1700] 143 these are no arguments to you, who carry your own satisfaction, For though you should be never the better; yet there be a great many here that would, and amongst them The humblest of your Ladyship's servants JOHN LOCKE. XCV. Sir Isaac Newton found time for a good deal of correspondence with members of foreign and English Universities, notably with the learned Dr. Bentley, of Cambridge; but his letters are for the most part long, and attain the dimensions and form of scientific tracts. The following is an interesting specimen of the few shorter epistles. Sir Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley. Cambridge: February 11, 1693. Sir,-The Hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world by mechanical principles from matter evenly spread through the heavens being inconsistent with my system, I had considered it very little before your letters put me upon it, and therefore trouble you with a line or two more, if this come not too late for your use. In my former I represented that the diurnal rotations of the Planets could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine power to impress them. And though gravity might give the Planets a motion of descent towards the sun, either directly or with some little obliquity, yet the transverse motions by which they revolve in their several orbs required the Divine Arm to impress them according to the tangents of their orbs. I would now add, that the Hypothesis of matters being at first evenly spread through the heavens is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the Hypothesis of innate gravity, without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and For if there be innate gravity, it's therefore it infers a Deity. impossible now for the matter of the earth and all the planets and stars to fly up from them, and become evenly spread throughout the heavens, without a supernatural power; and certainly that which can never be hereafter without a supernatural power, could never be heretofore without the same power. You queried whether matter evenly spread throughout a finite space, of some other figure than spherical, would not, in falling down towards a central body, cause that body to be of the same figure with the whole space; and I answered, Yes. But in my answer it is to be supposed that the matter descends directly downwards to that body, and that that body has no diurnal rotation. This, Sir, is all that I would add to my former letters. I am, Your most humble Servant, IS. NEWTON. XCVI. The following authentic report of the execution of the rebellious son of Charles II. and Lucy Walters, was written by one of the 'Seven Bishops.' An acknowledgment of the Duke of Monmouth's illegitimacy had been previously made in two public official declarations by his father, as well as to James II. by the Duke himself. It will be seen that Monmouth remained headstrong, obstinate, and courageous, to the last moment of his life. Dr. Lloyd (Bishop of St. Asaph) to Dr. Fell (Bishop of Oxford). July 16, 1685. My Lord, I received your Lordship's letter by the last post, with two enclosed, one to the Duke of Ormond, the other to the Lord Privy-Seal; both which letters I delivered to their own hands, and they promised to answer them. For the King's Inauguration, I know my Lord of Canterbury has made ready an office to be used very year, the 6th of February, so that there will need no question concerning it. I was this day again at Sir H. Foxe's, to speak with him, but he was not at home. I will try again to-morrow. I told your Lordship in my last the Bishop of Ely was appointed by his Majesty to attend the Duke of Monmouth, and to prepare him to die the next day. The Duke wrote to his Majesty, representing how useful he might and would be, if his Majesty would be pleased to grant him his life. But if it might not be, he desired a longer time, and to have another divine to assist him, Dr Tennison, or whom else the King should appoint. The King sent him the Bishop of Bath and Wells to attend, and to tell him he must die the next morning. The two Bishops sate up in his chamber all night, and watched while he slept. In the morning by his Majesty's order, the Lords Privy-Seal and Dartmouth brought him also Dr Tennison and Dr Hooper. All these were with him till he died. They got him to own the King's title to the crown, and to declare in writing that the last King told him he was never married to his mother, and by word of mouth to acknowledge his invasion was sin; but could never get him to confess it was a rebellion. They got him to own that he and Lady Harriot Wentworth had lived in all points like man and wife, but they could not make him confess it was adultery. He acknowledged that he and his Duchess were married by the law of the land, and therefore his children might inherit, if the King pleased. But he did not consider what he did when he married her. He confessed that he had lived many years in all sorts of debauchery, but said he had repented of it, asked pardon, and doubted not that God had forgiven him. He said that since that time he had an affection for Lady Harriot, and prayed that if it were pleasing to God, it might continue, otherwise that it might cease; and God heard his prayer. The affection did continue, and therefore he doubted not it was pleasing to God; and that this was a marriage, their choice of one another being guided not by lust, but by judgment upon due consideration. They endeavoured to shew him the falsehood and mischievousness of this enthusiasticall principle. But he told them it was his opinion, and he was fully satisfied in it. After all, he desired them to give him the communion next morning. They told him they could not do it, while he was in that error and sin. He said he was sorry for it. The next morning, he told them he had prayed that if he was in an error in that matter God would convince him of it, but God had not convinced him, and therefore he believed it was no error. When he was upon the scaffold, he professed himself a Protestant of the Church of England. They told him he could not be so, if he did not own the doctrine of the church of England in the point of non-resistance, and if he persisted in that enthusiastic persuasion. He said he could not help it, but yet he approved the doctrine of the church in all other things. He then spoke to the people, in vindication of the lady Harriot, saying she was a woman of great honour and virtue, a religious godly lady (those were his words). They told him of his living in adultery with her. He said, no. For these two years last past he had not lived in any sin that he knew of; and that he had never wronged any person, and that he was sure when he died to go to God, and therefore he did not fear death, which (he said) they might see in his face. Then they prayed for him, and he knelt down and joined with them After all they had a short prayer for the king, at which he paused, but at last said Amen. He spoke to the headsman to see he did his business well, and not use him as he did the Lord Russell, to give him two or three strokes; for if he did, he should not be able to lie still without turning. Then he gave the executioner 6 guineas, and 4 to one Marshall, a servant of Sir T. Armstrong's that attended him with the King's leave; desiring Marshall to give them the executioner if he did his work well, and not otherwise. He gave this Marshall over night his ring and watch; and now he gave him his case of pickteeth all for Lady Harriot. Then he laid himself down; and upon the sign given, the headsman gave a light stroke, at which he looked him in the face; then he laid him down again, and the headsman gave him two strokes more, and then laid down the axe saying, he could not finish his work; till being threatened by the Sheriff and others then present, he took up the axe again, and at two strokes more cut off his head. All this is true as to matter of fact, and it needs no comment your Lordship. I desire your prayers, and remain Your Lordship's most affectionate W. ASAPH. XCVII. Tom Browne, once one of the most facetious and versatile of metropolitan scribblers, is scarcely remembered now. He had been, it is said, a schoolmaster at Kingston-on-Thames, but having been guilty of some indiscretion he had forfeited his ferule and set up in London as a merry fellow.' His merriment is as a rule too coarse for modern taste, but the following letter is not unworthy of Elia-at his worst. Mr. Browne died in 1704. Tom Browne to a Lady who Smoked Tobacco. Madam,-Though the ill-natured world censures you for smoking, yet I would advise you, madam, not to part with s innocent a diversion. In the first place, it is healthful; and, as Galen rightly observes, is a sovereign remedy for the toothache, the constant persecutor of old ladies. Secondly, tobacco, though it be a heathenish weed, it is a great help to Christian meditations; which is the reason, I suppose, that recommends it to your parsons, the generality of whom can no more write a sermon without a pipe in their mouths, than a concordance in their hands; besides, every pipe you break may serve to put you in mind of mortality, and show you upon what slender accidents man's life depends. I knew a dissenting minister who, on fast-days, used to mortify upon a rump of beef, because it put him, as he said, in mind that all flesh was grass; but, I am sure, much more is to be learnt from tobacco. It may instruct you that riches, beauty, and all the glories of the world, vanish like a vapour. Thirdly, it is a pretty plaything. Fourthly, and lastly, it is fashionable, at least 'tis in a fair way of becoming so. Cold tea, you know, has been a long while in reputation at court, and the gill as naturally ushers in the pipe, as the sword-bearer walks before the lord mayor. XCVIII. The brief life of Qtway was embittered by his unrequited passion for Mrs. (Miss) Barry, the famous actress, for whom he wrote all those principal parts in his successive plays which were admitted to become her genius the best of any. She kept him in suspense for seven years, unwilling to marry or to dismiss him, to lose his services as a playwright or to accept him as a lover. The following letter was probably written at the close of this period, in 1682, when the brilliant success of 'Venice Preserved 'had made him the first tragic poet and her the first tragic actress of that age. Thomas Otway to Madam Barry. [1682.] Could I see you without passion, or be absent from you without pain, I need not beg your pardon for thus renewing my vows that I love you more than health, or any happiness here or hereafter. Everything you do is a new charm to me, and though I have languished for seven long tedious years of desire, jealously despairing, yet every minute I see you, I still discover something new and more betwitching. Consider how I love you; what would I not renounce, or enterprise for you? I must have you mine, or I am |