portionate breadth, not unlike a common house-clock. The index of the dial-plate was turned by a piece of wood, which either rose or fell by the action of dropping water. As it stood in Isaac's own bed-room, he supplied it every morning with the requisite quantity of water; and this same machine was used as a time-keeper by Mr. Clarke's family, and remained in the house many years after its inventor had left Grantham. Dr. Stukely, in a letter to Dr. Mead says, "I remember once, when I was deputy to Dr. Halley, Secretary to the Royal Society, Sir Isaac talked of these kind of instruments. That he observed the chief inconvenience in them was, that the hole through which the water was transmitted was necessarily very small, and subject to be furred up by the impurities in the water, as those made with sand will wear bigger, which at length causes an inequality in time." This satisfactorily proves that Newton's mind was occupied by the consideration of his youthful inventions, when more important avocations attracted his attention in after years. His mechanical carriage was a vehicle with four wheels, which was put in motion with a handle wrought by the person who sat in it, but it seems only to have been calculated for a smooth surface, and not fitted to overcome the inequalities of a road. It was, however, a most useful invention for invalids, which enabled them to move from one place to another in a room, when unable to walk. Isaac Newton was at this period "a sober, silent, thinking lad" who seldom ever joined in the ordinary games and more boisterous amusements of his companions, yet he took great delight in providing them with pastimes of a scientific character. He introduced among his schoolfellows the flying of paper kites; and he is said to have been at great pains in determining their best forms and proportions, and in ascertaining the position and number of the points by which the string ought to be attached. He also made paper lantherns, by the light of which he went to school in the winter mornings; and in dark nights he frequently attached these lantherns to the tails of his kites, which inspired the country people with the belief that they were comets. In the house of Mr. Clark at Grantham, where he lodged, there were also some female boarders in whose company he appears to have taken much pleasure. One of these young ladies, a Miss Storey, sister to Dr. Storey, a physician at Buckminster, near Colsterworth, was Newton's junior by two or three years, and to great personal attractions she seems to have added more than the customary share of female talent. The society of Miss Storey and her companions was always preferred to that of his own schoolfellows, and it was one of his most agreeable occupations to exercise his mechanical abilities in constructing for them little tables, chairs, cupboards, and other utensils for holding their dolls and their trinkets. He had lived nearly six years in the same house with Miss Storey, and there is every reason to believe, that during this time their youthful friendship gradually rose to a stronger passion; and his attachment is said to have continued even after he was sent to college, but as he could not marry without forfeiting his chance of a fellowship, and as he had no means of supporting a wife and family, he subdued his predilection in silence, and found consolation in the severest labour of study. This young lady was afterwards twice married, and under the name of Mrs. Vincent, Dr. Stukely visited her at Grantham in the year 1727, when she had attained the mature age of eighty-two, and from her he obtained many interesting particulars respecting the early history of Sir Isaac. Newton's esteem for this his first love, continued unabated during his life. He never visited Lincolnshire without calling upon her; and, when she sunk into poverty, liberally supplied her wants, by relieving her from little pecuniary difficulties which appear to have frequently perplexed her. But Newton's genius was not engrossed by mechanical pursuits. Among his early passions we have to recount his love of drawing, and even of writing verses. His own room was furnished with pictures, drawn, coloured, and neatly framed by himself, sometimes from copies, but often from life. Mr. Clark informed Dr. Stukely that the walls of the room in which Sir Isaac lodged were covered with charcoal drawings of birds, beasts, men, ships, and mathematical figures, all of which were very well designed. Among the portraits in Newton's room were those of Dr. Donne, Mr. Stokes, the master of Grantham school, and King Charles I., under whose picture were the following lines : A secret art my soul requires to try, If prayers can give me what the wars deny. But now a crown of thorns I gladly greet, Sharp is this crown, but not so sharp as sweet; Is full of bliss and of eternity. These verses were repeated to Dr. Stukely by Mrs. Vincent, who believed them to be the composition of Newton, a circumstance which seems to be the more probable, as he himself many years after assured Mr. Conduit, with some expression of pleasure, that he "at one time excelled in making verses," though he had been frequently heard to express his great contempt for poetical composition; but like all young men who are anxious in gaining a respectable livelihood, he gave up the idle trade for a more serious calling. But during these early years, while the mind of Newton was occupied principally with the pursuits which we have already detailed, it was by no means inattentive to the motions of the celestial bodies, on which he was afterwards enabled to throw such a flood of brilliant light. His thoughts had probably been directed to the more accurate measure of time which the motion of the sun afforded, by the imperfections of his water-clock. In the back-yard of Mr. Clark's house where he lived, he marked the varying movements of that luminary upon the walls and roofs of the outbuildings, and by means of fixed pins he noted the hourly and half-hourly subdivisions. One of these dials, which went by the name of "Isaac's dial,” and was long after frequently referred to by the country people for the hour of the day, appears to have been drawn solely from the observations of several years; but we have now no means of obtaining information whether the numerous dials which he drew on the walls of his house at Woolsthorpe, and which existed many years after his death, were of the same description, or were projected from his knowledge of the doctrine of the sphere. In the year 1656, upon the death of the Reverend Mr. Smith, his widow, the mother of Newton, left the rectory of North Witham, and took up her residence at Woolsthorpe along with her three children, Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah Smith. Isaac had now attained the fifteenth year of his age, and had made great progress in his studies under Mr. Stokes; and as his mother considered that he was capable of being useful in the management of the farm and country business at Woolsthorpe, she, chiefly from a motive of economy, recalled him from the school at Grantham, and brought him home. In order to accustom the young farmer to two of the most important branches of agricultural labour-the art of selling and buying -he was generally sent on the Saturdays to Grantham market, to dispose of grain and other farm produce, and to purchase such articles as was requisite for the use of the family. But as Isaac was yet void of experience in such matters, an old trust-worthy servant generally accompanied him for the purpose of initiating him into the mysteries of the business of marketmaking. The inn where they put up was the Saracen's Head at West Gate; but no sooner had they put up their horses than our youthful philosopher deserted his commercial concerns, and betook himself to his former lodgings in Mr. Clark's garret, where a number of the apothecary's old books afforded him abundance of entertainment till his aged guardian had finished the more intricate business of market-making, and called for him with the announcement that it was time for them to return home. At other times he did not trouble himself by going so far, but deserted his duties on the road, and ensconced himself under a hedge, where he remained with some favourite volume till the servant returned from market at Grantham. "One of his uncles," says Mr. Biot, "having one day found him under a hedge with a book in his hand and entirely absorbed in meditation, took it from him, and found that he was occupied in the solution of a mathematical problem. Struck with finding so serious and so active a disposition at so early an age, he urged his mother no longer to thwart him, and to send him back to Grantham to continue his studies." This advice his mother shortly after found it necessary to comply with, as the more immediate affairs of the farm were not more prosperous under his management, than would have been his marketings at Grantham if they had been left to his own discretion. The perusal of a book, the execution of a model, or the superintendence of a water-wheel of his own construction, whirling the glittering spray from some neighbouring stream, absorbed all Isaac's thoughts, while the sheep |