Dark Matter

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I swore not to tell this story while Newton remained alive.

On the morning of the twenty-eighth of March 1727 — Sir Isaac Newton having died some eight days previously — I took a coach from my new lodgings in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, with Doctor Samuel Clarke, who was Newton’s friend and commentator, to the Abbey to see Newton lie in state like some fabulous Greek hero.

We found him in the Jerusalem Chamber, a great oak-paneled room with a large open fireplace that lies to the southwest of the Abbey, where there are some tapestries and stained glass ascribed to the period of Henry III, and marble busts of Henry IV and Henry V. It is said that Henry IV had a fit while praying one day in the Abbey and was carried into the Jerusalem Chamber where he died, thus fulfilling the prophecy that he would die in Jerusalem.

I cannot answer for whether the likeness of Henry was a good one, but Newton’s embalmer had done his job well and not made the face up like a whore, which is a very common failing with these people. His flesh looked quite natural, being florid, soft and full, as if the man had been only sleeping. And since there was no perceptible smell, Newton having been dead for a week or more, which is a long time for a corpse to be out of the ground, I could readily attest to the efficiency of the embalmer’s hand at least, for although Spring was not quite arrived, it had been quite warm of late.

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