not be found a single grain of wheat,-a sin- Robert Boyle died on the 31st Dec. 1691, gle germ of any useful scientific truth. Facts in the 65th year of his age, and was interred must be sifted, and viewed in every azimuth, in St. Martin's Church, Westminster. Though till we discover the master phase that lights we have been unable, and unwillingly una us into the path of generalization. Boyle ble, to concur in the high eulogy which was destitute of the philosophical faculty; Boerhaave has pronounced upon his scienand we were gratified to find, in looking over tific character, we cheerfully adopt the other the correspondence between Huygens and expression of that eminent physician, that Leibnitz, which has been recently publish- Boyle * was the ornament of his age and ed, that both these distinguished philosophers country." entertained the same opinion of Boyle which The year 1685 was marked in the history we have now expressed. Leibnitz says to of the Society by the death of Charles II, Huygens,"I am of your opinion, that we ought the nominal founder, and the nominal patron to follow the plan of Verulam upon physics, of the Society. Dr. Sprat, in his dedication in adding to it, however, a certain act of guess- to him of his History of the Society, ing, for otherwise we should make no progress. 'assures him of immortal fame for having I am astonished that M. Boyle, who has established a perpetual succession of inven made so many fine experiments, has not ar-tors," but we fear that the details given by rived at some theory in chemistry, after Mr. Weld have deprived the compliment having meditated so much on the subject. of all its value. His Majesty's connexion In all his writings, however, and in all the with the Society is both historically and consequences which he deduces from his ob- traditionally ludricous. He granted them servations, he draws the conclusion, which lands in Ireland, but he failed to give them we all know, that every thing is done me- possession. He gave a paltry sum to found chanically. He is perhaps too reserved. Ex- an observatory; but he gave no instruments cellent men ought to leave us even their with which to observe. He appointed conjectures, and they are only wrong when Flamsteed his astronomer; but he both they give them as certain truths. This may overwrought and starved him. He gave be said even of yourself, who have doubt- the Society a mace constructed expressly for less an infinity of fine thoughts on physics." its use; but it would have possessed more In his reply to this letter, Huygens remarks, interest had it been the bauble which Crom "The art of guessing in physics upon given well kicked, instead of the mace which the experiments, has not, I think, been neglected Sovereign gave. It was not given to make by Verulam, as we may see in the example the Society respected, but to make it royal which he gives in ascertaining the nature of He presented the society with five little heat in the bodies of metals, and other sub-glass bubbles,-a suitable emblem of the stances, where he has succeeded pretty well, generosity of the donor. He sent a poisonwere it not that he has not thought of the ed dagger to the President; but the kitten rapid motion of a very subtle matter, which lanced with it refused to die of the wound. ought to keep up the agitation of the parti- He gave the society a gift of Chelsea College; cles of bodies. You will have heard of the but he got it back again when repaired, a death of Mr. Boyle. It appears very strange great bargain. He professed to be fond of that he has built nothing on the great num- experiments; but though the curators made ber of experiments of which his works are frequent preparations to receive the King, he full; but the thing is difficult; and I have did not "pay the contemplated visit." Had never believed him capable of an application the Copley-medal, the olive branch of the sufficiently great to enable him to establish Society, been founded in his reign, Charles real principles. I am of your opinion in II. would certainly have received it. His wishing even the conjectures of excellent Majesty, through the channel of the Presi men in these matters. But they do much dent, wagered £50 to £5, "for the compres mischief, when they wish their conjectures to sion of air by water." Hooke made the pass for certain truths, as Descartes has done, experiment, and the Society acknowledged for their followers taking them as such, have in its minutes "that his Majesty had won no desire to seek for any thing better." the wager!" It is not told by whom the £5 was lost, or to whom it was paid. He gave the Society their charter, but not one farthing to pay its clerks and doorkeepers, the postages of its correspondence, the

*Christiani Hugenii aliorum que seculi xvii. vivorum celebrium Exercitationes Mathematica et Philosophie, Ed. P. J. Uylenbroek. Haga, 1833, Fascic. I. Pp

117, 120.

This is a very strange opinion from such a man expenses of its experiments, and the printing as Huygens, if it is not ironical; as it is universally of its Transactions. The Fellows were his admitted that Bacon has failed completely in deducing any valuable result from his accumulation of facts Majesty's staff of paupers living from hand on the subject of Heat. to mouth. The gorgeous mace glittered on

the table when Newton, the "poor Cam-, the curves generated thereby to be wholly bridge student," as Mr. Weld not very your own." In refutation of this claim of correctly calls him, petitioned for the remis- Hooke's, Newton addressed a long letter to sion of his weekly payments. At every Halley; but before this letter was despatchmeeting the cry of poverty arose ;-lists of ed, Newton received a letter from another increasing arrears were laid on the table, correspondent, stating, in strong terms, and the very nobles were unable to bear "that Hooke was making a great stir in the burden of advancing science, when, as the matter, pretending that Newton had all Mr. Weld says, the time and attention of from him, and calling for justice." This the King were entirely engrossed with the aggravation of the charge irritated Newton, intrigues and pleasures of the court. But and led him to add an angry and satirical not only was the Society kept on less than postscript, in which he rashly conjectured pauper allowance: it was to a certain extent" that Hooke might have looked into a letter persecuted. The Society could not exist of his to Huygens, and thence taken the unless its President, Vice-President and dep- notion of comparing the forces of the planets uties took such "tests and oaths," as the arising from their circular motion, and so consciences of some of its most distinguished what he wrote to me afterwards might be members would not allow them to take. nothing but the fruit of my own garden.” Boyle, as we have seen, was thus deprived This admission of Newton was certainly in of the honour, and the Society of the advan- Hooke's favor, and sanctioned Hooke's tage of his being President. The three claim, unless Newton was able to prove that royal charters gave the Secretary authority he had seen the letter to Huygens. In reply to carry on a correspondence on science with to this letter, Halley, with much good sense, all sorts of foreigners, and yet poor innocent assured Newton that Hooke's manner of Oldenburg, their faithful and loyal Secre- claiming the discovery had been represented tary, was conveyed a prisoner to the Tower, to him in worse colours than it ought, and and liberated without any explanation or that he neither made public application to the apology. Thus neglected by the Sover- Society for justice, nor pretended that you eign," as Mr. Weld remarks, "and occupied had all from him." Newton was gratified in pursuits so totally at variance with those with this assurance, and in replying to of the Court, it will not be very surprising Halley on the 14th July, he not only exthat the decease of Charles II. is not alluded presses his regret at having written the to in the Council or Journal books. The angry postscript, but recounts the different King died on the 6th of Feb. 1684-5, and new ideas which he had derived from Hooke's the Society met as usual on the 6th of the correspondence, and suggests it as the best same month: The minutes contain no refer- method "of compromising the present dis ence to the monarch's death, and they are pute," to add a "scholium to the first proequally silent respecting any endeavours position of the first book, in which Wren, to gain the patronage of his successor, Hooke, and Halley are acknowledged to James II. have independently deduced the law of gravity from the second law of Kepler.”

The next important event in the history of the Royal Society was the presentation to that body, by Dr. Vincent, Fellow of Clarehall, of the MS. of the first book of Newton's immortal work, the Principia. It was received on the 28th April, 1686, and was dedicated to the Society. A letter of thanks was addressed to its author, and Halley, now clerk to the Society, was ordered to write a report upon it to the Council. On the receipt of this report the Society came to the resolution, on the 19th of May, "that Mr. Newton's Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica, should be printed forthwith in quarto in a fair letter." In communicating the resolution, Halley thinks it necessary to inform him, " that Hooke has some pretensions upon the invention of the rule of decrease of gravity being reciprocally as the squares of the distances from the centre, and that you had the notion from him, though he owns the demonstration of

The finances of the Society were at this time in so low a condition, that the resolution to print the Principia at their own expense, as implied in the minute of the 19th of May, was withdrawn by the Council at their meeting on the 2d June, when it was resolved that "Mr. Newton's book be printed, and that Mr. Halley undertake the business of looking after it, and printing it at his own charge, which he engaged to do." The inability of the Society to take this expense upon themselves, arose from their having expended £400 on the publication of 500 copies of Willughby's Historia Piscium. which seems to have had a tardy sale. The Council was obliged to pay the arrears of salary due to Hooke and Halley by copies of Willughby's work, and when Halley undertook to measure a degree of the merid. ian, the Society resolved that "he be given £50, or fifty books of fishes!"

In the letter to Halley of the 20th of whose judgment we confidently rely, disJune, to which we have already referred, tinctly states that "he does not think the Newton intimated his intention of suppress- MS. to be in Newton's autograph, and that ing the third Book of the Principia, influ- he believes it to be written by the same enced no doubt by the misrepresentation of hand as the first draught of the Principia in Hooke's conduct, which had been improper- the University Library." "The author's ly communicated to him. "The proof you own hand," he adds, "is easily recognized sent to me," he says, "I like very well. I in both MSS. in additions and alterations." designed the whole to consist of three Books: the second was finished last summer, being short, and only waits transcrib. ing, and drawing the cuts fairly, and one new proposition I have since thought on, which I can as well let alone. The third waits the theory of comets. In autumn last I spent two months in calculations to no purpose, for want of a good method, which made me afterwards return to the first book, and enlarge it with divers propositions, some relating to comets, others to other things, found out last winter. The third I now design to suppress. Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady, that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as have to do with her. I found it so formerly, and now I am no sooner come near her again but she gives me warning. The two first books without the third will not so well bear the title of Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and therefore I have altered it to this, De Motu Corporum Libri Duo: but, on second thoughts, I retain the former title. Twill help the sale of the book, which I ought not to diminish, now 'tis yours."

The year 1695 had for its President an individual whose name, though associated chiefly with literature, will ever be remembered in the History of Science,-Charles Montague, grandson of Henry Earl of Manchester, and afterwards Earl of Halifax. He was born on the 16th April 1661, and was the fourth son of George Montague of Harton, in Northamptonshire. From Westminster School, where he was elected king's scholar, he went in 1682 to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he distinguished himself by his talents, and became acquainted with Newton, with whom he co-operated in endeavouring, though fruitlessly, to establish a Philosophical Society in that town. A poem which he wrote upon the death of Charles II., induced the Earl of Dorset to invite him to London, where an incident occurred which "led him on to fortune." Having published in conjunction with Prior a parody with the title of The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, Lord Dorset introduced him to King William in the following terms,

"May it please your Majesty, I have brought a mouse to have the honour of kissing your hand," at which the king smiled, In his reply to this letter, Halley implores and having learned the reason why Mr. him in the name of the Society not to let his Montague received the name, he gaily "resentment run so high as to suppress replied, "You will do well to put me in your third book, wherein your application of the way of making a man of him," and he your mathematical doctrine to the theory of immediately gave orders that a pension of comets, &c., will undoubtedly £500 per annum should be allowed him out render it acceptable to those who will call of the Privy Purse, till he had an opportu themselves philosophers without mathemat-nity of giving him an appointment. ics, which are much the greater number." Mr. Montague sat along with Newton in Newton readily yielded to this remonstrance. the Convention Parliament, and such were The second book was sent to the Society his powers as a public speaker, that he was and presented on the 2d March 1686-7, and appointed a Commissioner of the Treasury, on the 6th April the third book was present- and afterwards a Privy Counsellor. In 1694 ed to the Society. The whole work was he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchepublished about midsummer. "The MS. quer; and in the face of much opposition, of this immortal work," says Mr. Weld, but with the advice of Newton, Locke, and entirely written by Newton's own hand, is Halley, he had the adulterated and debased in admirable preservation, and is justly coin of the nation recoined and restored to esteemed the most precious scientific treas- its intrinsic value. At this time, Mr. Overure in the possession of the Royal Society." ton, Warden of the mint, had been appointThis is doubtless a mistake. Newton him- ed a Commissioner of Customs, and on the self tells Halley that the second book only recommendation of Montague, the king ap waits transcribing, and we can scarcely pointed Newton Mr. Overton's successor. suppose that Newton wasted his time in Newton held the office till 1699, when he that species of labour. Mr. Edleston,* on

pondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, pp. * See his very interesting volume, entitled Corres vii., lviii. London, 1850.

was promoted to the Mastership of the Mint, ments of a niece, or the fascination of a a situation worth from £1200 to £1500 per virtuous wife, had wrenched from the Britannum, which he filled till the time of his ish Treasury a sacrifice for science or a home death. In 1798, Charles Montague was for genius.

made First Commissioner of the Treasury, On the death of Queen Anne, Lord IIaliand was created Earl of Halifax in 1706. fax was appointed one of the Regents, and After the death of his first wife he conceived after the coronation of George I., he was a strong attachment to Catherine Barton, created Earl of Halifax, and First Comafterwards Mrs. Conduit, the beautiful and missioner of the Treasury. He died sudaccomplished niece of Sir Isaac. Though denly on the 19th May 1715, in the 54th regarded by all who knew her, as a woman year of his age. "Himself a poet and eleof strict honour and virtue, she did not es- gant writer, he was the liberal patron of cape the censures of her contemporaries. genius, and among his intimate friends we No reason has been assigned why he did not may number Congreve, Halley, Prior,* marry her instead of the Countess of Man-Tickell, Steele, and Pope. His conduct to chester, but such was the esteem in which Newton will be for ever remembered in he held her, that he bequeathed to her a the annals of science. The sages of every large part of his fortune. Voltaire gave nation and every age will pronounce with circulation to the scandal in the following affection the name of Charles Montague, extraordinary passage: "I had believed in and the neglected science of England will my youth," says he, "that Newton had continue to deplore, that he was the first made his fortune in consequence of his ex- and the last English minister who honoured traordinary merit. I had imagined that the genius by his friendship, and rewarded it by Court and City of London had named him his patronage."

England and France were treated by their respective sovereigns. In the latter country, science was thus early fostered and rewarded, while in England the Royal Society was left to struggle with poverty.

M.

by acclamation Grand Master of the Royal In painful contrast with the treatment exMint. But it was not so. Isaac Newton perienced by the Royal Society, Mr. Weld had a very amiable niece, called Madame gives some account of the arrangements in Conduit, to whom the Grand Treasurer Hal- the New Charter, granted in 1699, to the ffax was much attached. The infinitesimal Academy of Sciences in Paris; which calculus, even gravitation would have been gave the members considerable powers, and of no use to him without a beautiful niece." at the same time advanced and rewarded This ambiguous passage may be read two science." "The fact," he adds, "is worthy ways. Voltaire knew what we have else- of attention, as marking the different manwhere affirmed, that though "the generous ner in which the great learned societies of hearts of Englishmen are always open to the claims of intellectual pre-eminence, and ever ready to welcome the stranger whom it adorns, yet through the frozen life-blood of a British Minister such sympathies had selđom vibrated, and that amid the struggles of Geoffroy, in writing to Dr. Sloane, speaks faction and the anxieties of personal and of "the great splendour that the Academy family ambition, he turns a deaf ear to the of Sciences had received from the regulations, demands of genius, whether she appear in increase, encouragement, and orders obtained the humble posture of a suppliant, or in the for it from the King, by the Abbé Bignon;" prouder attitude of a national benefactor."- and Dr. Lister, in his Journey to Paris, He had learned that the same Newton, the states that "if any member shall give in a inventor of fluxions and the apostle of gravi- bill of charges of any experiments which he tation, had craved remission of his weekly shall have made, or shall desire the imprespayments to the Royal Society, and had sion of any book, and bring in the charges been allowed to live in penury by preceding of graving required for such book, the Preministers and preceding sovereigns; and sident allowing it and signing it, the money when he saw so striking an exception to the is forthwith reimbursed by the King." general rule as was exhibited in the conduct "Such royal patronage," says Mr. Weld, of Charles Montague, he found the readiest" it must be confessed was wholly unknown explanation of it in the beauty of the niece, to English philosophers." and in the susceptibility of the minister. We honour Charles Montagne for having set the example of a noble deed, even though the motive was susceptible of misrepresentation; and we should like to learn that even amid the social puritanism of modern times, the beauty and accomplish

-

In the year 1703, the Royal Society suf

* Prior, the Country Mouse, was aggrieved that he had been so much less fortunate than his friend the City Mouse, and he thus wittily expressed his grief: "My friend, Charles Montague's preferred; Nor would I have it long observed, That one mouse eats while t'other's starved."

fered a severe loss in the death of the cele- In the same year in which the Society brated Robert Hooke, a man of powerful in- lost Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton became its tellect and inventive genius. He died on President. He was elected a Member of the 3d March, in the 68th year of his age, the Council for the first time, and also Preworn out with want of sleep, and with ex-sident, at the anniversary in 1703, and he cessive study. He was the very soul of the continued to preside over the Society, for a Royal Society, supplying it with experi- quarter of a century, till his death in 1727. ments at almost every meeting, and bring. He attended almost every meeting of the ing it reputation by his writings and dis- Society, and when his duties at the Mint coveries. Infirm in body and bent in form interfered, he had the day of meeting changed from his infancy, his temper partook of his from Wednesday to Thursday, in order that physical infirmities, and he was "melan- he might be able to give his undivided time choly, mistrustful, and jealous." His tem- to the Society on that day. We have per had been soured by a long Chancery already narrated the proceedings of the suit, to recover the salary of £50 granted to Royal Society in reference to the great dishim by Sir John Cullen, and when this had coveries of Newton, whether optical or as terminated in his favour, on the 1st of July tronomical. During his occupation of the 1696, he made the following entry in his President's chair, he added nothing to scidiary-"Deo optimo maximo summus Honor, ence. His Treatise on Optics indeed was Laus, Gloria, in secula seculorum, Amen. Í presented to the Society on the 16th Feb. was born on this day of July 1635, and God 1704, about three months after his election, has given me a new birth: may I never for- but it contained nothing new excepting his get his kindness to me: whilst he gives me experiments on the inflexion of light, made breath may I praise him." Educated reli- long before that period. This work, congiously under the roof of his father, who taining all his previous optical discoveries, was a clergyman, he retained his religious was first published in English, and afterprinciples, and studied the Sacred Scriptures wards translated into Latin by Dr. Clark, to in their original languages. We mention whom Newton presented £500 as a remuthese facts to protect his memory against neration for his labour. It has been gener charges which have been rashly preferred ally stated by the biographers of Newton, against it. In two of the disputes which he and repeated by Mr. Weld, that he was prehad with Newton, his conduct had been vented by a dread of Hooke's animadver misrepresented by an enemy; and Newton sions and claims, from publishing his Optics himself has acknowledged his obligations to during the lifetime of his colleague. It is Hooke, both on the subject of light and of true that in the Preface to his Optics, writ gravity. With these views of the charac- ten in 1704, a year after Hooke's death, and ter of Hooke, we cannot but express the quoted by Mr. Weld in support of his opinhigh disapprobation, which we trust every ion, Newton states that "to avoid being enphilosopher will feel, when he finds that Biot gaged in disputes about these matters, he has applied to Hooke the coarse language had hitherto delayed the printing;" but he which D'Alembert applied to Fontaine. adds another statement which Mr. Weld has "Hooke est mort; c'etait un homme de génie stangely overlooked, though it is part of the et un mauvaise homme; la Société y gagne very sentence which he has quoted, namely, plus que le géometrie n'y perd." Mr. Weld" and should still have delayed it, had not the has briefly summed up the merits of Hooke in the following just encomium:— "His errors and failings were alike forgotten over his grave, to which he was attended by all the Members of the Royal Society in London at the time of his decease, and who unanimously lamented him as one of the greatest ornaments and prosecutors of science. His energy was truly astonishing; and although this fact is most amply confirmed by his posthumous works, we must examine the journal and register books of the Royal Society, to become fully aware of the labours of this philosopher. They are a wonderful monument of his mathematical and mechanical genius; for there is hardly a page during many years, in which his name does not appear in connexion with new inventions."

importunity of friends prevailed upon me." Now here is a distinct declaration by Newton himself that his delay had no connexion whatever with Hooke. The truth is that Hooke, in so far as Newton's optical dis coveries were concerned, was the most amiable of Newton's opponents, and his objec tions arose from his attachment to what is now almost universally considered as the true theory of light. Hooke's explanation of the colours of thin plates was the right one, and Newton's the wrong one, and a letter to Hooke and other documents have been found among Newton's papers,* in

* This letter, highly honourable to Newton, long will appear in Sir David Brewster's forthcoming with one from Hooke, equally creditable to him,

"Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton."