CHAPTER V
GOLDSMITH, REYNOLDS, AND SOME OF THEIR CIRCLE
One of Sir James Thornhill’s illustrious sitters was Sir Isaac Newton, who lived within a stone’s throw of Hogarth’s London house, just round the corner out of Leicester Square, at No. 35 St. Martin’s Street. Here Sir Isaac made his home from 1720 to 1725. The red brick walls have been stuccoed over; and the observatory that the philosopher built for himself on the roof, after being turned into a Sunday-school, was removed about forty years ago, and helped to supply pews for the Orange Street Chapel that stands next door.
The greatest of Newton’s work was done before he set up in St. Martin’s Street, but he told a friend that the happiest years of his life had been spent in the observatory there. Though he kept his carriage, lived in some style, had half-a-dozen male and female servants, and was always hospitable, he was not fond of society, and talked but little in it. Johnson once remarked to Sir William Jones that if Newton had flourished in ancient Greece, he would have been worshipped as a divinity, but there was nothing godlike in his appearance. “He was a man of no very promising aspect,” says Herne; and Humphrey Newton describes his famous relative as of a carriage “meek, sedate, and humble; never seeming angry, of profound thought, his countenance mild, pleasant, and comely. He always kept close to his studies.... I never knew him to take any recreation or pastime, thinking all hours lost that were not spent in his studies.” There are a good many stories told of his eccentricities and absent-mindedness. He would ride through London in his coach with one arm out of the window on one side and one out on the other; he would sometimes start to get up of a morning and sit down on his bed, absorbed in thought, and so remain for hours without dressing himself; and, when his dinner was laid, he would walk about the room, forgetting to eat it, and carelessly eat it standing when his attention was called to it. On one occasion, when he was leading his horse up a hill, he found, when he went to remount on reaching the top, that the animal had slipped its bridle and stayed behind without his perceiving it, and he had nothing in his hand but some of the harness. “When he had friends to entertain,” according to Dr. Stukeley, “if he went into his study to fetch a bottle of wine, there was danger of his forgetting them,” and not coming back again. And it is told of this same Dr. Stukeley that he called one day to see Newton, and was shown into the dining-room, where Sir Isaac’s dinner was in readiness. After a long wait, feeling hungry as well as impatient, Stukeley ate the cold chicken intended for his host, and left nothing but the bones. By-and-by Sir Isaac entered, made his greetings and apologies, and, whilst they were talking, drew a chair to the table, took off the dish-cover, and at sight of the bones merely observed placidly, “How absent we philosophers are! I had forgotten that I had dined!”
SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S HOUSE. ST. MARTIN’S STREET. W.C.
Later, this same house in St. Martin’s Street was occupied by Dr. Burney and his daughter Fanny, who wrote Evelina here.