Isaac Newton's Latin Exercises and Letter to a 'Loving Ffreind': Identifying the Sources

Abstract

This paper concerns the source and content of the earliest known piece of Isaac Newton's writing, a Latin phrase book, as well as of the first letter in his hand which has yet been found, addressed to a 'Loving ffreind'. I reveal that both these early pieces also appear in a work on Latin pedagogy by William Walker, a schoolmaster and rector whose acquaintance with Newton is documented from 1665. Walker's textbook was printed in 1669, but the list of Latin phrases in Newton's notebook must be dated at least a decade earlier, while the letter, in another notebook, probably also pre-dates the published work. Section I of the Note demonstrates that Newton can only have copied the phrase book from a private, unpublished version of Walker's own compilation of the phrases, most likely while the mathematician and natural philosopher was still a schoolboy. I turn to the letter in section II, showing the very different uses to which it was put by the two men and suggesting a date for Newton's rendition of it in his notebook.