As this is the only Life of Sir Isaac Newton on any considerable scale that has yet appeared, I have experienced great difficulty in preparing it for the public. The materials collected by preceding biographers were extremely scanty; the particulars of his early life, and even the historical details of his discoveries, have been less perfectly preserved than those of his illustrious predecessors; and it is not creditable to his disciples that they have allowed a whole century to elapse without any suitable record of the life and labours of a master who united every claim to their affection and gratitude. In drawing up this volume, I have obtained much assistance from the account of Sir Isaac Newton in the Biographia Britannica; from the letters to Oldenburg, and other papers in Bishop Horsley’s edition of his works; from Turnor’s Collections for the History of the Town and Soke of Grantham; from M. Biot’s excellent Life of Newton in the Biographie Universelle; and from Lord King’s Life and Correspondence of Locke. Although these works contain much important information respecting the Life of Newton, yet I have been so fortunate as to obtain many new materials of considerable value. To Professor Whewell, of Cambridge, I owe very great obligations for much valuable information. Professor Rigaud, of Oxford, to whose kindness I have on many other occasions been indebted, supplied me with several important facts, and with extracts from the diary of Hearne in the Bodleian Library, and from the original correspondence between Newton and Flamstead, which the president of Corpus Christi College had for this purpose committed to his care; and Dr. J.C. Gregory, of Edinburgh, the descendant of the illustrious inventor of the reflecting telescope, allowed me to use his unpublished account of an autograph manuscript of Sir Isaac Newton, which was found among the papers of David Gregory, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and which throws some light on the history of the Principia. D.B. Allerly, June 1st, 1831. |