them, and made deep incisions in his body to draw off the water from it,
he gradually sank. On December 2, he sent directions for inscribing
epitaphs for his father, mother, and brother on a memorial slab in St.
Michael's Church, Lichfield. On December 8 and 9 he made his will; and
on Monday, December 13, he expired about seven o'clock in the evening,
with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly perceived when
his dissolution took place. A week later he was buried in Westminster
Abbey, his old schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, reading the service.

I trust I shall not be accused of affectation when I declare that I find
myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a "Guide,
Philosopher, and Friend." I shall, therefore, not say one word of my
own, but adopt those of an eminent friend, which he uttered with an
abrupt felicity: "He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill
up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us
go to the next best: there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in
mind of Johnson."

* * * * *




SIR DAVID BREWSTER


Life of Sir Isaac Newton


Sir David Brewster, a distinguished physicist, was born at