Page:Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life.djvu/33

 it to the Royal Society. he complain'd of the custom house officers who made him pay £20 for the duty, too honestly declaring the value he bought soon after the great maypole in the Strand, & had it carryed, & set up at Wansted; for Dr Pound, to make astronomical observations.

about this time I was publishing my Itinerarium Curiosum. I had been a course of travels, from 13 august 1721 with Mr Roger Gale, thro' Berkshire Wiltshire, Glocestershire, Worcestershire. Herefordshire. Staffordshire., Derbyshire., Nottinghamshire., returning home on 13 october I visited Wulsthorp, which parishes to Colsterworth, 6 mile on this side Grantham, in the great road leading from London into the north. I had the curiosity to visit the place where Sir Isaac was born. Wulsthorp is a Mannor which was Sir Isaac's, & his ancestors. it stands in a pleasant little hollow, or convallis on the west side of the valley of the river Witham, which rises near there: one spring thereof in this hamlet of Wulsthorp. it has a good prospect eastward, & sees the Roman road, the Hermen Street going over the fields, to the east of Colsterworth. there cannot be a finer country than this.