feel the fluctuations of trade like other work-people, there can be no good reason why, in a civilised country, these should go the length, as a general rule, of destroying their health and shortening their lives.-ED.]

NEW TO N.

IN TWO PARTS.-PART I.

THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF NEWTON.

THERE is a very interesting variety of the human race which may be distinctively designated the 'big-brained.' Individuals who belong to this variety, work, not because they have some object to accomplish, but because they cannot help themselves. They are annoyed, rather than otherwise, if asked to take stock, or cast up an account of their gains. Like huge water-wheels, they move slowly and relentlessly, and are never caught flitting about out of their normal beat and pace; you never see them basking on green banks among flowers, or hear them whistling in the sunshine with their hands in their pockets: if they take any kind of recreation, it is in some dream-land, to which other mortals cannot follow them. Ambition exercises no power over them, and wealth is for them devoid of all charm: if you give them money, they put it into a box by an open window, and dispense it by handfuls to the first-comers. They make trusty and faithful servants of their senses, and are never capriciously led by their agency. Nevertheless, they are themselves, in the main, the slaves of a very ruthless tyrant, who rules over their lives with despotic sway. Large hemispherical nerve-masses, that dwell just behind their foreheads, drive them unceasingly, and deprive them, for the most part, of the chief privileges of freedom. In short, they are, as it were, brain-ridden, and have to follow obediently the path that is indicated by the guiding-rein.

The personal character of Sir Isaac Newton possesses a peculiar attractiveness, apart from all consideration of the substantial benefits the illustrious philosopher has bequeathed to mankind, on account of its furnishing one of the purest exemplifications of humanity in its 'big-brained' phase. The listener never grows weary of hearing about this large-headed sage and his doings. It is delightful to contemplate him losing his dinner in his fluxions,' and losing himself in his binomial' maze. It is felt to be somewhat hard to have to give up the dog 'Diamond' as a myth, upon the ground that neither purring Puss nor sprightly Poodle was ever allowed within the sacred precincts of the thoughthallowed rooms; but the sacrifice is made with a very good grace, so soon as it is understood that new lights are to be reflected upon the personality of the recluse out of the self-same documents that upset the old story. The third edition of the Principia was printed during Sir Isaac Newton's lifetime, under the editorship of the talented young Plumian Professor of Astronomy of the day; and the correspondence that passed between the author and the editor on the occasion was carefully preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, to be only recently disinterred. Other valuable letters have also been of late drawn from various sources, and Sir David Brewster has availed himself of all these in the preparation of a work, entitled Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaar Newton, which, to say the least of it, has the high merit of furnishing many more particulars regarding the philosopher than any sketch that has ever been printed before.

It appears that on Christmas-day 1642, a weak and puny infant was brought prematurely into the world, in a farmhouse within six miles of Grantham, in Lincolnshire. Great alarm was felt at the time for the life of the frail 'Neogilos' by the attendants and friends; but it managed to keep hold of 'the stage,'

upon which it had been thus inauspiciously introduced; and, by dint of crying and sleeping, at length established a claim to have a rôle allotted to it there. At first it did not seem to be altogether clear what the part should be; for its father-who had succeeded to the possession of an estate, worth some trifling forty or fifty pounds a year-only a little more than a year before, had taken to himself a wife with another farm of fifty pounds a year of her own, and had then died, leaving his widow to do the best she could for the offspring that was about to present itself, upon the produce of the two farms.

The estate on which Isaac Newton was born, although of such small absolute value, possessed the dignity of manorial rights; under the designation of Woolsthorpe, it ranked as a dependent hamlet of the village of Colsterworth. Here, for three years, the widow made the best struggle she could; but at the end of that time seems to have been persuaded to accept the addresses and the hand of the clergyman of a neighbouring parish, the Rev. Barnabas Smith, of North Witham. When she left Woolsthorpe for her new abode, the mother of her first husband came to the manor-house, to take charge of its infantile heir. The good old grandmother appears to have been skilled in nurse-craft, for the sickly child, under her judicious management, soon acquired vigour enough to be trusted at the schools of two of the neighbouring villages. In these humble academies, the intellect that was to fathom the great physical mystery of the universe, and that was to stretch forth co-equal with its span, took its first lessons in knowledge and wisdom. Scarcely anything is on record regarding this period of Newton's life. He had not then begun to write his own unconscious memoirs, and no one else, excepting perhaps the fond old grandmother, thought enough about him to have anything to note. Fancy, nevertheless, can supply the deficiency, and see the heavy-browed, 'bigbrained' lad sitting listlessly and dreamily, with pale face, broad shoulders, and deep speculative eyes, amidst his companions, wondering at life, whilst they were enjoying it, and calmly abiding his time upon the confines of the vast mathematical Charybdis that was to have him in its whirlpools by and by.

In the next scene of the drama, Isaac Newton appears in a garret of an old house at Grantham. There are rough bold drawings on paper pinned up on the walls; there are antiquated treatises on the mechanical sciences lying in the room; and there are rudely finished working-models of water-mills and other odd contrivances-one intended to measure time by the dripping of water; and another, an embryo sun-dial, that is to be completed by the holidays, and erected at Woolsthorpe. Newton is now fifteen years old, and has been attending the classes of the grammarschool at Grantham for three years. The revenues of Woolsthorpe and of the maternal farm of Sewsterne, have been laid under contribution, the proceeds being probably augmented by the kindness of the incumbent of North Witham, and the scholar lodges in an apartment, in the upper story, of an apothecary of the town.

In the apothecary's garret at Grantham, an apparition of flesh and blood presents itself, amidst the models and drawings. A certain Mistress Storey, a relative of the master of the house, aged twelve years, and with a very pretty face and comely person of her own, haunts the room. The substantial phantom seems, however, to have no terrors for the future philosopher; on the contrary, its presence appears to have communicated a certain degree of fascination to the humble room, even after the models and drawings had ceased to have any legitimate right there, in consequence of the studious tenant having been recalled home from the grammar-school. A year or two subsequently, when Newton came to Grantham from Woolsthorpe, with an old servant, to transact farming-business in

the market-town, he was often found in the old garret, following old pursuits, when he was presumed to be among the farmers in the corn-market, fitting himself for new ones. It would be a curious question, could it be determined, whether the clepsydræ and mechanics, or Mistress Storey, exercised the greater influence over the agricultural truant in those young days? However this may have been, there is no doubt which ultimately was the victrix, for the pretty face disappears entirely from the scene. Big-brainedness, when in the highest phase of perfection, tolerates no mistress as a sharer in its reign.

When Newton was fifteen years old, his stepfather, Mr Smith, died, and his mother came home to Woolsthorpe with three children, a half-brother and two half-sisters, and he was recalled at once from Grantham school to manage the farm, and be their companion. After a fair trial, it was, however, discovered that there was very little chance of either bullocks or fields attaining to any improvement of condition through his superintendence; and, in accordance with the judicious advice of a maternal uncle, the boy was sent back to Grantham to complete his preparation for the scholarly life of college.

The year 1661 found Newton matriculated as a sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, but very little is known of his proceedings at this period. He proved to be already an adept in the principles of logic, and was set to read Kepler's book on optics with a class; but the tutor observed that he had thoroughly mastered the treatise by the time his companions had got fairly launched in the preliminary chapters. Paying a chance visit to Stourbridge fair, he purchased an old work on judicial astronomy; unable, however, to understand this without some acquaintance with the processes of mathematical reasoning, he was led to attack Euclid's treatise on the elements of the science. This seemed to him so tedious, on account of the length of the great geometer's demonstrations, that he managed to devise shorter routes to the conclusions for himself. It is a very curious fact, that the future calculator of the planetary perturbations and the future expositor of the geometry of the heavens, had his attention drawn to mathematics while a student in the university that is now the great focus of mathematical light, by the chance acquisition of an old astrological book.

In 1664, Newton was elected a scholar of Trinity College, and in 1665 took his degree of Bachelor of Arts. It appears that he was now deeply absorbed in devising a means for effecting, by broad comprehensive rules, sundry complex calculations that had hitherto been made only by tedious isolated processes gone through in successive stages. In the summers of 1665 and 1666, the plague visited the banks of the Cam, and the students were all dismissed from the colleges in consequence. The scholar of Trinity went home to Woolsthorpe, and pondered his fluxions under the shadow of his paternal trees. According to tradition, it was during one of these summers, and amidst these shadows, that gravitation' fell into his apprehension, as an apple fell to the earth from over his head.

These several particulars have been ascertained only by gathering them carefully from a diversity of Sources. In the year 1682, however, the curtain is again fairly drawn up, and the person of the sage is once more before the eye: he is now a Master of Arts, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, and has been fifteen years a fellow of his college; he dwells in collegiate apartments, just to the north of the great gateway of the college, and has a small piece of garden between his rooms and the outer boundary-wall, in which a small building has been erected to serve as a chemical laboratory; he is forty years old, but his hair is prematurely gray; he has sent up the first reflecting-telescope ever made to the Royal Society, because he has been pressed by friends to do so,

6

remarking at the same time, had the communication not been desired, I might have still let it remain in private, as it hath already done several years;' he has been admitted into the Royal Society with open arms on the part of the fellows, and has communicated to them the oddest detection hitherto made in the operations of nature,' which oddèst detection proved to be the unequal bending capacities of different coloured lights, when passed through transparent media. A royal patent has been issued to dispense with the necessity of his taking holy orders while holding his mathematical professorship, and he has contributed sundry valuable communications to the Philosophical Transactions, but always under the persuasion of friends, and with the stipulation that his name is not to appear, for 'he sees not what there is desirable in public esteem, were he able to acquire and maintain it. It would perhaps increase his acquaintance, which he chiefly studies to decline.' Notwithstanding these big-brained idiosyncrasies and instincts, he nevertheless has had to submit to the fate which the world keeps in reserve for its sages; he has been dragged into controversy in spite of himself; and a weary experience he must have had of it, if his own words may be received, for he writes in one of his letters: Mr Leibnitz endeavoured to engage me, against my will, in new disputes about occult qualities, universal gravity, the sensorium of God, space, time, vacuum, atoms, the perfection of the world, supra-mundane intelligence, and mathematical problems!" Well, indeed, might the big-brained philosopher, smarting under his dire experience, regret that he had ever allowed the ungracious world to trespass within his calm domains, even by an eye-glance; and well might he write in another place: 'I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new, or become a slave to defend it. . . . I was so persecuted with discussions arising out of my theory of light, that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as my quiet, to run after a shadow.'

About this time a poor kinsman, Humphrey Newton, is admitted into the philosopher's rooms upon terms of domestic familiarity, but in what precise capacity no one knows. The occurrence is, however, one of great moment to the world; for the simple dependent contributes some very illustrative allusions to the habits and appearance of his benefactor, which almost enable a daguerreotype picture of his presence to be brought before the imagination. A man of sedate and gentle demeanour, with a meek, languid air, and a face pleasant and comely to look upon, although wearing habitually an expression of profound thought, only now and then enlivened by the flash of a quick, piercing eye, appears at the bidding of the humble and unconscious sketcher. The features of this face are gracious and calm; Master Humphrey, during a long experience, has never once seen them ruffled with a frown, and has only once seen them wrinkled with a laugh. The original of the portrait is at this time buried in abstruse speculations, and cannot find any leisure for gadding. He very rarely leaves his chamber, excepting to deliver the mathematical lecture which no one comes to hear, because it is in advance of every one's faculties of apprehension. Occasionally he receives two or three visitors, most probably self-invited, and steals off to find a bottle of wine for their entertainment; but there is very small chance of his returning, either with or without the wine, unless he is reminded to do so by some very decided monition from without. He walks much in his study, thus getting some muscular exercise without the expense of distracted attention and loss of time. He never does anything with his own hands in his little garden, but it is evidently a favourite spot; he cannot bear that a single weed should derange its trimness, and upon a rare occasion it occurs to him that he will take a turn among its fresh green leaves. By the time

a European. The officer in command of the gate was not prepared to see the august visitor making his entrance in a manner so unostentatious; and on discovering that the individual on the camel was actually the man, he was astounded, and burst out into cries and lamentations. 'By Allah,' said he, 'I am a lost man; our most high and excellent vezir will cut my head off. My orders were to send a naïb to a point two hours' distance from the town, to tell this European to defer his entrance until a happy constellation had been observed in the heavens, and after that I was to fire a gun to give notice of his approach. In my ignorance of this early arrival, I have done neither the one nor the other: I am a ruined man.'

M. Ferrier presented himself in his proper character of a Frenchman, but, as already hinted, he was not believed; and, singular to say, his supposed duplicity had the effect of raising him in the estimation of the Afghans. They accounted his story about going to take service in India as a clever invention, designed to conceal his secret purposes in connection with his presumed political mission. He was visited by sundry people of rank; amongst others, by a number of learned doctors, the Hakim bashee, who hold a high position in the society of Herat. These doctors are a remarkable fraternity, and may be said to hold astonishing opinions. 'As in their eyes,' says our traveller, 'every European must be a doctor, the conversation never ceased running on the healing art, of which they considered themselves such distinguished professors: each, in turn, was anxious to give me a high opinion of his talent, and I was condemned to listen to a long and absurd display of Afghan erudition. They also brought with them some of their drugs, in order that I might give them some notion of the manner in which certain chemical preparations which they had received from British India should be employed, as they were ignorant of their effects. They had, they said, up to that time given these medicines in progressive doses, until they ascertained the cases to which they were applicable. How many of their unfortunate patients had been killed by this system, I dared not ask; but Mirza Asker filled up the blank by pulling from his pocket a bottle of the cyanate of mercury, requesting to know what devil of a salt this could be. "It has been of no use to me," he added, "for of one hundred patients that I have given it to, only one was curedall the rest died." Having finished with medicine, alchemy had its turn, for some of these idiots spend all they possess in their search after the philosopher's stone. They are convinced that the English have found it, and attribute their riches to that discovery. They imagine all European gold coins are at the outset only bits of iron rubbed with a certain preparation, and then placed in devil's water from some well or spring, which metamorphoses it into gold. The doctors entreated me to initiate them into the secret; but I could only, in a most learned discourse, refer them to humanity, civilisation, political economy, and the rights of man, assuring them that it was only to these and our principles of order and justice that we owed the riches they envied us. This they would not believe, and from that moment conceived the highest opinion of my diplomatic talents, admiring the cleverness with which I eluded their pressing and repeated inquiries.'

Though hospitably entertained in the house of the Sertip Lal Mohamed, a confidential functionary of the vezir's, M. Ferrier was very closely watched, and was never left alone for a single moment. The Vezir Sahib, meanwhile, evinced no hurry to receive him, but, on the pretext of a feigned indisposition, delayed the reception from day to day. In thus adjourning it,' says M. Ferrier, he hoped before seeing me to learn the object of the political mission with which I was charged; and my obstinacy in persisting in my first statement only confirmed him in the belief

that I was a shrewd, cunning fellow, and busior pookhte well cooked.' In spite of this, everything was done to make his semi-captivity as little irksome as possible. Sometimes,' says he, the Sertip passed the evening with me, and brought with him some bayadères, whose dances were frequently prolonged into the night. These ladies were accompanied by a band of musicians, and the wine-cup circled with rapidity amongst them. The Sertip wished to include me in the libations, and seemed surprised that I shewed so little inclination for them; but wine I had always eschewed since I had resided in hot climates; and for the best reason-namely, to avoid the inevitable consequences-broken health. The Sertip could not understand this self-denial in a European, for I only quaffed two cups of his wine during my stay, and it was not particularly good. A Mussulman thinks more of strength than flavour, for his only idea in connection with drinking is to get drunk; the one has no attraction for him unless it is followed by the other, and, generally speaking, I found that the precepts of the Koran on this subject were very little attended to in these countries; if a man has the means of indulging himself, he gets drunk every night. No one may make wine at Herat; but the use of it is not altogether forbidden. To be positively authorised to drink it, a medical certificate is necessary; and this is readily given by the doctors, to whom the infirmity requiring this genial medicine is a source of revenue. The Sertip was the more chagrined at my abstemious habits, as he no doubt expected that I should in my cups let him into all my secrets: he tried this game several times without the least success, and I declined his pressing solicitations in so decided a manner, that he at length desisted.'

The author's account of his interview with Yar Mohamed, which took place after six or seven days' delay, is characteristic and amusing, but much too long for insertion here; suffice it to say, that with infinite difficulty the Vezir Sahib was at length convinced M. Ferrier had no object but that of journeying to Lahore, and granted him permission to pass through his territories. So away goes the traveller, by successive marches, through a varied and rudely settled country -over mountains and pasture - lands, and among the tent-dwellers in plains and desertsonwards as fast as possible towards Balkh, the original capital of Persia, which he reached on the 4th of July, about a fortnight after his departure from Herat. This place was prosperous when Alexander of Macedon marched into it, and though since devastated by Genghis Khan and Timour, still flourishes 'the Mother of Cities,' in the midst of orchards and luxuriant meadows. Thence he goes onwards, across the Paropamisan range, among the Hazarah Tatars, in whose settlements no European had previously set his foot. Travelling in company with two persons of the tribe, however, M. Ferrier got on very well amongst them, though they are such arrant plunderers that no unaccompanied stranger could pass through their domains in safety. Some distance beyond Balkh, and not far from Cabool, the tribes of the country were found to be at war, a circumstance which hindered any further travelling in that direction. M. Ferrier was therefore induced to turn back by another road, hoping to make his way to Candahar. On this route he passed through the country of the Seherais, a tribe of Tatar pagans, of a patriarchal cast of habits. The name they bear (Seherai) signifies inhabitants of the plain, and they form a small republic, of which we have the following account:-They pretend to have been settled there by Genghis Khan, and to have braved the efforts of every conqueror since the days of that grand exterminator. Having seen how difficult is the access to their country, I could believe it-the more so as their plain produces everything necessary for their maintenance. They are not obliged to have dealings with or in any way

concern themselves about their neighbours. The Seherai have a vague idea of Islamism, and sometimes swear by Ali and the Prophet; but these words are, I apprehend, mere relics of their former intercourse with the Mohammedan world, for as far as I could discover, their worship is real idolatry. Like the ancient Persians, they recognise a principle of good and a principle of evil, but under the modern names of Khoda and Shaïtan, signifying God and devil-they are uncircumcised, never pray, and condemn no animal as unclean. Their habits are quite patriarchal: living far from the din of cities, and ignorant of their refinements as well as their superfluities, their manners have something wild and savage that at first sight shocks a stranger; but the feeling of dislike soon wears off, when you find that, ignorant as they are of all that in our eyes contributes to social wellbeing, they are not the less content, and are exempt from many tribulations which we inflict upon ourselves in search of happiness.'

The chieftain of this tribe was Timour Beg, at whose court the author received some singular attentions. 'Timour Beg,' says he, 'welcomed me with the rough and simple cordiality natural to Tatars. He was between thirty-five and forty years of age, almost beardless, short, and built like a Hercules; a kind smile animated his countenance, and his features were far less ugly than those of Mongols in general. He received us with great cordiality, and immediately ordered a repast which would have sufficed for at least thirty persons; the beverage at this meal was a description of cider, with which he finished by intoxicating himself, and when we heard him snore, we requested permission to retire: this was granted, and the Seherai ladies, who had waited during dinner, conducted us to our apartments. Their subsequent attentions were remarkable, for they not only assisted at our toilet, but washed our feet, and, to my great astonishment, subsequently shampooed me from head to foot, and this too in the most free and easy manner possible. I did not think it necessary to refuse attentions which they thought it a duty to pay me under the sacred name of hospitality, for it has always been my habit to respect the customs of those countries through which I travel; but having a long ride before me on the morrow, I ventured to request the lady who had charge of me to moderate her exertions, and leave me to take some repose. Such is the invariable custom practised towards strangers at Div Hissar. At first I flattered myself that mine was an exceptional case, and intended as a special mark of honour on the part of Timour Beg; but I subsequently ascertained that my fellow-travellers, and even my servant, were equally the objects of the ladies' care, and that the chief's daughter is not exempt from the duties attendant upon this singular custom.'

M. Ferrier was not permitted to proceed peaceably to Candahar, but was stopped at Zerni, the capital of the district of Gour, and sent back to Herat. He subsequently endeavoured to reach India through Southern Afghanistan, by way of Girishk, a town not very distant from Candahar; which place, also, he eventually reached, and was there for a considerable time detained. He never got further eastwards than this city, but under various pretexts was passed on from place to place backwards, till he began to find his original undertaking hopeless. In this way, he traversed countries which he would not otherwise have seen, and his account of them forms one of the most interesting portions of his narrative. His adventures in these regions are truly marvellous. He witnessed the strangest illustrations of the primitive forms of social life; was several times imprisoned, and endured endless hardships; in some places he was most cruelly treated, and threatened with the acutest tortures; in others, entertained with the most seducing hospitalities.

All this in the recital gives his narrative an animated and continuous fascination, such as is paralleled only in the stories of the old celebrated travellers. There is also wrought in by the way an immense number of details highly valuable as contributions to geography and history. For instance, M. Ferrier describes the great river Helmund, which rises among the mountains near Cabool, and falls after a long circuitous course into the Lake Seistan; gives us a full account of the province of Seistan itself; and accompanies the statement with a good deal of information respecting the Turcomans, the Belooches, Usbeks, and other races, that occupy the region which spreads from the northern sea to the Chinese mountains. His sketches of these singular people are taken in all varieties of situationin bazaars, coffee-houses, camps, travelling-caravans, walled villages, palaces, prisons, among shepherds, and soldiers, and gipsies, and banditti lurking to pillage strangers. A most varied, interesting narrative, supplying at once the latest and the best account that we possess of Central Asia.

Many of the races or tribes of people occupying this region have been hitherto almost entirely unknown to Europeans. The particulars given us respecting some of them are very striking and extraordinary-witness the following concerning the Belooches: - ' 'The Belooches have the most singular ideas of a European that can well be conceived: struck with all they have heard and seen of their power, intelligence, and riches, they think not only that they can make gold, but also that their bodies, and everything belonging to or in contact with them, contains the precious metal. A few years before the date at which I am writing, Ali Khan received a visit at Sheikh Nassoor from an English doctor of the name of Forbes. He had been warned of the consequences which would assuredly befall him if he ventured within the clutches of this monster; but it was of no use-he was bent upon undertaking the journey, and paid the penalty of his curiosity with his life. Ali Khan murdered him in his sleep, and hung poor Forbes's body up in front of his own tent, which he ordered to be deluged with water during fifteen days consecutively. "You will see," he said to his people, "that this dog of an infidel will at last be transformed into good ducats." Finding, however, to his great amazement, that this proceeding did not produce the expected result, he thought he would boil the water with which the corpse had been washed; but with no better effect. It then occurred to him that the doctor, to play him a trick, had, before his death, made the gold pass from his body into the clothes and books which filled his trunks. Instead of burning these impurities, which had been his original intention, he had them cut and torn up into little bits, and mixed with the mortar destined to plaster his house. He had not yet had occasion to use it; but he informed us, as he related the details of this disgusting tragedy, that when he did, he expected to see his house covered with a layer of the precious metal. Nothing would ever have induced him to forego this belief; and he did not disguise from me that he would have been happy if he could have added my poor corpse to the mortar in question.' A story like this, were it not given on such good authority, would seem incredible. We can well understand that M. Ferrier 'did not feel very comfortable' in the neighbourhood of such a monster; nor is it surprising that he should get away as soon as possible. He had sufficient opportunities, however, while travelling round Lake Seistan, to take note of the general habits and customs of the Belooche tribes; and, as the result of his observations, presents us with a curious succession of particulars; some of which may be extracted for the entertainment of our readers.

"The life led by these nomads is as savage as that of the wild beasts which, like them, rove through their deserts. To observe laws like other nations, to work,