teen Hundred Five the Queen visited Cambridge, and there with
much pageantry bestowed the honor of Knighthood which changed Professor
Newton into Sir Isaac Newton.

But the man himself was still the simple, modest gentleman. The title
did not spoil him--he was a noble man from boyhood.

His duties as Master of the Mint did not interfere with his studies and
scientific investigations. He revised and rewrote his "Principia," and
in Seventeen Hundred Thirteen the new edition was issued. One copy was
most sumptuously bound, and Sir Isaac, who was a special favorite at
Court, presented it in person to the Queen. Those who are interested in
such things may, by applying to the Curator of the British Museum, see
and turn the leaves of this book, reading the gracious inscription of
the author, while a solemn man in brass buttons stands behind.

Newton died March Twentieth, Seventeen Hundred Twenty-seven, at the age
of eighty-five, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The verdict of humanity concerning Sir Isaac Newton has been summed up
for us thus by Laplace: "His work was pre-eminent above all other
products of the human intellect."

[Illustration: GALILEO]

GALILEO

I am inclined to believe that the intention of the Sacred
Scriptures is to give to mankind the information necessary for
their salvation.

But I do not hold it necessary to believe that the same God who has
endowed us with senses, with speech, with intellect, intended that
we should neglect the use of these, and seek by other means for
knowledge which these are sufficient to procure for us; especially
in a science like astronomy, of which so little notice is taken by
the Scriptures that none of the planets, except the sun and moon
and once or twice only Venus, by the name of Lucifer, are so much
as named at all.

This therefore being granted, methinks that in the discussion of
natural problems we ought not to begin at the authority of texts of
Scriptures but at sensible experiments and necessary
demonstrations.

--_Galileo_

GALILEO

With the history of Galileo and Copernicus, there is connected a
man of such stern and withal striking individuality that the story of
the rise and evolution of astronomy can not be told and this man's name
left out. Giordano Bruno was born in Fifteen Hundred Forty-eight. His
parents were obscure people, and his childhood and ear