Up, and by foot to Bath...

Up and to the office, and there sat all morning. To Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution in Queen's Square this even.

Did sport with Mistress P and Mistress B betimes, both very fine ladies! Listened on that occasion with great pleasure to a sprightly and learned gentleman who did expound upon the most admirable career as Magus of one of the most famous knights of her Majesty's realm, Sir Isaac Newton.

This fine person, Dr Peter Marshall FRGS, did discourse upon the alchemical and religious investigations of the great man who is now known far more widely for his co-development of fluctions, his research into optics and the nature of light, and his regulation of gravity.

Sir Isaac was, it might be said, a man of metal. Literally, in that his body was heavily poisoned with quicksilver after years of alchemical experimentation. And in office held also, in that his later years were spent as master of the Royal Mint wherein he oversaw, inter alia, the death by hanging of those who wouldst adulterate the sovereign's currency; a fate that he himself might have suffered for his somewhat heretical views on Christ, the Trinity and Christianity, were it not for the Reformation.

Sir I. Newton was schooled in Hermetic philosophy. His silent and secretive brethren did draw their inspiration from Hermes, god of knowledge, and sought to make nought of any distinction between art and natural philosophy. I do confess a desire to see the Principia Alchemica, so tragically burnt in a fire, that might have made for the great man a second reputation as firm as that established by his Principia Mathematica.

Dr Marshall's account put but great astonishment into me that Sir I. Newton did dispute so greatly with the scholar Boyle for his publication of that good soul's researches into gases; surely it profits no man to hide such knowledge hard won under any bushel.

And then home to dinner, where I did play a while upon the flageolet, and to bed.