* A so-ealled Observatory on the roof, now non-existent, was for many years exhibited at Newton's. Recent authorities, however, contend that this was the fabrication of a later tenant. But it should be noted that Madame D'Arblay, who also lived in the house, and wrote novels in the room in question, seems to have had no doubts of the kind. She says ('Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' 1832, i. 290-1) that her father not only reverently repaired the Observatory when he entered upon his tenancy of No. 35 [in 1774], but went to the expense of practically reconstructing it when it was all but destroyed by the hurricane of 1778. But there was one member of his household, a few years later, who must certainly have added to the attractions of the ordinary two-storeyed building where he superintended the revision of the second and third editions of the 'Prineipia.' This was his kinswoman,--the 'jolie niece' of Voltaire,--the 'famous witty Miss Barton' of the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' At this date she was 'Superintendant of his domestick Affairs' to Charles, Earl of Halifax, who, dying in 1715, left her £5,000 and a house, 'as a Token'--so runs the bequest--'of the sincere Love, Affection, and Esteem I have long had for her Person, and as a small Recompence for the Pleasure and Happiness I have had in her Conversation.' This, taken in connection with the fact that, since 1706, she had been in receipt of an annuity of £200 a year, purchased in her uncle's name, but for which Halifax was trustee, has led to the conclusion that the relation between the pair was something closer than friendship, and that, following other contemporary precedents, they were privately married. * Be this as it may, Catherine Barton is also interesting as one of the group of gifted women to whom Swift extended the privilege of that half-patronising, half-playful, and wholly unconventional intimacy which is at once the attraction and the enigma of his relations with the other sex. * See 'Newton: his Friend: and his Niece,' 1885, by Professor Augustus de Morgan, which labours, with much digression, but with infinite ingenuity and erudition, to establish this satisfactory solution of a problem in which the good fame of Newton cannot be regarded as entirely unconcerned. He met her often in London, though not as often as he wished. 'I love her better than any-one here,' he tells Stella in April, 1711, 'and see her seldomer.' He dines with her 'alone at her lodgings'; he goes with her to other houses; and, Tory though he has become, endures her vivacious Whiggery.