Newton: The Making of Genius by Patricia Fara (review)

96 as there are dunces in the world a man of parts . . . need want noe preferment.’’Toleration , Calvinism, and free will are discussed with Limborch; the distinctionbetween the natural and the divine law, with Tyrrell. A number of philosophical topics are reviewed with Molyneux, while publishers are denounced for issuing poor editions of Locke’s works at inflatedprices . The stir caused by The Reasonableness of Christianity is covered. Locke is also revealed as one who could be crochety , sympathetic, angry, gentle. His interests were so wide that there is a certain consolation in Mr. Goldie’s observation that Locke had deficiency in music, drama , and the visual arts. ‘‘Locke’s credit today,’’Mr. Goldieobserves , ‘‘stands low among postmodern and postcolonial doubters of the Enlightenment ‘project.’’’ Some who have not bowed the knee to Baal may be inclined to think that this is high praise indeed. Alan Sell Milton Keynes, U.K. PATRICIA FARA. Newton: The Making of Genius. New York: Columbia, 2002. Pp. xvi ⫹ 347. $27.95. Rather than a biography of Newton (1642–1727), Ms. Fara has written a cultural history of his evolving reputation and image. As she notes in the Preface, ‘‘Repeatedly made to mean different things for different people, Newton has become an intellectual icon for our modern age, when genius commands the reverence formerly reserved for sanctity.’’ Intended for a nonspecialistaudience,her book will interest scholars due to its copious endnotes and extensive secondary sources. Arranged moreor lesschronologically, the book’s thematic chapters allow Ms. Fara to wrest an enormous wealth of information into manageable chunks. The first section sets forth Newton’s developing reputation during the eighteenth century, including how his portraits were collected and displayed—equating Newton ’s scientific accomplishments (at a time when science was not as highly valued as it would later be) with those of Pope. Dr. Richard Mead, a collector and Newton’s physician, displayed portraits of Newton and Pope, as he noted, ‘‘near the Busts of their great Masters, the antient Greeks and Romans.’’ Her second chapter concerns his iconography . She notes the variety of images , from oil paintings and sculptures, including MichaelRysbrack’smonument to Newton in Westminster Abbey, LouisFranc ̧ois Roubiliac’s statue for Trinity College, Cambridge, to less expensive tributes, including coins and medals, Wedgwood plaques, statuettes and engravings . One of Godfrey Kneller’s two painted portraits and John Vanderbank ’s painting also became popularized through engravings. A print after Vanderbank ’s portrait, for instance, was used as the frontispiece for the third edition of Newton’s Principia (a flattering image of an elderly invalid which was frequently copied and pirated). James Logan ofPhiladelphia saw the original painting at the Royal Society in London in 1727, the year of Newton’s death, and commented on its falsity: ‘‘by all those who have seen him of late as I did, bending so much under the Load of Years as that with some difficulty he mounted the Stairs of theSociety ’s Room. That youthfull Representation will I fear be considered rather as an object of Ridicule than Respect, & much sooner raise Pity than Esteem.’’ Though noting that ‘‘portraits simultaneously shaped and reflected ideological constructs such as national character, appropriate gender behavior and class 97 structures,’’Ms. Fara does not offer a critical discussion of how visual images of Newton alone, and within the context of groupings of British worthies, helped to form his cultural character over time. She might have addressed through a case study how the visual image was manipulated over time to inform Newton’s reputation . I wanted more information and images. It would have been marvelous to have the surviving portraits painted during Newton’s lifetime illustrated in color. The best of Ms. Fara’schaptersgrapple with the developing cultural meanings of science and genius and offer a fascinating study of the uses of these terms during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century. But other chapters seem overloaded with material which, while consistently interesting, is often more than a lay reader may wish to know about Newton ’s early followers and interpreters, later biographers, or monuments erected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ms. Fara gives us both too much—and not enough. Brandon Brame Fortune...