of buildings, a story high, with attics above, enclosing an open square, refreshed by rows of trees; the whole in the Flemish style, and having a very sober and quiet look-and there we see the shadow of Isaac, a young man of thirty-two, passing along the court to ascend the steps. If he was awhile a pecuniary debtor to the slender amount of a shilling a week, certainly he soon laid the Society under obligations of another description, to an incalculable extent, by his great discoveries, which were acknowledged, so far as conferring honour could be an acknowledgment, in 1703, by his election to the presidential chair.

We have an account, by a foreign member of the Society, of the appearance of the room and the assembled philosophers, about ten years after Newton's admission. The sketch he gives is very graphic, and is no doubt a truthful picture of the scene presented in Gresham College, Basinghall-street, after Newton had attained the presidency. "The room," says Sorbiere, historiographer to the French King, "where the Society meets is large and wainscotted: there is a large table before the chimney with seven or eight chairs covered with green cloth about it, and two rows of wooden and matted benches to lean on, the first being higher than the others, in form like an amphitheatre. The president and council are elective; they mind no precedency in the Society, but the president sits at the middle of the table in an elbow chair, with his back to the chimney. The secretary sits at the end of the table on his left hand, and they have each of them pen, ink, and paper before them. I saw nobody sit in the chairs; I think they are reserved for persons of great quality, or those who have occasion to draw near the president. All the other members take their places as they think fit, and without ceremony; and if any one comes in after the Society is fixed, nobody stirs, but he takes a place presently where he can find it, so that no interruption may be given to him that speaks. The president

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has a little wooden mace in his hand, with which he strikes the table when he would command silence: they address their discourse to him bareheaded till he makes a sign for them to put on their hats; and there is a relation given in a few words of what is thought proper to be said concerning the experiments proposed by the secretary. There is nobody here eager to speak that makes a long harangue, or intent upon saying all he knows : he is never interrupted that speaks, and differences of opinion cause no manner of resentment, nor as much as a disobliging way of speech; there is nothing seemed to me to be more civil, respectful, and better managed than this meeting; and if there be any private discourses held between any while a member is speaking, they only whisper, and the least sign from the president causes a sudden stop, though they have not told their mind out. I took special notice of this conduct in a body consisting of so many persons and of such different nations."

This Teniers-like painting of the old room, with its learned occupants, gives a very clear idea of the scene when Newton attended as a simple member; and it only requires us to put him in the chair, with the wooden mace in his hand, to have the picture of the Royal Society under his presidency, till the year 1710, when the meetings were removed to another place. It was Crane-court, Fleet-street, whither the illustrious institute emigrated, and there our great English philosopher continued to preside till his death, in 1727. Strype describes the court as an open space with freestone pavement, graced with good buildings inhabited by persons of repute, the large front house with stone steps being the building used by the Society.

Crane-court, then, is another of the nooks, beside a noisy bustling street in the great metropolis, where a contemplative mind may escape the turmoil of the present and enter the shadowy regions of the past: and in this instance it is to commune not with one great

genius only, but with a number of kindred spirits, who in his wake were pushing their barks over the broad pacific ocean of Nature's mysteries. Charles II. used to laugh at Boyle's weighing the air, and thoughtless persons may fancy that the hours spent, during the last century, in Crane-court, by English philosophers, were for the most part spent in learned trifling: but no one acquainted with the connection between science and the useful arts will fail to see how much the physical comforts of the present generation have been increased by the labours of those illustrious men; while every man, who has not made his mind a slave to mere utilitarian pursuits, will recognise the value of knowledge for its own sake, the high value of its influence on the human faculties, and the incalculable importance of an ever-brightening and enlarging perception of the wonders of God's glorious universe. It was in 1782 that the Royal Society removed to Somerset House, where the Crown had just assigned to its use the apartments it now occupies; but the room in "the large house " which Strype speaks of, so interesting from its connection with Newton's presidency, still remains in an unaltered state.

This great man was elected by the university of Cambridge, in 1688, to serve for them in parliament; and, in 1695, he became warden of the mint, with a salary of between 500l. and 6007. He was promoted to the mastership in 1699, after which his salary was from 12007. to 15007. There could be no excuse now, on the score of scanty means, for not paying the shilling a week. Newton grew rich, and died worth 32,0007. For some years before he obtained the wardenship he resided at Cambridge, though of course frequently visiting town on political and scientific business. During one of these visits we find him dating a letter from "the Bull in Shoreditch;" a letter, by the way, painful to read, as it indicates that he was at the time labouring under nervousness to an extent that painfully affected his mind. He was thought by some to be

positively insane, but the affection does not seem to have gone so far as to justify the application of that term.

After his appointment to office under government, he came to live in London, and for some time Jermyn-street was the place of his abode. It was while living there that the rupture began between him and Flamsteed. They had been intimate friends; but a coolness arose from some unexplained cause in 1696. Flamsteed had supplied Newton with lunar observations, and had mentioned the fact to his acquaintance, perhaps with some little vanity. The more renowned philosopher, on this account, rather querulously rebuked his fellow-labourer, and in the year 1704 very serious differences appeared between them. Flamsteed's catalogue of stars, a most valuable contribution to the cause of science, was placed in the hands of Newton and others for examination, in consequence of Prince George of Denmark having offered to bear the expense of printing it. According to the ex parte statement of Flamsteed, he received from this committee a good deal of vexatious treatment, after which they demanded that a copy of the catalogue, which Flamsteed still held in his possession, should be given up to them. This demand was complied with under protest; the catalogue being sealed up, with the understanding that so it should remain until the industrious student and observer should be able to complete it. In 1710, Flamsteed found the seal had been broken, and that the work was going through the press; a circumstance which greatly enraged him, he being by no means one of the meekest of men. Violent recriminations between the two illustrious astronomers immediately ensued, into the details of which we have neither time nor inclination to enter. We cannot acquit Newton of all blame in this affair. The breaking of the seal looks like an offence, and so far as he participated in it can scarcely be regarded otherwise than as leaving some shade (we cannot determine the depth of its hue) on the memory of our great philosopher. Still

his eminent virtues, which Sir D. Brewster has so laboriously illustrated and so eloquently eulogized, shine with a radiance too brilliant to be much obscured by this instance of culpability. Yet our reverence for no man's memory can justify us in shutting our eyes to his faults, and we should always feel that historical justice demands impartiality in the judgment of every question, however it may implicate the fame of distinguished individuals. But an end to this. Our ramble into Jermyn-street, in the endeavour to trace out the footsteps of the philosopher, has involved us in allusions of a painful nature, though it leaves us still among the admirers of his character as well as of his discoveries.

From 1710 till two years before his death, Sir Isaac lived in St. Martin's-street, Leicester-square. Next door to the chapel where Toplady used to preach, there stands an old house now covered with white stucco. It has seen in its time, like a number of other London dwellings, a good many changes. Here once dwelt the Envoy of Denmark, then Sir Isaac Newton, next Paul Docminique, after that Dr. Burney. Who beside may have lived here we cannot tell; but it has now reached the fag end of its history, and the formerly aristocratic residence is let out in separate floors, and partly turned into a printing office. Reverence for the great astronomer led us lately to pay a visit to the place. We found the rooms somewhat altered, but no doubt the staircase remains as it was in the days of Newton. The part of the house most intimately associated with his name is the little observatory perched on the roof. We were permitted to ascend into that spot, to see it profaned by its present use, for there we found a shoemaker busy at his work. Yet, on second thoughts, a shoemaker's humble employment is no profanation of an astronomer's study, for shoemakers have a mission in this world as well as astronomers. They are fellow-workers in the great hive of human industry. Mutual helpers are they too. For if the star-gazer instructs the shoe