Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-11-03
miscellaneous.
From the London Times, September u.
MEMOIRS OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

As n general rule tho Biographies Of mon Of
science are not intci eStitg to ordinary readers. IL
is not that their lives arc uneyenttul. We have
memoirs Of poets, novclists, historians, diyines-
oil teeming with interests, although the incidents
which the biographcr has t. relate are scarcely
more Important than those which worthy Or. Pr!m-
rose thought it beneath him to chronicle, when bis
family in the yicarage moved from tho hIoc room
to the brown room, and back again from the brown
room to the blue room. The i1c OF Samuel John
son was uHeventful, and vet his biography is tue
finest in the language. But We have no memoir
Of a man IF science that has proved OF deep and
lasting interests, unless we except the autoJiogra-
ply of Benjamin Franklin.
The fact is, that :he more completely q man de-
votes himself to science, he becomes the less a
social being the less, therefore, a man, and the
more a philosophical instrument. And as We do
not suppose that memoirs OF Babbage's calculating
machine would be very entertaining, so neither Is
the biography Of n man whose life has passed into
an algebraicul formula, and whose thoughts are
ever intent upon r-that terrible unknown, docs
Mr.. Newton eat drink or sleep like other men p
well might the Marquis de Pllopital ask. 81 rep
resent him to myself as a celestial genius, entirely
disengaced from matter"
Sir David Brewster has just published an elabo-
rate biography of Newton, to show that he Is en-
titled not only to the admiration which the whole
world accords HIM bat also TO the love Of our
hearts. lie has done his best to place Sir Isaac
in a good light. lie has, in short, written two
long volumes to illustrate one line written by
Pope
"Uod smI let Newton be- and all was light"
After u careful perusal Of this heightened pane
gyric, we are forced to the conclusion that Sir
David is q good Christian and q bad biOgrapher;
and tia. iC Sir Isaac Ia his intellect was almost a
god in his heart he was scarcely q man.
Sir David has been engaged Ga the life of New
ton Tor twenty-five years, an in all that time he
has not been able to arrange his materials with n
Conference greater than that of an almanac, where
we learned that Sir Robert Peel was born four
days before Queen Victoria was married aud
her Majesty was married a couple OF days
before Lady Jane GREY was boheaded. lie
suddenly dashed forward twenty years, then back
thirty, forward again ten, back two or three. for
ward 4 century, and so to end fro, till the bewil-
dered reader gives up in despair the task Of follow
ing the AUTHORS chronology, aud is almost content
20 believe that Sir Isaac was k~nighted when a
schoolLoy, and that in his last days he turned
alchymjst.
This fault is fatal to a biograpbor, and all the
scientific attatnHcuts. all the lucid exposition, all
the brilliant writing Of Sir David Brewster cannot
retrieve it. Besides which, he writes with a partiali-
" that, while 1t wins our affection for his goodness,
destroys our respect for his opinion. 1t is right
To speak with reverence Of the dead let the mem
ory Q Newton le saered;but so also siouldsthe mem
orics of ~iluvgens and ll0Oke, Leibnitz and Flam-
steel, at whose expense Sir David Brewster has
exalted Newton. We are quite sure that the au-
thor is NOT aware how much he has been Influenced
by partially and we sLali ~therefor5 give q single ex-
ample Of Lis special pleading in favor O! Sir Isaac.
1t was reported that Newton had called Sir Hans
Sloane, the Secretary Of the Royal Society, "a
trucking fellow" and "a villain" 1t does not much
matter whether the report wss true or false, only
Sir David ~iuiagipes that there were no such terms
in Newton's vocabulary. when he was irritated
at the conduct Of Flamsteed, he could n~Otcommand
a hdTSher term than that Of puppy.-Sec p. $50"
We turn to page 239Sand read Flamsteed's ac-
count of the affair. "IIe then called me many
hard names puppy ic0s tho most innocent otMem."
And why should Sir David 60 thus out of the way
to show that Newton could not use a hard word ?
We indeed, doubt very mnch whether he ever call
ed Sir Hans Sloane "a tricking fellow" and "a vii
Iafn;" but we do not think that the man who, when
n schoolboy, fought his companion in the church
yard, and rubbed his nose against the wall ; who
told Elansteed to hold his tongue, and called him
q puppy, and who addressed some Follows Of st.
Johns, when he saw them examining a haunted
house, oh, ye fools p was incapable, as Sir David
suprGses, of employing such terms. Of what
avail is all this veneering? 1t only defeats its
purpose. Excessive praise always results in Excess
sige depreciation. This has happened once already
in the case Of Newton. His partisans in the Royal
Society had iauded his intellect SO yehemently, and
his claims over foreigners SO unfairly, that as a
natural consequence, the foreigners took advan-
tage Of 4 moment Of weakness and pronounced
him mad.
The elaborate life of Newton. contributed by NJ.
Blot TO the Biogrdlhie, UaicerSeUc is written
throughout on the suspicion that from his 45th
year, when the little dog Diamond" is said to
baye upset the candle and burnt his papers, TO the
day Of his death, his M lightly intellect .yas obscur-
cd. Sir David has satisfactorily disproved the in
Insanity Of Newton, but eh need not wonder if the
Idolatry of which be sets the example should call
forth imputafions equally injurious. Why should
not tie truth be spoken abon. NeWtOnP With all
our SeneraU0n tor lis name we have no sympathy
with these who think they honor him by denying
bis faults, and who seem to us &c be guilty Of the
folly Of those disnes who explain away the false
hood Of one Scripture saint. and out aud out defend
another for cheating his father and robbing his
brother.
The coH,m mon idea of Newton is very vague. In
writing 70 the earliest Of his blographers, Pope ex-
gressed a desire to have the same memoirs and
Character of him as a private man." The desire
might still lie expressed. We have no intimacy
with AeRton. Few persons, if asked to describe
the character Of the man, could say mere than
this-tnaG be Vas exceedingly absent, and that he
was imperlurabie almost to insipidity, perhaps
quoting az illustration Of The latter Characteristic
the apoeryphai story OF the philosopher and his
hide dog Diamond This Is not saying much.
and ye-the half Of it is inc0rrect. The cotempo.
raries Of Newton describe him as anything bat
Impertnrb85e on certain occasions. Locke doclar-
ed that Be was ~ nice man TO deal WITH" but "a
litae too apt 20 raise IN himself suspicious where
there is no ground" Flamsteed always found
hira I~Bei1iDus. oa1bitiOus, and excessively cove
tOus Of praise and impatient Of contradiction.
Winston describes him as equally impatient, and
of the most fearful, cautious and snspiciuns tenn
per that ever he knew. DAiembert gives the
French idea Of him when he says: In England
people were content with Newt0n's being the
greatest genius Of his age; in France one would
bare also wished him 20 be omiabie." If Newton
was really unamiable, it was chiefly q negative
gHamiabiiily. lie was unsociA!, he was reserved. he
was absent he was silent in the course Of Eve
years bis secretary, Humphrey Newton, never saw
him laugh but once. and that once it is impossible
to comprehend why gerat Of all to a Frenchman,
he had none Of the graces-copld not, like Fonte-
nellie, begin a treatise on astronomy by saiuting a
lady aud comparing the beauty Of day to a blonde
and the beauty of night TO a brunette. The only
qualities Of Newton that were positively unamiable
were his suspicious temper and bis impatiehee of
ness even was negative with the exception Of his
piety and his yeracity. He was good because Re
was passienless; ana he was not lOyeable, because
b. vas Wild IF au,osfo,