and other less famous names. Boyle was a great experimenter, a
worthy follower of Dr. Gilbert. Hooke began as his assistant, but being
of a most extraordinary ingenuity he rapidly rose so as to exceed his
master in importance. Fate has been a little unkind to Hooke in placing
him so near to Newton; had he lived in an ordinary age he would
undoubtedly have shone as a star of the first magnitude. With great
ingenuity, remarkable scientific insight, and consummate experimental
skill, he stands in many respects almost on a level with Galileo. But it
is difficult to see stars even of the first magnitude when the sun is
up, and thus it happens that the name and fame of this brilliant man are
almost lost in the blaze of Newton. Of Christopher Wren I need not say
much. He is well known as an architect, but he was a most accomplished
all-round man, and had a considerable taste and faculty for science.

These then were the luminaries of the Royal Society at the time we are
speaking of, and to them Newton's first scientific publication was
submitted. He communicated to them an account of his reflecting
telescope, and presented them with the instrument.

Their reception of it surprised him; they were greatly delighted with
it, and wrote specially thanking him for the communication, and assuring
him that all right should be done him in the matter of the invention.
The Bishop of Salisbury (Bishop Burnet) proposed him for election as a
fellow, and elected he was.

In reply, he expressed his surprise at the value they set on the
telescope, and offered, if they cared for it, to send them an account of
a discovery which he doubts not will prove much more grateful than the
communication of that instrument, "being in my judgment the oddest, if
not the most considerable detection that has recently been made into the
operations of Nature."

So he tells them about his optical researches and his discovery of the
nature of white light, writing them a series of papers which were long
afterwards incorporated and published as his _Optics_. A magnificent
work, which of itself suffices to place its author in the first rank of
the world's men of science.

The nature of white light, the true doctrine of colour, and the
differential calculus! besides a good number of minor results--binomial
theorem, reflecting telescope, sextant, and the like; one would think it
enough for one man's life-work, but the masterpiece remains still to be
mentioned. It