[69] Written in November or December, 1715.

[70] This is the Recensio Commercii Epistolici, or review of it, which was first published in the Phil. Trans. 1715.

[71] M. Biot remarks, that the animosity of Newton was not calmed by the death of Leibnitz, for he had no sooner heard of it than he caused to be printed two manuscript letters of Leibnitz, written in the preceding year, accompanying them with a very bitter refutation (en les accompagnant d’un refutation tres-amere). Who that reads this sentence does not believe that the bitter refutation was written after Leibnitz’s death? The animosity could not be shown by the simple publication of the letters. It could reside only in the bitterness of the refutation. The implied charge is untrue; the bitter refutation was written before Leibnitz’s death, and consequently he showed no animosity over the grave of his rival; and in our opinion none even before his death.

[72] M. Biot states that Sir Isaac Newton caused this edition of the Commercium Epistolicum to be printed; that Sir Isaac placed at the head of it a partial abstract of the collection; and that this abstract appeared to have been written by himself. These groundless charges may be placed, without any refutation, beside the assertion of Montucla, that Newton wrote the notes (les notes) on the Commercium Epistolicum; and the equally incorrect statement of La Croix, that Newton added to it notes (des notes), with his own hand. We should not have noticed the charges of M. Biot, had he not adduced them as proofs of Newton’s animosity to Leibnitz after his death. See Mr. Herschel’s History of Mathematics in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. xiii. p. 368, note.

[73] See Burnet’s History of his own Times, vol. i. p. 697. Lond. 1724.

[74] The other candidates were Sir Robert Sawyer and Mr. Finch, and the votes stood thus.

Sir Robert Sawyer,125
Mr. Newton,122
Mr. Finch,117

[75] This M. Colin was probably a young bachelor of arts whom Newton seems afterward to have employed in some of his calculations. These bachelors were distinguished by the title of Dominus, and it was usual to translate this word and to call them Sir. In a letter from Newton to Flamstead, dated Cambridge, June 29th, 1695, is the following passage: “I want not your calculations, but your observations only, for besides myself and my servant, Sir Collins (whom I can employ for a little money, which I value not) tells me that he can calculate an eclipse and work truly.”

[76] They are thus dated in Horsley’s edition of Newton’s Works, the fourth letter having an earlier date than the third.

[77] See Newtoni Opera, tom. iv. p. 480, and Wallasii Opera, 1693, tom. ii. p. 391–396.