Reconciled various and even opposite interests;

Acquired an influence

Which no rank, no authority can give, Nor any force but that of superior virtue: Became the fixed important centre, Which united in one common cause The principal states of Europe; Who by military knowledge, and irresistible valour In a long series of uninterrupted triumphs, Broke the power of France

When raised the highest, when exalted the most, Rescued the Empire from desolation, Asserted and confirmed the liberties of Europe.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

THE PHILOSOPHER OF THE UNIVERSE.

Born 1642.-Died 1726.

From 17th Charles I., to 12th George 1.

ALL intellectual eye, our polar round

First gazing through, he, by the blended power
Of gravitation and projection, saw

The whole in silent harmony revolve:
From unassisted vision hid, the moons,
To cheer remoter planets-numerous form'd,
By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.
He also fix'd our wandering queen of night;
Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,
Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
In a soft deluge overflows the sky.
Her every motion clear discerning, he
Adjusted to the mutual main, and taught
Why now the mighty mass of water swells,
Resistless heaving on the broken rocks,
And the full river turning; till again
The tide revertive, unattracted, leaves
A yellow waste of idle sands behind.

Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight
Through the blue infinite, and every star
Which the clear concave of a winter's night

Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube

Far stretching snatches from the dark abyss;
Or such as farther in successive skies"
To fancy shine alone; at his approach
Blaz'd into suns: the living centre each
Of an harmonious system, all combin'd
And rul'd unerring by that single power
Which draws the stone projected to the ground.

He, first of men, with awful wing pursu'd
The comet through the long elliptic curve;
As round innum'rous worlds he wound his way,
Till, to the forehead of our evening sky
Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew,
And o'er the trembling nation shakes dismay.

Th' aerial flow of sound was known to him;
From whence it first in wavy circles breaks,
Till the touch'd organ takes the message in.
Nor could the darting beam of speed immense
Escape his swift pursuit and measuring eye.
Ev'n light itself, which eyery thing displays,
Shone undiscover'd till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
And from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze
Collecting every ray into his kind,

To the charm'd eye educ'd the gorgeous train
Of parent colours. First the flaming red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny orange next ;
And next delicious yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green;
Then the pure blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Ethereal play'd: and then, of sadder hue,
Emerg'd the deepen'd indigo, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost;
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Died in the fading violet away.

These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
Shine out distinct adown the wat'ry bow;
While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends
Delightful, melting on the fields beneath.

THOMSON'S Poem on the Death of Newton,

Or a man whose discoveries embrace nothing less than the universe itself, it cannot be expected to find here an

adequate account.

The poet Thomson has in the above extract enumerated his principal philosophical labours, and the young reader must be satisfied with a rapid sketch of his life and character. As his genius soars above all competition, so also his amiable qualities invite respect and imitation: we are at once enlightened by his talents, and amended by his virtues.

Isaac Newton, one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians that the world ever produced, was descended from an ancient family which had been seated for nearly three centuries on the manor of Wolsthorpe, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, where this prodigy of science was born on Christmas-day 1642. He lost his father while in his infancy; but his mother's brother, a clergyman in the vicinity, directed the affairs of the family for some time, and put the young philosopher to school at Grantham. Having gone through a grammatical education, his mother took him home; intending that he should be brought up to occupy his paternal estate of about a hundeed and twenty pounds a year, as his ancestors bad done for ages. But fortunately for the world, the peculiar genius of Newton began even at this early age to discover itself. His uncle accidentally found him in a hay-loft working a mathematical problem; and thus perceiving the impulse of the boy's mind for learning, judiciously resolved that it should not be diverted from its object. Newton was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge; where the penetrating eye of Dr. Isaac Barrow soon discovered the vast genius of the student, and their acquaintance ripened into a friendship which was propitious to his progress and his fame.

Euclid, beyond whose work the mathematical attainments of most learners never extend, was scarcely the study of a week to Newton. With an intuitive clearness of intellect, he understood the deepest problems of that author as soon as he read them. He advanced at once into the Ligher regions of geometry; and it is no less astonishing

than true, that he had laid the foundation of his two immortal works, the Principia and Optics, before he had completed the twenty-fourth year of his age.

But such was the steady judgment of Newton, and his amiable diffidence of his own powers, that he was elevated by no vanity, nor did he wish to obtrude bis discoveries on the public. Satisfied with academic honours, and the applause of a few judges in a point on which those few were competent to decide, he waved all pretensions to public fame; and examined every part of his theories with rigorous severity, before he could be induced to submit them to the world.

On the resignation of his patron and friend, Dr. Barrow, he was chosen mathematical professor in 1669; before which period he had discovered the doctrine of fluxions, a doctrine that facilitated his acquaintance with the most sublime parts of geometry. The same year he read a course of optical lectures; and soon after began a correspondence with the Royal Society, to which he communicated some curious observations.

The most capital discoveries have as frequenty been the result of fortuitous thought, as of patient investigation. When a happy incident gives rise to an original idea, genius pursues it to its remotest consequences, and through all its ramifications. The theory of the universe, which Newton solidly demonstrated, is said to have been suggested by a very trivial circumstance. As he was sitting alone in a garden, the falling of some apples from a tree led him into a speculation on the power of gravity; and he reflected that as this power is not sensibly dimi. nished at the remotest distance to which we can rise from the centre of the earth, it was reasonable to conclude that the same principle is extended through all matter. By pursuing this train of ideas, and comparing the periods of the several planets with their distances from the sun, he found that if any power resembling gravity

held them in their courses, its strength must decrease in a proportion to the increased distance.

This inquiry, which afterwards produced the most sublime discoveries, was resumed again and again; and every experiment which he tried, and every appearance in nature, confirming his theories, in 1687 his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy were completed and published, under the auspices of the Royal Society. So great was Newton's modesty, that he did not choose to risk a publication of such high importance without the concurrence of the most learned men in the kingdom'; and the event justified his prudence. The book was at first far from meeting with that universal applause which it was destined ultimately to receive. The pleasing but visionary hypothesis of Descartes had then obtained full celebrity; and Newton's theories were too sublime to be comprehended at once, even by the acutest minds. But no sooner were his principles understood, than they extorted general assent to their truth; and the voice of applause rose with increased energy from every country where genuine science was diffused.

The same year in which this grand work made its appearance, he proved himself one of the most zealous defenders of his university against the unconstitutional attacks of James the Second: and soon after was chosen one of its members in the convention parliament.

In 1696, by the interest of Mr. Montague, chancellor of the exchequer, who loved and patronised genius, he was appointed warden of the mint, and three years after was raised to be master; which office he retained to the end of his life, and in which situation he was of signal service to his country, particularly in the then depreciated state of the coinage. He now appointed Mr. Whiston his deputy as professor of mathematics at Cambridge, with the full salary; and soon after resigned wholly in favour of that able but imprudent man.