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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.-Psalm xxxvii. 37.

Of all the great and good men who were distinguished in England, during the reigns of Queen Anne and of King George the First and Second, Sir Isaac Newton was pre-eminent in original talents, and unblemished excellence. In Hume's history we read of him as follows: "In Newton, this island may justly boast of having produced the greatest and rarest genius that ever appeared for the ornament and instruction of mankind. His character, at home and abroad, did honour to human nature. He was void of self-conceit, or ostentation; mild, patient, and prudent, his superior talents made him more anxious to merit, than to acquire fame. He anxiously sought for truth in all his mental labours, which were wholly with a view to improve by knowledge and virtue.

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He was cautious, in admitting only such principles of philosophy as were founded on experiment; yet firm, and resolute, to adopt, and declare, every such principle, when confirmed, however new or singular. Happy to discover truth after the most intense application, by which he often forgot his sleep and his food,-not vain, or conscious of his high talents, he often appeared ignorant of his own great superiority of mind above the rest of mankind;-not anxious to display those talents, or to exhibit his ideas and experiments to common apprehensions. From these causes, this great man was many years of his early life not in public life;-but at last his reputation and fame broke out with a bright lustre of excellence beyond what any other writer of natural philosophy and astronomy had ever attained."

The first philosophers in Paris, who had devoted themselves to these studies, said "does this distinguished philosopher eat, sleep, or walk, like other men? we are ready to fancy Newton a celestial Being."-Mr. Pope wrote these lines after" The Principia" of Newton had been printed in London with great approbation :

"Nature and all her works lay hid in night:

God said, Let Newton be,' and all was light."

This very remarkable man was of an ancient family in Lincolnshire, which had been settled for above two hundred years on the manor of Woodstrope in that county, where he was born on

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