y altogether;
and though he never really does it, and perhaps the feeling is one only
born of some temporary overwork, yet he does not sacrifice everything
else to it as he surely must had he been conscious of his own greatness.
No; self-consciousness was the last thing that affected him. It is for a
great man's contemporaries to discover him, to make much of him, and to
put him in surroundings where he may flourish luxuriantly in his own
heaven-intended way.

However, it is difficult for us to judge of these things. Perhaps if he
had been maintained at the national expense to do that for which he was
preternaturally fitted, he might have worn himself out prematurely;
whereas by giving him routine work the scientific world got the benefit
of his matured wisdom and experience. It was no small matter to the
young Royal Society to be able to have him as their President for
twenty-four years. His portrait has hung over the President's chair ever
since, and there I suppose it will continue to hang until the Royal
Society becomes extinct.

The events of his later life I shall pass over lightly. He lived a calm,
benevolent life, universally respected and beloved. His silver-white
hair when he removed his peruke was a venerable spectacle. A lock of it
is still preserved, with many other relics, in the library of Trinity
College. He died quietly, after a painful illness, at the ripe age of
eighty-five. His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and he was
buried in Westminster Abbey, six peers bearing the pall. These things
are to be mentioned to the credit of the time and the country; for
after we have seen the calamitous spectacle of the way Tycho and Kepler
and Galileo were treated by their ungrateful and unworthy countries, it
is pleasant to reflect that England, with all its mistakes, yet
recognized _her_ great man when she received him, and honoured him with
the best she knew how to give.

[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Sir Isaac Newton.]

Concerning his character, one need only say that it was what one would
expect and wish. It was characterized by a modest, calm, dignified
simplicity. He lived frugally with his niece and her husband, Mr.
Conduit, who succeeded him as Master of the Mint. He never married, nor
apparently did he ever think of so doing. The idea, perhaps, did not
naturally occur to him, any more than the idea of publishing his work
did.

He was always a deeply religious man and a sincere Christian, thou