sharp as sweet; The crown of glory that I yonder see Is full of bliss and of eternity.
These verses were repeated to Dr. Stukely by Mrs. Vincent, who believed them to be written by Sir Isaac, a circumstance which is the more probable, as he himself assured Mr. Conduit, with some expression of pleasure, that he “excelled in making verses,” although he had been heard to express a contempt for poetical composition.
But while the mind of our young philosopher was principally occupied with the pursuits which we have now detailed, it was not inattentive to the movements of the celestial bodies, on which he was destined to throw such a brilliant light. The imperfections of his waterclock had probably directed his thoughts to the more accurate measure of time which the motion of the sun afforded. In the yard of the24 house where he lived, he traced the varying movements of that luminary upon the walls and roofs of the buildings, and by means of fixed pins he had marked out the hourly and half-hourly subdivisions. One of these dials, which went by the name of Isaac’s dial, and was often referred to by the country people for the hour of the day, appears to have been drawn solely from the observations of several years; but we are not informed whether all the dials which he drew on the wall of his house at Woolsthorpe, and which existed after his death, were of the same description, or were projected from his knowledge of the doctrine of the sphere.
Upon the death of the Reverend Mr. Smith in the year 1656, his widow left the rectory of North Witham, and took up her residence at Woolsthorpe along with her three children, Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah Smith. Newton had now attained the fifteenth year of his age, and had made great progress in his studies; and as he was thought capable of being useful in the management of the farm and country business at Woolsthorpe, his mother, chiefly from a motive of economy, recalled him from the school at Grantham. In order to accustom him to the art of selling and buying, two of the most important branches of rural labour, he was frequently sent on Saturday to Grantham market to dispose of grain and other articles of farm produce, and to purchase such necessaries as the family required. As he had yet acquired no experience, an old trustworthy servant generally accompanied him on these errands. The inn which they patronised was the Saracen’s Head at West Gate; but no sooner had they put up their horses than our young philosopher deserted his commercial concerns, and betook himself to his former lodging in the apothecary’s garret, where a number of Mr. Clark’s old books afforded him abundance of entertainment till his aged guardian had executed the family commissions, and announced25 to him the necessity of returning. At other times he deserted his duties at an earlier stage, and intrenched himself under a hedge by the way-side, where he continued his studies till the servant returned from Grantham. The more immediate affairs of the farm were not more prosperous under his management than would have been his marketings at Grantham. The perusal of a book, the execution of a model, or the superintendence of a waterwheel of his own construction, whirling the glittering spray from some neighbouring stream, absorbed all his thoughts when the sheep were going astray, and the cattle were devouring or treading down the corn.
Mrs. Smith was soon convinced from experience that her son was not destined to cultivate the soil, and as his passion for study, and his dislike for every other occupation increased with his years, she wisely resolved to give him all the advantages which education could confer. He was accordingly sent back to Grantham school, where he continued for some months in busy preparation for his academical studies. His uncle, the Reverend W. Ayscough, who was rector of Burton Coggles, about three miles east of Woolsthorpe, and who had himself studied at Trinity College, recommended to his nephew to enter that society, and it was accordingly determined that he should proceed to Cambridge at the approaching term.