It is, however, consolatory to think, that if a financial speculator can raise himself, from the dregs of society to the circles of a court, drive a whole nation of philosophers and thinkers into a race after Mammon, and then to poverty and madness; or Projectors and Managing Directors of false propositions, enrich themselves by spoiling others, and roll in their gaudy equipages, over the wretched widows, orphans and other victims of deceitful cupidity; or if debased monstrosities of humanity, apish imitators of studious manhood, by defilers of infant female purity, can become millionaries; and a Newton prays forbearance from his creditors, and a Porson sighs for bread, that Phidian representations of both these illustrious men adorn the Halls of the grateful University they both honoured, and their names rendered as imperishable and as extensive as the immortal spirit of civilization. It may be whispered in the ears of the money-lovers, that the author of the "PRINCIPIA," (Sir Isaac Newton, M.P., etc, etc., etc., is meant) became a Member of Parliament, was made Master of the Mint, died worth £32,000, but forgot to make a will, by which philosophical carelessness his fortune fell into the possession of a beloved sister. HUME does justice to the genius of Newton, although he slandered the faith he believed in, and the Revelation he supported. De Voltaire, the countryman of Descartes, was the first* who introduced the Newtonian Philosophy into France, whilst the Cartesian system predominated, opening, thereby, a more extended field *“Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy." to such investigations, and rendering it as triumphant in that country, as in England. He dedicated also* one of the finest inspirations of his Muse to our great philosopher, in which he says "DIEU parle, et le Cahos se dissipe à sa voix : Le compas de Newton, mesurant l'univers, Lève enfin ce grand voile, et les Cieux sont ouverts." POPE has expressed a similar thought in one couplet "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, GOD said, let Newton be, and all was light." that unprosperous DR. ADAM SMITH asserts thatt, race of men, called men of letters, must necessarily occupy their present forlorn state in society, much as formerly, when a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous." Truly, men of letters, scholars and beggars, all this set, whom the Scotch metaphysician classes with the "mendicit, mimæ, balatrones" of the Roman satirist should doff caps, if such a forlorn hope have such luxuries, to the warm and well-clad Doctor in Philosophy. ALL of this cold arithmetical class, however, do not take such extreme views of this unproductive class, nor pin their faith in national wealth on steam-engines, * "Eloge de Newton." "Wealth of Nations," Vol. I. page 182. HOR. lib. I. Sat. II. power-looms and operatives alone. Malthus steps out boldly from this phalanx of cui bonists; and readily admits, that "to estimate the value of NEWTON's discoveries, or the delight communicated by SHAKSPEARE and MILTON, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country,” and acknowledges, "that some unproductive labour is of much more use and importance than productive labour; but is incapable of being the subject of the gross calculations which relate to national wealth; contributing to other sources of happiness, besides those which are derived from matter." Do we require further authority? What says the Royal Sage of Judah? +- The wisdom of a learned man cometh by using well his vacant time: and he that ceaseth from his own matters and labour, may come by wisdom. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that hath pleasure in the goad, and in driving oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and talketh but of the breed of bullocks ?" THE remainder of the year was occupied by arrangements with complainants to the Privy Council, from all sorts of persons which are fully recorded, from its manuscript transactions, in the before-quoted memoirs of Wren. DURING the repairs of the Tower of London, in *Principles of Political Economy, p. 48. + Ecclus. xxxviii. 24, 25. removing the stairs which led from the royal apartments to the chapel in the White Tower, a wooden chest or coffin was discovered, containing the remains of two youthful human bodies, which Wren and other authorities conjectured were those of Edward V. and his brother the Duke of York, whose mysterious death in this fortress, placed their suspected uncle on the throne of England, as Richard III. Wren communicated this singular discovery to the King, who signified his pleasure to Sir Christopher, that he should provide a white marble sarcophagus for the relics so found, and have them deposited in the chapel of King Henry VII. at Westminster. IN In pursuance of this warrant, the marble tomb was provided and so deposited; and an elegant marble urn, with a classical Latin inscription designed and written by Wren, were, after being approved by the King, erected in the east wall of the north aisle of that royal mausoleum. As the inscription, written by a man well versed in English history and antiquities, and approved by the King and Privy Council, testify a fact disputed by historians, it is given at length HSS Edvardi Vti, Regis Angliæ, et Ricardi Ducis Eborac. Abditè et inhonestè tumulari jussit Prædo. Ossa desideratorum diù et multùm quæsita Post annos CXCI. Scalarum in ruderibus (scalæ nuper istæ ad sacellum Altè defossa indiciis certissimis sunt reperta, Inter avita monumenta, principibus infelicissimus Anno Domini 1678, Annoque Regni sui, 30. FLAMSTEED HOUSE, as the Royal observatory at Greenwich is named, was erected this year under the following circumstances:-M. de St. Pierre, a member of the French Academy, visited London about this time, and demanded a reward from the King, for his discovery, how to find the longitude of a place, by the moon's distance from a star. A commission was appointed to examine his pretensions, and Flamsteed, one of the Commissioners, furnished the claimant with certain data of observations from which he was to calculate the longitude of a given place. This he was unable to do, and excused himself by asserting that the data were false. Flamsteed replied they were true, but that nothing certain could be deduced from them, for want of more exact tables of the moon, and more correct places of the fixed stars, than Tycho Brahe's observations, made with plain sight, afforded. THESE facts being told to the King by Sir Jonas Moore, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, he said that his pilots and sailors should no longer be in want of such aid; and resolved to found an institution, for |