_His Acquaintance with Dr. Pemberton, who edits the Third Edition of
the Principia—His first Attack of ill Health—His Recovery—He is
taken ill in consequence of attending the Royal Society—His Death
on the 20th March, 1727—His Body lies in state—His Funeral—He is
buried in Westminster Abbey—His Monument described—His Epitaph—A
Medal struck in honour of him—Roubiliac’s full-length Statue of him
erected in Cambridge—Division of his Property—His Successors._
About the year 1722, Sir Isaac was desirous of publishing a third
edition of his Principia, and the premature death of Mr. Cotes
having deprived him of his valuable aid, he had the good fortune to
become acquainted with Dr. Henry Pemberton, a young and accomplished
physician, who had cultivated mathematical learning with considerable
success. M. Poleni, an eminent professor in the University of Padua,
having endeavoured, on the authority of a new experiment, to overturn
the common opinion respecting the force of bodies in motion, and to
establish that of Leibnitz in its place, Dr. Pemberton transmitted
to Dr. Mead a demonstration of its inaccuracy. Dr. Mead communicated
this paper to Sir Isaac, who not only highly approved of it, but added
a demonstration of his own, drawn from another consideration of the
subject; and this was printed without his name, as a postscript to
Pemberton’s paper, when it appeared in the Transactions.[121]
In a short time after the commencement of their acquaintance, Sir Isaac
engaged Dr. Pemberton to superintend the new edition of the Principia.
In discharging this duty, Dr. Pemberton had occasion to make many
remarks on this work, which Sir Isaac always received with the utmost
goodness, and the new edition appeared with numerous alterations in
1726. On the occasions upon which he had personal intercourse with Sir
Isaac, and which were necessarily numerous, he endeavoured to learn
his opinions on various mathematical subjects, and to obtain some
historical information respecting his inventions and discoveries. Sir
Isaac entered freely into all these topics and during the conversations
which took place, and while they were reading together Dr. Pemberton’s
popular account of Sir Isaac’s discoveries, he obtained the most
perfect evidence that, though his memory was much decayed, yet he was
fully able to understand his own writings.
During the last twenty years of his life, which he spent in London,
the charge of his domestic concerns devolved upon his beautiful and
accomplished niece, Mrs. Catharine Barton, the wife of Colonel Barton,
for whom, as we have already seen, the Earl of Halifax had conceived
the warmest affection. This lady, who had been educated at her uncle’s
expense, married Mr. Conduit, and continued to reside with her husband
in Sir Isaac’s house till the time of his death.
In the year 1722, when he had reached the eightieth year of his age, he
was seized with an incontinence of urine, which was ascribed to stone
in the bladder, and was considered incurable. By means of a strict
regimen, however, and other precautions, he was enabled to alleviate
his complaint, and to procure long intervals of ease. At this time he
gave up the use of his carriage, and always went out in a chair. He
declined all invitations to dinner, and at his own house he had only
small parties. In his diet he was extremely temperate. Though he took a
little butcher meat, yet the principal articles of his food were broth,
vegetables, and fruit, of which he always ate very heartily. In spite
of all his precautions, however, he experienced a return of his old
complaint, and in August, 1724, he passed a stone the size of a pea,
which came away in two pieces, the one at the distance of two days from
the other. After some months of tolerable good health, he was seized
in January, 1725, with a violent cough and inflammation of the lungs;
and in consequence of this attack, he was prevailed upon, with some
difficulty, to take up his residence at Kensington, where his health
experienced a decided improvement. In February, 1725, he was attacked
in both his feet with a fit of the gout, of which he had received a
slight warning a few years before, and the effect of this new complaint
was to produce a great and beneficial change in his general health. On
Sunday the 7th March, when his head was clearer and his memory stronger
than Mr. Conduit had known it to be for some time, he entered into a
long conversation on various subjects in astronomy. He explained to
Mr. Conduit how comets might be formed out of the light of vapours
discharged from the sun and the fixed stars as the centres of systems.
He conceived that these luminaries were replenished by the same comets
being again returned to them; and upon this principle he explained
the extraordinary lights which were seen among the fixed stars by
Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’s disciples, and which he supposed
to arise from the additional fuel which they received.[122]
Notwithstanding the improvement which his health had experienced,
his indisposition was still sufficiently severe to unfit him for the
discharge of his duties at the mint; and as his old deputy was confined
with the dropsy, he was desirous in 1725 of resigning his office to
Mr. Conduit. Difficulties probably were experienced in making this
arrangement, but his nephew discharged for him all the duties of his
office; and during the last year of his life he hardly ever went to the
mint.
But though every kind of motion was calculated to aggravate his
complaint, and though he had derived from absolute rest and from
the air at Kensington the highest benefit, yet great difficulty was
experienced in preventing him from occasionally going to town. Feeling
himself able for the journey, he went to London on Tuesday the 28th of
February, 1727, to preside at a meeting of the Royal Society. On the
following day Mr. Conduit considered him better than he had been for
many years, and Sir Isaac was himself so sensible of this improvement
in his health, that he assured his nephew that on the Sunday preceding,
he had slept from eleven o’clock at night till eight o’clock next
morning without waking. He had undergone, however, great fatigue in
attending the meeting of the Royal Society, and in paying and receiving
visits, and the consequence of this was a violent return of his former
complaint. He returned to Kensington on Saturday the 4th March, and was
attended by Dr. Mead and Dr. Cheselden, who pronounced his disease to
be stone, and held out no hopes of his recovery. From the time of his
last journey to London he had experienced violent fits of pain with
very short intermissions; and though the drops of sweat ran down his
face during these severe paroxysms, yet he never uttered a cry or a
complaint, or displayed the least marks of peevishness or impatience;
but during the short intervals of relief which occurred, he smiled and
conversed with his usual gayety and cheerfulness. On Wednesday the 15th
of March he seemed a little better; and slight, though groundless hopes
were entertained of his recovery. On the morning of Saturday the 18th
he read the newspapers, and carried on a pretty long conversation with
Dr. Mead, when all his senses and faculties were strong and vigorous;
but at six o’clock of the same evening he became insensible, and he
continued in that state during the whole of Sunday, and till Monday the
20th, when he expired between one and two o’clock in the morning, in
the eighty-fifth year of his age.
His body was removed from Kensington to London, and on Tuesday the
28th March it lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was thence
conveyed to Westminster Abbey, where it was buried near the entrance
into the choir on the left-hand. The pall was supported by the Lord
High Chancellor, the Dukes of Roxburghe and Montrose, and the Earls
of Pembroke, Sussex, and Macclesfield, who were Fellows of the Royal
Society. The Hon. Sir Michael Newton, Knight of the Bath, was chief
mourner, and was followed by some other relations, and several
distinguished characters who were intimately acquainted with the
deceased. The funeral service was performed by the Bishop of Rochester,
attended by the prebend and choir.
Sensible of the high honour which they derived from their connexion
with so distinguished a philosopher, the relations of Sir Isaac Newton
who inherited his personal estate,[123] agreed to devote 500_l._ to
the erection of a monument to his memory, and the dean and chapter
of Westminster appropriated for it a place in the most conspicuous
part of the Abbey, which had often been refused to the greatest of
our nobility. This monument was erected in 1731. On the front of a
sarcophagus resting on a pedestal are sculptured in basso-relievo
youths bearing in their hands the emblems of Sir Isaac’s principal
discoveries. One carries a prism, another a reflecting telescope, a
third is weighing the sun and planets with a steelyard, a fourth is
employed about a furnace, and two others are loaded with money newly
coined. On the sarcophagus is placed the figure of Sir Isaac in a
cumbent posture, with his elbow resting on several of his works. Two
youths stand before him with a scroll, on which is drawn a remarkable
diagram relative to the solar system, and above that is a converging
series. Behind the sarcophagus is a pyramid, from the middle of
which rises a globe in mezzo-relievo, upon which several of the
constellations are drawn, in order to show the path of the comet of
1681, whose period Sir Isaac had determined, and also the position of
the solstitial colure mentioned by Hipparchus, and by means of which
Sir Isaac had, in his Chronology, fixed the time of the Argonautic
expedition. A figure of Astronomy as Queen of the Sciences sits
weeping on the Globe with a sceptre in her hand, and a star surmounts
the summit of the pyramid. The following epitaph is inscribed on the
monument.
Hic situs est
Isaacus Newton, Eques Auratus,
Qui Animi Vi prope divina,
Planetarum Motus, Figuras,
Cometarum Semitas, Oceanique Æstus,
Sua Mathesi facem preferente,
Primus demonstravit.
Radiorum Lucis dissimilitudines,
Colorumque inde nascentium Proprietates,
Quas nemo antea vel suspicatus erat, pervestigavit,
Naturæ, Antiquitates, S. Scripturæ,
Sedulus, sagax, fidus Interpres,
Dei Opt. Max. Majestatem Philosophia asseruit,
Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit.
Sibi gratulentur Mortales, tale tantumque extitisse,
HUMANI GENERIS DECUS.
Natus xxv. Decemb. MDCXLII. Obiit. xx. Mar.
MDCCXXVII.
Of which the following is a literal translation:
Here lies
Isaac Newton, Knight,
Who, by a Vigour of Mind almost supernatural,
First demonstrated
The Motions and Figures of the Planets,
The Paths of the Comets, and the Tides of the Ocean.
He diligently investigated
The different Refrangibilities of the Rays of Light,
And the Properties of the Colours to which they give rise.
An assiduous, sagacious, and faithful Interpreter
Of Nature, Antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures,
He asserted in his Philosophy the Majesty of God,
And exhibited in his conduct the Simplicity of the Gospel.
Let Mortals rejoice
That there has existed such and so great
AN ORNAMENT OF HUMAN NATURE.
Born 25th Dec. 1642, Died 20th March, 1727.
In the beginning of 1731, a medal was struck at the Tower in honour
of Sir Isaac Newton. It had on one side the head of the philosopher,
with the motto, _Felix cognoscere causas_, and on the reverse a figure
representing the mathematics.
On the 4th February, 1755, a magnificent full-length statue of Sir
Isaac Newton in white marble was erected in the antechapel of Trinity
College. He is represented standing on a pedestal in a loose gown,
holding a prism, and looking upwards with an expression of the deepest
thought. On the pedestal is the inscription,
Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit.
Who surpassed all men in genius.
This statue, executed by Roubiliac, was erected at the expense of
Dr. Robert Smith, the author of the _Compleat System of Optics_, and
professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge.—It has
been thus described by a modern poet:
Hark where the organ, full and clear,
With loud hosannas charms the ear;
Behold, a prism within his hands,
Absorbed in thought great Newton stands
Such was his brow, and looks serene,
His serious gait and musing mien,
When taught on eagle wings to fly,
He traced the wonders of the sky;
The chambers of the sun explored,
Where tints of thousand hues were stored.
Dr. Smith likewise bequeathed the sum of 500_l._ for executing a
painting on glass for the window at the south end of Trinity College,
Cambridge. The subject represents the presentation of Sir Isaac Newton
to his majesty George III., who is seated under a canopy with a laurel
chaplet in his hand, and attended by the British Minerva, apparently
advising him to reward merit in the person of the great philosopher.
Below the throne, the Lord Chancellor Bacon is proposing to register
the reward about to be conferred upon Sir Isaac. The original drawing
of this absurd picture was executed by Cypriani, and cost one hundred
guineas.
The personal estate of Sir Isaac Newton, which was worth about
32,000_l._, was divided among his four nephews and four nieces of the
half-blood, the grandchildren of his mother by the Reverend Mr. Smith.
The family estates of Woolsthorpe and Sustern he bequeathed to John
Newton, the heir-at-law, whose great-grandfather was Sir Isaac’s uncle.
This gentleman does not seem to have sufficiently valued the bequest,
for he sold them in 1732, to Edmund Turnor of Stoke Rocheford.[124] A
short time before his death, Sir Isaac gave away an estate in Berkshire
to the sons and daughter of a brother of Mrs. Conduit, who, in
consequence of their father dying before Sir Isaac, had no share in the
personal estate; and he also gave an estate of the same value, which he
bought at Kensington, to Catharine, the only daughter of Mr. Conduit,
who afterward married Mr. Wallop, the eldest son of Lord Lymington.
This lady was afterward Viscountess Lymington, and the estate of
Kensington descended to the late Earl of Portsmouth, by whom it was
sold. Sir Isaac was succeeded as master and warden in the mint by his
nephew, John Conduit, Esq., who wrote a treatise on the gold and silver
coin, and who died in 1737, leaving behind him his wife and daughter,
the former of whom died in 1739, in the 59th year of her age.