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with the boldest induction and most felicitous anticipations of what has since been effected.

The solution of the inverse problem of disturbing forces has led Le Verrier and Adams to the discovery of a new planet, merely by deductions from the manner in which the motions of an old one are effected, and its orbit has been so calculated that observers could find it; ray, its disc as measured by them only varies th of a degree from the amount given by the theory. Moreover, when Newton gave his estimate of the earth's density, he wrote a century before Maskelyne, and, by measuring the force. of gravitation in the Scotch mountains, gave the proportion to water as 4,716 to 1; and. many years after, by experiments with mechanical apparatus, Cavendish (1798) corrected this to 5:48, and Baily, more recently (1842), to 5'66, Newton having given the proportion as between five and six times. In these instances he only showed the way and anticipated the result of future inquiry by his followers. But the oblate figure of the earth affords an example of the same kind, with this difference, that here he has himself perfected the discovery, and nearly completed the demonstration. From the mutual gravitation of the particles which form its mass, combined with their motion round its axis, he deduced the proposition that it must be flattened at the poles; and he calculated the proportion of its polar to its equatorial diameter. By a most refined process, he gave this proportion, upon the supposition of the mass being homogeneous. That the proportion is different in consequence of the mass being heterogeneous, does not in the least affect the soundness of his conclusion. Accurate measurements of a degree of latitude in the equatorial and polar regions, with experiments on the force of gravitation in those regions, by the different lengths of a pendulum vibrating seconds, have shown that the excess of the equatorial diameter is about eleven miles less than he had

there can only once be found a system of the universe to establish." "Never," says the father of the Institute of France-one filling a high place among the most eminent of its members-"Never," says M. Biot, "was the supremacy of intellect so justly established and so fully confessed. In mathematical and in experimental science, without an equal and without an example, combining the genius for both in its highest degree." The Principia he terms the greatest work ever produced by the mind of man, adding, in the words of Halley, "that a nearer approach to the Divine nature has not been permitted to mortals." "In first giving to the world Newton's method of fluxions," says Fontenelle, "Leibnitz did like Prometheus, he stole fire from Heaven to bestow it upon men." "Does Newton," L'Hopital asked, "sleep and wake like other men? I figure him to myself as a celestial genius, entirely disengaged from matter."

To so renowned a benefactor of the world, thus exalted to the loftiest place by the common consent of all men,-one whose life, without the intermission of an hour, was passed in the search after truths the most important, and at whose hands the human race has only received good, never evil-no memorial has been raised by those nations which erected statues to the tyrants and conquerors, the scourges of mankind, whose lives were passed, not in the pursuit of truth, but the practice of falsehood; or across whose lips, if truth ever chanced to stray towards some selfish end, it surely failed to obtain belief; who, to slake their insane thirst of power or of pre-eminence, trampled on the rights and squandered the blood of their fellow-creatures; whose course, like the lightning, blasted while it dazzled; and who, reversing the Roman emperor's noble regret, deemed the day lost that saw the sun go down upon their forbearance,-no victim deceived, or betrayed, or oppressed. That the worshippers of such pesti

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lent genius should consecrate to the memory of the most illustrious of men no outward symbol of the admiration they freely confessed, is not matter of wonder. But that his own countrymen, justly proud of having lived in his time, should have left this duty to their successors, after a century and a-half of professed veneration and lip homage, may well be deemed strange. The inscription upon the cathedral, masterpiece of his celebrated friend's architecture, may possibly be applied in defence of this neglect. "If you seek for a monument look around." you seek for a monument, lift up your eyes to the heavens which show forth his fame." Nor when we recollect the Greek orator's exclamation-" The whole earth is the monument of illustrious men," can we stop short of declaring that the whole universe is Newton's. Yet in raising the statue which preserves his likeness, near the place of his birth, on the spot where his prodigious faculties were unfolded and trained, we at once gratify our honest pride as cti zens of the same state, and humbly testify our grateful sense of the Divine goodness which deigned to bestow upon our race one so marvellously gifted to comprehend the works of Infinite Wisdom, and so piously resolved to make all his study of them the source of religious contemplations, both philosophical and sublime.

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LINCOLNSHIRE enjoys the proud distinction of having given to the world the illustrious mathematician and philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton,-justly described as "the greatest genius of the human race,"-who was born at the manor house of Woolsthorpe, a hamlet eight miles from this town, on Christmas-day, 1642. Sir Isaac was a posthumous child, his father having died, at a comparatively early age, some three months before the birth of a son whose reputa

tion will endure "to the last syllable of recorded time." Mrs. Newton re-married, and the embryo philosopher seems to have remained under the care of his maternal grandmother and uncle, until he attained the age of 12, when he was sent to the grammar-school at Grantham. While at school he displayed an extraordinary inclination for mechanics, and busied himself, during the time devoted by his schoolmates to play, in making models of various kinds, chiefly clocks and sun-dials, one of the latter of which is still to be seen carved upon the walls of the old manor house at Woolsthorpe. He was entered, in 1661, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was fortunate enough to secure the friendship of the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, who had been elected Greek Professor in 1660, and who became Lucasian Professor in 1663. In the autumn of 1667, Newton was elected a minor fellow; and on the 16th of March, 1668, he was elected a major fellow; and on the 29th October, 1669, he was appointed Lucasian Professor, in the room of Dr. Barrow, who is said to have resigned with a view to his appointment; and from this period may be dated the development of those scientific discoveries which have given him a world-wide and time-enduring reputation. It is unnecessary to trace further the career of this great philosopher, over whose giant intellect a sad cloud subsequently passed, but who died at a green old age, in his 85th year, but unmarried, on the 20th of March, 1727.

The relations of Sir Isaac, who inherited his personal estate, devoted the sum of £500 to the erection of a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey, but in his case the proverb that a prophet is honoured everywhere save in his own country and among his own people, has until recently been verified. Some three or four years ago, however, the inhabitants, or the town council, of Grantham, bethought themselves that some ornament was required for a vacant

space of ground which is styled St. Peter's Hill, though it seems to be little, if at all, above the dead level of the Lincolnshire fens. It was suggestedand the suggestion was favourably received-that the most appropriate ornament would be a monument to the memory of a man whose early career was so closely identified with the town and neighbourhood, and whose researches had conferred an eternal bene

fit upon mankind. A committee was formed to carry out this object, and Mr. Thomas Winter, a member of the town council-to whose untiring zeal and energy its successful accomplishment is, we believe, mainly attributable-undertook to act as the honorary secretary. Mr. Winter at once placed himself in communication with Lord Rosse, Lord Brougham, and other gentlemen of distinction in the literary and scientific world, who evinced a warm interest in the success of the scheme. Under these auspices the project received the sanction of the Royal Society, and the patronage of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort, who aided the fund by a subscription of £100. A general meeting of the subscribers was held in 1854, at St. George's Hall, Liverpool, during the séance in that town of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when it was resolved that the memorial should be a bronze statue, and its execution was entrusted by the Committee of Selection to Mr. Theed, the result of whose labours is not only creditable to himself, but not unworthy of the great philosopher whose memory it perpetuates.

The likeness of Sir Isaac is copied from a mask of his face taken after death, and from the portrait bust by Roubilliac. It represents him in the costume of the period, and in the gown of a Master of Arts, in the act of lecturing. The figure is nearly thirteen feet high, weighing upwards of two tons, and about half the quantity of the material of which it is composed was presented, in the shape of old gun metal, by Her Majesty's Government. The statue was cast

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