The social character of Sir Isaac Newton was such as might have been expected from his intellectual attainments. He was modest, candid, and affable, and without any of the eccentricities of genius, suiting himself to every company, and speaking of himself and others in such a manner that he was never even suspected of vanity. “But this,” says Dr. Pemberton, “I immediately discovered in him, which at once both surprised and charmed me. Neither his extreme great age nor his universal reputation had rendered him stiff in opinion, or in any degree elated. Of this I had occasion to have almost daily experience. The remarks I continually sent him by letters on the Principia were received with the utmost goodness. These were so far from being any ways displeasing to him, that on the contrary it occasioned him to speak many kind things of me to my friends, and to honour me with a public testimony of his good opinion.”
The modesty of Sir Isaac Newton in reference to his great discoveries was not founded on any indifference to the fame which they conferred, or upon any erroneous judgment of their importance to science. The whole of his life proves, that he knew his place as a philosopher, and was determined to assert and vindicate his rights. His modesty arose from the depth and extent of his knowledge, which showed him what a small portion of nature he had been able to examine, and how much remained to be explored in the same field in which he had himself laboured. In the magnitude of the comparison he recognised his own littleness; and a short time before his death he uttered this memorable sentiment:—“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” What a lesson to the vanity and presumption of philosophers,—to those especially who have never even found the smoother pebble or the prettier shell! What a preparation for the latest inquiries, and the last views of the decaying spirit,—for those inspired doctrines which alone can throw a light over the dark ocean of undiscovered truth!
The native simplicity of Sir Isaac Newton’s mind is finely portrayed in the affecting letter in which he acknowledges to Locke that he had thought and spoken of him uncharitably; and the humility and candour in which he asks forgiveness could have emanated only from a mind as noble as it was pure.
In the religious and moral character of our author there is much to admire and to imitate. While he exhibited in his life and writings an ardent regard for the general interests of religion, he was at the same time a firm believer in revelation. He was too deeply versed in the Scriptures, and too much imbued with their spirit, to judge harshly of other men who took different views of them from himself. He cherished the great principles of religious toleration, and never scrupled to express his abhorrence of persecution, even in its mildest form. Immorality and impiety he never permitted to pass unreproved; and when Dr. Halley[128] ventured to say any thing disrespectful to religion, he invariably checked him, and said, “I have studied these things,—you have not.”[129]
After Sir Isaac Newton took up his residence in London, he lived in a very handsome style, and kept his carriage, with an establishment of three male and three female servants. In his own house he was hospitable and kind, and on proper occasions he gave splendid entertainments, though without ostentation or vanity. His own diet was frugal, and his dress was always simple; but on one occasion, when he opposed the Honourable Mr. Annesley in 1705, as a candidate for the university, he is said to have put on a suit of laced clothes.
His generosity and charity had no bounds, and he used to remark, that they who gave away nothing till they died never gave at all. Though his wealth had become considerable by a prudent economy, yet he had always a contempt for money, and he spent a considerable part of his income in relieving the poor, in assisting his relations, and in encouraging ingenuity and learning. The sums which he gave to his relations at different times were enormous;[130] and in 1724 he wrote a letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering to contribute 20l. per annum to a provision for Mr. Maclaurin, provided he accepted the situation of assistant to Mr. James Gregory, who was professor of mathematics in the university.
The habits of deep meditation which Sir Isaac Newton had acquired, though they did not show themselves in his intercourse with society, exercised their full influence over his mind when in the midst of his own family. Absorbed in thought he would often sit down on his bedside after he rose, and remain there for hours without dressing himself, occupied with some interesting investigation which had fixed his attention. Owing to the same absence of mind, he neglected to take the requisite quantity of nourishment, and it was therefore often necessary to remind him of his meals.[131]
Sir Isaac Newton is supposed to have had little knowledge of the world, and to have been very ignorant of the habits of society. This opinion has, we think, been rashly deduced from a letter which he wrote in the twenty-seventh year of his age to his young friend, Francis Aston, Esq., who was about to set out on his travels. This letter is a highly interesting production; and while it shows much knowledge of the human heart, it throws a strong light upon the character and opinions of its author.
In his personal appearance, Sir Isaac Newton was not above the middle size, and in the latter part of his life was inclined to be corpulent. According to Mr. Conduit “he had a very lively and piercing eye, a comely and gracious aspect, with a fine head of hair as white as silver, without any baldness, and when his peruke was off was a venerable sight.” Bishop Atterbury asserts,[132] on the other hand, that the lively and piercing eye did not belong to Sir Isaac during the last twenty years of his life. “Indeed,” says he, “in the whole air of his face and make there was nothing of that penetrating sagacity which appears in his compositions. He had something rather languid in his look and manner which did not raise any great expectation in those who did not know him.” This opinion of Bishop Atterbury is confirmed by an observation of Mr. Thomas Hearne,[133] who says “that Sir Isaac was a man of no very promising aspect. He was a short, well-set man. He was full of thought, and spoke very little in company, so that his conversation was not agreeable. When he rode in his coach, one arm would be out of his coach on one side and the other on the other.” Sir Isaac never wore spectacles, and never “lost more than one tooth to the day of his death.”
Besides the statue of Sir Isaac Newton executed by Roubiliac, there is a bust of him by the same artist in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Several good paintings of him are extant. Two of these are in the hall of the Royal Society of London, and have, we believe, been often engraved. Another, by Vanderbank, is in the apartments of the Master’s lodge in Trinity College, and has been engraved by Vertue. Another, by Valentine Ritts, is in the landing-place near the entrance to Trinity College library; but the best, from which our engraving is copied, was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is in the possession of Lord Egremont at Petworth. In the university library there is preserved a cast taken from his face after death.