About this time the Abbé Conti, a noble Venetian, came to England. He was a correspondent of Leibnitz, and in a letter which he had received soon after his arrival,[69] he enters upon his dispute with Newton. He charges the English “with wishing to pass for almost the only inventors.” He declares “that Bernouilli had judged rightly in saying that Newton did not possess before him the infinitesimal characteristic and algorithm.” He remarks that Newton preceded him only in series; and he confesses that during his second visit to England, “Collins showed him part of his correspondence,” or, as he afterward expresses it, he saw “some of the letters of Newton at Mr. Collins’s.” He then attacks Sir Isaac’s philosophy, particularly his opinions about gravity and vacuum, the intervention of God for the preservation of his creatures; and he accuses him of reviving the occult qualities of the schools. But the most remarkable passage in this letter is the following: “I am a great friend of experimental philosophy, but Newton deviates much from it _when he pretends that all matter is heavy_, or that each particle of matter attracts every other particle.” The above letter to the Abbé Conti was generally shown in London, and came to be much talked of at court, in consequence of Leibnitz having been privy counsellor to the Elector of Hanover when that prince ascended the throne of England. Many persons of distinction, and particularly the Abbé Conti, urged Newton to reply to Leibnitz’s letter, but he resisted all their solicitations. One day, however, King George I. inquired when Sir Isaac Newton’s answer to Leibnitz would appear; and when Sir Isaac heard this, he addressed a long reply to the Abbé Conti, dated February 26th, O. S. 1715–16. This letter, written with dignified severity, is a triumphant refutation of the allegations of his adversary; and the following passage deserves to be quoted, as connected with that branch of the dispute which relates to Leibnitz’s having seen part of Newton’s letters to Mr. Collins. “He complains of the committee of the Royal Society, as if they had acted partially in omitting what made against me; but he fails in proving the accusation. For he instances in a paragraph concerning my ignorance, pretending that they omitted it, and yet you will find it in the Commercium Epistolicum, p. 547, lines 2, 3, and I am not ashamed of it. He saith that he saw this paragraph in the hands of Mr. Collins when he was in London the second time, that is in October, 1676. It is in my letter of the 24th of October, 1676, and therefore he then saw that letter. And in that and some other letters writ before that time, I described my method of fluxions; and in the same letter I described also two general methods of series, one of which is now claimed from me by Mr. Leibnitz.” The letter concludes with the following paragraph: “But as he has lately attacked me with an accusation which amounts to plagiary;