"as a mark of the great honour and
esteem I have for so great a man." The concluding sentence of the codicil
is as follows:

"And I strictly charge and command my executor to give all aid, help,
and assistance to her in possessing and enjoying what I have hereby
given her; and also {431} in doing any act or acts necessary to
transfer her an annuity of two hundred pounds _per annum_, purchased in
Sir Isaac Newton's name, which I hold for her in trust, as appears by a
declaration of trust in that behalf."

This codicil immediately became the subject of remark, and the terms of it
seem to have been understood as they would be now. Flamsteed, writing in
July, 1715 (Halifax died in May), says:

"If common fame be true, he died worth 150,000l.; out of which he gave
Mrs. Barton, Sir I. Newton's niece, for her _excellent conversation_
[the Italics are Baily's, the original, I suppose, underlined], a
curious house, 5000l. with lands, jewels, plate, money, and household
furniture, to the value of 20,000l. or more."

I pay no attention to the statement that (_Biogr. Brit._, Montague, note
BB.) Lord Halifax was disappointed in a second marriage. It amounts only to
this, that Lord Shaftsbury, having a certain lady in his heart and in his
eye, was afraid he had a rival, and described the person talked of in terms
which make it pretty certain that Halifax was intended. But it by no means
follows that because a certain person is "talked of" for a lady, and a
lover put in fear by the rumour, the person is really a rival: and not even
a biographer would have shown himself so unfit for a novelist as to have
drawn such a conclusion, unless he had been biassed by the wish to show
that Halifax was attached to another than Mrs. Barton.

It must of course be supposed that the introduction of Montague to Newton's
niece was a consequence of his acquaintance with Newton, and took place in
or near 1696, when Newton came to London, where his niece soon began to
reside with him. And since, in 1706, the connexion, whatever it was, had
been of long standing, we may infer that it had probably commenced in 1700.
The case is then as follows. Montague received into his house, as
"superintendent of his domestic affairs" after the death of his wife, the
niece of his old and revered friend Newton, a conspicuous officer of the
crown, a member of Parliament, and otherwise one of the most famous men
living. This