In the year 1722, Sir Isaac, who had in general en joyed gond health, was afflicted with an incontinence of urine, which was supposed to proceed from stone in the bladder, and which his medical attendants thought incu rable. By great care, however, and a strict attention to regimen, living chiefly on broth, vegetables, and fruit, he subdued, to a certain degree, this dreadful malady, and enjoyed considerable intervals of ease during the rest of his life.
In January, 1725, he was persuaded to takc a house at Kensington, in consequence of a violent cough and inflammation in his lungs ; and, in 1726, lie had a fit of the gout for the second time. In the winter of 1721, he wished to resign his situation in the mint to Mr. Con duit, who had married his niece (the witty Miss Barton,) but Mr. Conduit would not permit the resignation to take place; and, for about a year before Sir Isaac's death, he performed for him the whole duties of his of fice.
On Tuesday, the last day of February 1727, Sir Isaac went to town to attend a meeting of the Royal Society. 'Mr. Conduit found him next day in better health than he had enjoyed for several years ; but the fatigue of attend ing the society, and of paying and receiving visits, occa sioned a return of his former disease. Dr. Mead and Mr. Chesselden, who went to see him at Kensington, pronounced it to be the stone.
During the severe paroxysms, which not unfrequently supervened, the drops of sweat often ran down his facc without extorting the slightest complaint or expression of impatience, and when the agony had passed, he would again convez se with his usual cheerfulness and serenity.
On Wednesday, the 15th of March, he was conside rably relieved, and some hopes of his recovery were che rished by his friends. Their expectations, honever, were fallacious. On the 18th March lie reacl the news papers ; and in a long conversation with Dr. Mead, he showed that he had the possession of all his faculties. On the same evening, however, after six o'clock, and during the whole of Sunday, lie was insensible, and died on Monday, March 20711, betneen one and two o'clock in the morning, having reached thc great age of 84 ycars and a few months.
His personal estate, to the amount of 32,000/. was di vided among his five nephews and nieces of half blood. The land, which he inherited, descended to John New ton, whose great-grandfather was Sir Isaac's uncle. Pre. vious to his death he had given away an estate in Berk shire to the sons and daughters of Mrs. Conduit's bro ther, and an estate in Kensington to Mrs. Conduit's daughter, who was afterwards married to thc eldest son of Lord Lymington, from whom the present Earl of Portsmouth is descended.
corpse of this great man lay in state in the Jeru salem Chamber, adjoining the House of Lords; and on the 28th March, it was conveyed from thence to West minster Abbey, near the entrance to the choir, where it was buried with great magnificence, and at the pub lic expense. This sacred spot is one of the most con spicuous in the abbey, and had been refused to different noblemen who had asked it. The pall was supported
by the Lord High Chancellor, the Dukes of Montrose and Roxburgh, and the Earls of Pembroke, Sussex, and Macclesfield. The honourable Sir Michael Newton, Knight of the Bath, was the chief mourner, and was ac companied by the relations and several distinguished friends of Sir Isaac's. Dr. Bradford, Bishop of Roches ter, attended by the prebend and choir, performed the funeral service. A splendid monument, with the follow ing inscription, was erected to his memory at the pub lic expense.
By the munificence of Dr. Smith, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, an admirable full length statue of Sir Isaac, by Roubilliac, was placed in the outer chapel in that college, but has since been removed to the se nate house. A medal was struck to his memory by Croker of the English mint, another by Dassier of Ge neva, and a third by Roettiers in France. The only por trait of him, for which he sat, was by Kneller, and is said to be in the collection of the Duke of Rutland.
Sir Isaac Newton was of the middle size, and in the latter part of his life was rather plump. To the time of his last illness, he had the bloom and the colour of youth, and a forehead of hair as white as silver, and without any baldnesss. He never required spectacles, and lost only onc tooth during his long life. Fontenelle remarks that he had a lively and piercing eye, but Bishop Atter bury denies that this WaS the case during the 20 years that he knew him. " Indeed, 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 manners, which did not raise any great expectations in those who did not know Itim." There was no feature in the character of this great man more remarkable than thc equanimity of his tem per, and his sincere love of peace. The disputes in which he was involved by the jealousies and unfounded pretensions of others, broke in upon that serenity of mind which it was his great object to maintain. But though he had an instinctive horror at that species of contro versy where the feelings of the combatants are engaged along with their judgments, he did not shrink from the duty of self-defence, and he accordingly replied to his antagonists with a spirit and firmness which diminished their number and silenced their opposition. His obser vations on the Abbe Conti and on Leibnitz, which we have already quoted, and which were written in his 83d year, prove how keenly he felt the injustice of their treatment, and how little he scrupled to express the feelings which it had excited. To have submitted, in deed, to the criticisms and claims ol his enemies, would have been to acquiesce in their justness, and Ile had formed too great an estimate of the duties and exertions of his scientific career, to surrender, without a struggle, those discoveries and improvements which had been the principal business of his life.