who were about him. He was too lavish of money on some occasions, both in his buildings and to his favorites; but too sparing in rewarding services, or in encouraging those who brought intelligence. He was apt to take ill impressions of people, and these stuck long with him; but he never carried them to indecent revenges. He gave too much way to his own humor almost in everything, not excepting that which related to his own health. He knew all foreign affairs well, and understood the state of every court in Europe very particularly. He instructed his own ministers himself; but he did not apply enough to affairs at home. He believed the truth of the Christian religion very firmly, and he expressed a horror of atheism and blasphemy; and though there was much of both in his court, yet it was always denied to him and kept out of his sight. He was most exemplarily decent and devout in the public exercises of the worship of God; only on week days he came too seldom to them. He was an attentive hearer of sermons, and was constant in his private prayers and in reading the Scriptures; and when he spoke of religious matters, which he did not often, it was with a becoming gravity. His indifference as to the forms of church government, and his being zealous for toleration, together with his cold behavior towards the clergy, gave them generally very ill impressions of him. In his deportment towards all about him, he seemed to make little distinction between the good and the bad, and those who served well or those who served him ill. SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 1642-1727. (Manual, p. 260.) ་ FROM A "Letter to Locke." 169. EFFECT OF AN EXPERIMENT UPON LIGHT. The observation you mention with Boyle's book of colors, I once made upon myself, with the hazard of my eyes. The manner was this; I looked a very little while upon the sun in the looking-glass with my right eye, and then turned my eyes into a dark corner of my chamber, and winked, to observe the impression made, and the circles of colors which encompassed it, and how they decayed by degrees, and at last vanished. This I repeated a second and a third time. At the third time, when the phantasm of light and colors about it was almost vanished, intending my fancy upon them to see their last appearance, I found to my amazement that they began to return, and by little and little to become as lively and vivid as when I had newly looked upon the sun. But when I ceased to intend my fancy upon them, they vanished again. After this I found, that as often as I went into the dark and intended my mind upon them, as when a man looks earnestly to see anything which is difficult to be seen, I could make the phantasm return without looking any more upon the sun; and the oftener I made it return, the more easily I could make it return again. And at length, by only repeating this, without looking any more upon the sun, I made such an impression on my eyes, that if I looked upon the clouds, or a book, or any bright object, I saw upon it a round bright shape like the sun; and, which is still stranger, though I looked on the sun with my right eye only, and not with my left, yet my fancy began to make the impression upon my left eye as well as upon my right; for if I shut my right eye, and looked upon a book or the clouds with my left eye, I could see the spectrum of the sun almost as plain as with my right eye, if I did but intend my fancy a little while upon it; for at first, if I shut my right eye, and looked with my left, the spectrum of the sun did not appear till I intended my fancy upon it; but by repeating, this appeared every time more easily; and now, in a few hours' time, I had brought my eyes to such a pass, that I could look upon, no bright object with either eye but I saw the sun before me, so that I durst neither write nor read; but to recover the use of my eyes, shut myself up in my chamber, made dark, for three days together, and used all means to divert my imagination from the sun; for if I thought upon him, I presently saw his picture, though I was in the dark. But by keeping in the dark, and employing my mind about other things, I began in three or four days to have some use of my eyes again, and by forbearing a few days longer to look upon bright objects, recovered them pretty well; though not so well but that, for some months after, the spectrum of the sun began to return as often as I began to meditate upon the phenomenon, even though I lay in bed in midnight, with my curtains drawn. But now I have been very well for many years, though I am apt to think, that if I durst venture my eyes, I could still make the phantasm return by the power of my fancy. CHAPTER XIV. POPE, SWIFT, AND THE POETS IN THE REIGNS OF QUEEN ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II. ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744. (Manual, pp. 265-272.) 170. FROM THE "ESSAY ON CRITICISM.” PRIDE. Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, She gives in large recruits of needful Pride! What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind. And fills up all the mighty void of sense. Truth breaks upon us with resistless day. Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last: But, those attained, we tremble to survey SOUND AN ECHO TO THE SENSE. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. 171. FROM THE "ESSAY on Man.” THE SCALE OF BEING. Far as Creation's ample range extends, What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide! OMNIPRESENCE OF THE DEITY. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns; ADDRESS TO BOLINGBROKE. Come then, my Friend, my Genius, come along; And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends, O! while, along the stream of time, thy name Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? |