Sensible of the high honour which they derived from their connexion with so distinguished a philosopher, the relations of Sir Isaac Newton who inherited his personal estate,[123] agreed to devote 500_l._ to the erection of a monument to his memory, and the dean and chapter of Westminster appropriated for it a place in the most conspicuous part of the Abbey, which had often been refused to the greatest of our nobility. This monument was erected in 1731. On the front of a sarcophagus resting on a pedestal are sculptured in basso-relievo youths bearing in their hands the emblems of Sir Isaac’s principal discoveries. One carries a prism, another a reflecting telescope, a third is weighing the sun and planets with a steelyard, a fourth is employed about a furnace, and two others are loaded with money newly coined. On the sarcophagus is placed the figure of Sir Isaac in a cumbent posture, with his elbow resting on several of his works. Two youths stand before him with a scroll, on which is drawn a remarkable diagram relative to the solar system, and above that is a converging series. Behind the sarcophagus is a pyramid, from the middle of which rises a globe in mezzo-relievo, upon which several of the constellations are drawn, in order to show the path of the comet of 1681, whose period Sir Isaac had determined, and also the position of the solstitial colure mentioned by Hipparchus, and by means of which Sir Isaac had, in his Chronology, fixed the time of the Argonautic expedition. A figure of Astronomy as Queen of the Sciences sits weeping on the Globe with a sceptre in her hand, and a star surmounts the summit of the pyramid. The following epitaph is inscribed on the monument. Hic situs est Isaacus Newton, Eques Auratus, Qui Animi Vi prope divina, Planetarum Motus, Figuras, Cometarum Semitas, Oceanique Æstus, Sua Mathesi facem preferente, Primus demonstravit. Radiorum Lucis dissimilitudines, Colorumque inde nascentium Proprietates, Quas nemo antea vel suspicatus erat, pervestigavit, Naturæ, Antiquitates, S. Scripturæ, Sedulus, sagax, fidus Interpres, Dei Opt. Max. Majestatem Philosophia asseruit, Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit. Sibi gratulentur Mortales, tale tantumque extitisse, HUMANI GENERIS DECUS. Natus xxv. Decemb. MDCXLII. Obiit. xx. Mar. MDCCXXVII. Of which the following is a literal translation: