Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/411

 vices at St. Paul's, though he resided at the deanery, spending his summers at Bristol till 1776. He complains much of the ‘shameful neglect’ of the duties by the dean and canons. His health was now very weak. He had never spoken in parliament, and he ceased to attend. He bought a house at Kew Green, where he could spend the summers, and have ocular proof of the king's domestic virtues. He continued to collect books and pictures, and tried to secure the acceptance of a scheme under which Joshua Reynolds and other academicians had offered to decorate St. Paul's at their own cost. It was disapproved by the bishop of London as tending to popery, and finally abandoned. Newton improved the deanery, however, and raised the income of Bristol to 400l. a year. Newton's last publication was a ‘letter addressed to the new Parliament’ in 1780. He regarded the opposition as the most unprincipled and factious that he had ever known. He was disgusted by Gibbon's history, though he managed to read it through; and Johnson's ‘Lives of the Poets’ shocked him by its malevolence. He finished his autobiography a few days before his death at the deanery on 14 Feb. 1782. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, and a monument was erected by his widow in Bow Church. Religion and Science, in sculpture, by Thomas Banks [q. v.], deplore his loss, and beneath are lines by the ‘ingenious Mrs. Carter.’ He had no children.

Newton's ‘Works’ were published in three volumes, 4to, in 1782, containing the autobiography, the work on the prophecies, and a number of ‘dissertations’ and sermons. A second edition, in 6 vols. 8vo (1787), does not contain the work on the ‘Prophecies,’ which went through many editions separately. An 18th edition appeared in 1834 in 1 vol., with a portrait engraved by Earlom after West, and a 20th in 1835. Johnson (, ed. Hill, iv. 286) admitted that the ‘Dissertation on the Prophecies’ was ‘Tom's great work: but how far it was great and how much of it was Tom's, was another question.’ It is a summary of the ordinary replies to Collins and other deists of no real value. The autobiography was reprinted in a collection of lives edited by Alexander Chalmers in 1816. It contains many amusing anecdotes, but is chiefly curious as exhibiting the character of the prelate who combined good domestic qualities with the conviction that the whole duty of a clergyman was to hunt for preferment by flattery. Gibbon refers to it characteristically in his own autobiography. A portrait of Newton by Sir Joshua Reynolds was, in 1867, in the possession of the Archbishop of Canterbury; it was engraved by Collier, and prefixed to the 1782 edition of his works; it was also engraved by Watson.

[Life, as above; Welch's Westminster Scholars, pp. 285–7; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 220, ii. 317, 424, iii. 157, 366.]  NEWTON, WILLIAM (1735–1790), architect, born on 27 Oct. 1735, was eldest son of James Newton, cabinet-maker, of Holborn, London, and Susanna, daughter of Humphrey Ditton [q. v.] According to a letter written by Newton on 23 Oct. 1788 (now at the Institute of British Architects), his father's father was the owner of Gordon Mills, near Kelso, and was first-cousin to Sir Isaac Newton [q. v.], with whom his father lived when young. Admitted into Christ's Hospital on 25 Nov. 1743, William left, on 1 Dec. 1750, to become apprentice to William Jones, architect, of King Street, Golden Square.

Some architectural sketches and ornamental designs by Newton now at the Institute of British Architects are dated in 1755; others bear the date 1763, and in 1764 there is a sketch for ‘a menagerie for the king with Mr. Wynne.’ In 1766 he travelled in Italy and spent some time at Rome. On his return he joined the Incorporated Society of Artists, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776–80. For many years he was chiefly occupied in designing residences in London and vicinity. In 1775 he built a house for Sir John Borlase-Warren at Marlow. He appears to have assisted William Jupp the elder [see under ] in his design (1765–8) of the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street Within, and to have been successful in interior decoration.

In 1771 he published the earliest English translation of the first five books of Vitruvius under the title ‘De Architectura libri decem, written by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio,’ (fol.) In 1780 he issued, in French, ‘Commentaires sur Vitruve’ (fol.), with many plates. The complete work of Vitruvius (including a translation of the remaining five books) was published after Newton's death, ‘from a correct manuscript prepared by himself,’ in two volumes, folio, 1791, by his brother and executor, James Newton [see under ]. Of the plates, a few only were ‘etched’ by the author. The greater number were by his brother James. The translation closely adheres to the original, and is on the whole a creditable performance.

Towards the end of 1781 a misunderstanding arose between James Stuart, ‘the