Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727:  the chief glory of Newton is not connected with literary effort:  he ranks among the most profound and original philosophers, and was one of the purest and most unselfish of men.  The son of a farmer, he was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, after his father’s death,—­a feeble, sickly child.  The year of his birth was that in which Galileo died.  At the age of fifteen he was employed on his mother’s farm, but had already displayed such an ardor for learning that he was sent first to school and then to Cambridge, where he was soon conspicuous for his talents and his genius.  In due time he was made a professor.  His discoveries in astronomy, mechanics, and optics are of world-wide renown.  The law of gravitation was established by him, and set forth in his paper De Motu Corporum.  His treatise on Fluxions prepared the way for that wonderful mathematical, labor-saving instrument—­the differential calculus.  In 1687 he published his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, in which all his mathematical theories are propounded.  In 1696 he was made Warden of the Mint, and in 1699 Master of the Mint.  Long a member of the Royal Society, he was its president for the last twenty-four years of his life.  In 1688 he was elected member of parliament for the university of Cambridge.  Of purely literary works he left two, entitled respectively, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, and a Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended; both of which are of little present value except as the curious remains of so great a man.

Viscount Bolingbroke (Henry St. John), 1678-1751:  as an erratic statesman, a notorious free-thinker, a dissipated lord, a clever political writer, and an eloquent speaker, Lord Bolingbroke was a centre of attraction in his day, and demands observation in literary history.  During the reign of Queen Anne he was a plotter in favor of the pretender, and when she died, he fled the realm to avoid impeachment for treason.  In France he joined the pretender as Secretary of State, but was dismissed for intrigue; and on being pardoned by the English king, he returned to England.  His writings are brilliant but specious.  His influence was felt in the literary society he drew around him,—­Swift, Pope, and others,—­and, as has been already said, his opinions are to be found in that Essay on Man which Pope dedicated to him.  In his meteoric political career he represents and typifies one phase of the time in which he lived.

George Berkeley, 1684-1753:  he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and soon engaged in metaphysical controversy.  In 1724 he was made Dean of Derry, and in 1734, Bishop of Cloyne.  A man of great philanthropy, he set forth a scheme for the founding of the Bermudas College, to train missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American Indians.  As a metaphysician, he was an absolute