interest, etc., who began his career
before Isaac Newton, sometimes puzzles those who do not know him, when
described as I. Newton. The scientific world was of opinion that all that
was valuable in one of his works was taken from Dary's private
communications.

{306}

The second character above alluded to is one who carried mathematical
researches a far greater length than Newton himself: the assistance which
he rendered in this respect, even to Newton, has never been acknowledged in
modern times: though the work before us shows that his contemporaries were
fully aware of it, and never thought of concealing it. In his theory of
gravitation, in which, so far as he went, we have every reason to believe
he was prior to Newton, he did not extend his calculations to the distance
of the moon; his views in this matter were purely terrestrial, and led him
to charge according to weight. He was John Stiles, the London and Cambridge
carrier: his name is a household word in the Macclesfield Letters, and is
even enshrined in the depths of Birch's quartos. Dary informs Newton--let
us do his memory this justice--that he had paid John Stiles for the
carriage. At the time when the railroad to Cambridge was opened, a
correspondent recommended the directors, in our columns, to call an engine
by the name of John Stiles, and never to let that name go off the road. We
do not know whether the advice was followed: if not, we repeat it.

Little points of life and manners come out occasionally. Baker, the author
of a work on algebra much esteemed at the time, wrote to Collins that their
circumstances are alike, "having a just and equal number of chargeable
olive-branches, and being in the same predicament and blessed condemnation
with you, not more preaching than unpaid, and preaching the art of
contentment to others, am forced to practise it." But the last sentence of
his letter runs as follows: "I have sent by the bearer ... twenty
shillings, as a token to you; desiring you to accept of it, as a small
taste from Yours, Thos. Baker." In our day, men of a station to pay parish
taxes do not offer their friends hard money to buy liquor. But
Flamsteed[562] writes to Collins as follows: "Last week he sent us down the
counterpart, which {307} my father has scaled, and I return up to you by
the carrier, with 5l. to be paid to Mr. Leneve for the writing, I have
added 2s. 6d. over, which will pay the expenses and serve to drink, with
him." This would