A Hitherto Unpublished Letter of Isaac Newton

Abstract

THE Royal Society recently received, on indefinite loan from its present owner, a hitherto unrecorded autograph letter of Isaac Newton. The letter is a long one, it has an intrinsic interest for the history, of science, it is in a remarkably good state of preservation and its authenticity is established with unusual completeness. It was written in 1677 from Cambridge to the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North, then living in London, but later Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. The present owner of the letter, Mr. Roger North, of Rougham, King's Lynn, Norfolk, who has placed it in the custody of the Royal Society, makes the very probable suggestion that the “new Treatise of Musick”, with which the letter deals, was “A Philosophical Essay on Music”, by Francis North, Lord Guilford, to whose brother the letter is addressed.