for the informality of this proceeding, and to such I will communicate one other anecdote, which I do not deliver upon my own knowledge, though from unexceptionable authority, and this is, that when Collins had fallen into decay of circumstances, Doctor Bentley, suspecting he had written him out of credit by his Philoleutherus Lipsiensis, secretly contrived to administer to the necessities of his baffled opponent in a manner, that did no less credit to his delicacy than to his liberality.

A morose and over-bearing man will find himself a solitary being in creation; Doctor Bentley on the contrary had many intimates; judicious in forming his friendships, he was faithful in adhering to them. With Sir Isaac Newton, Doctor Mead, Doctor Wallis of Stamford, Baron Spanheim, the lamented Roger Cotes, and several other distinguished and illustrious contemporaries, he lived on terms of uninterrupted harmony, and I have good authority for saying, that it is to his interest and importunity with Sir Isaac Newton, that the inestimable publication of the Principia was ever resolved upon by that truly great and luminous philosopher. Newton's portrait by Sir

James Thornhill, and those of Baron Spanheim and my grandfather by the same hand,

now hanging in the Master's lodge of Trinity, were the bequest of Doctor Bentley. I was possessed of letters in Sir Isaac's own hand to my grandfather, which together with the corrected volume of Bishop Cumberland's Laws of Nature, I lately gave to the library of that flourishing and illustrious college.

The irreparable loss of Roger Cotes in early life, of whom Newton had pronounced-Now the world will know something, Doctor Bentley never mentioned but with the deepest regret; he had formed the highest expectations of new lights and discoveries in philosophy from the penetrating force of his extraordinary genius, and on the tablet devoted to his memory in the chapel of Trinity College Doctor Bentley has recorded his sorrows and those of the whole learned world in the following beautiful and pathetic epitaph:

H. S. E.

Rogerus Roberti filius Cotes,
"Hujus Collegii S. Trinitatis Socius,
"Et Astronomiæ et experimentalis
"Philosophiæ Professor Plumianus;

Qui immatura Morte præreptus,
"Pauca quidem ingenii Sui
"Pignora reliquit,

"Sed egregia, sed admiranda,
"Ex intimis Matheseôs penetralibus,
"Felici Solertiâ tum primum eruta ;
"Post magnum illum Newtonum
"Societatis hujus spes altera
"Et decus gemellum;

"Cui ad summam Doctrinæ laudem,
"Omnes morum virtutumque dotes
"In cumulum accesserunt;
"Eo magis spectabiles amabilesque,
"Quod in formoso corpore
"Gratiores venirent.

"Natus Burbagii

"In agro Leicestriensi.

"Jul. x. MDCLXXXII.

"Obiit. Jun. V. MDCCXVI."

His domestic habits, when I knew him, were still those of unabated study; he slept in the room adjoining to his library, and was never with his family till the hour of dinner; at these times he seemed to have detached himself most completely from his studies; never appearing thoughtful and abstracted, but social, gay, and

possessing perfect serenity of mind and equability of temper. He never dictated topics of conversation to the company he was with, but took them up as they came in his way, and was a patient listener to other people's discourse, however trivial or uninteresting it might be. When The Spectators were in publication I have heard my mother say he took great delight in hearing them read to him, and was so particularly amused by the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, that he took his literary decease most seriously to heart. She also told me, that, when in conversation with him on the subject of his works, she found occasion to lament that he had bestowed so great a portion of his time and talents upon criticism instead of employing them upon original composition, he acknowledged the justice of her regret with extreme sensibility, and remained for a considerable time thoughtful and seemingly embarrassed by the nature of her remark; at last recollecting himself he said-" Child, I "am sensible I have not always turned my "talents to the proper use for which I should presume they were given to me: yet I have "done something for the honour of my God,

"

*and the edification of my fellow creatures; "but the wit and genius of those old heathens

beguiled me, and as I despaired of raising "myself up to their standard upon fair ground, "I thought the only chance I had of looking "over their heads was to get upon their shoul-. "ders."

Of his pecuniary affairs he took no account; he had no use for money, and dismissed, it entirely from his thoughts: his establishment in the mean time was respectable, and his table affluently and hospitably served. All these matters were conducted and arranged in the best manner possible by one of the best women living; for such, by the testimony of all who knew her, was Mrs. Bentley, daughter of Sir John Bernard of Brampton in Huntingdonshire, a family of great opulence and respectability, allied to the Cromwells and Saint Johns, and by intermarriages connected with other great and noble houses. I have perfect recollection of the person of my grandmother, and a full impression of her manners and habits, which, though in some degree tinctured with hereditary reserve and the primitive cast of character, were entirely free from the hypo