Catherine Barton
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The System of the World page for the body
Stephensonia
Catherine
AKA The Body
The non-fictional niece of Isaac Newton appears in The System of the World as Roger Comstock's mistress. In reality, she had a relationship with Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax. In the book, we see some folks get lucky. Interesting that she and Eliza are both smallpox survivors.
Authored entries
Wikipedia: Catherine Barton
Catherine Barton (1679-?) was Isaac Newton's half-niece, and had a relationship with Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax after his wife's death in 1698. An excerpt of an uncharacteristically warm letter from Newton survives, regarding her contraction of smallpox: "Pray let me know by your next how your [face is] and if your fevour be going. Perhaps warm milk from ye Cow may [help] to abate it. I am Your loving Unkle, Is. Newton."
One description of Newton's niece: "Catherine Barton, the elegant daughter of Newton's half-sister, was a close friend of Jonathan Swift, a toast of the Kit-Kat Club and a very intimate companion of Newton's patron, the Earl of Halifax, from whom she received a considerable inheritance. ... Halley, close to Newton... was probably in Catherine's circle. Catherine would entertain Newton's visitors from abroad... She made a great impression on the foreign guests of the Royal Society..." (Cook)
Cook notes a Kit-Kat club verse about Catherine, included in a book of poetry by John Dryden, that starts:
At Barton's feet the God of Love
His arrows and his Quiver lays
Forgets he has a Throne above
And with this lovely Creature stays
Voltaire wrote: `I thought in my youth that Newton made his fortune by his merit. I supposed that the Court and the City of London named him Master of the Mint by acclamation. No such thing. Isaac Newton has a very charming niece, Madame Conduitt, who made a conquest of the minister Halifax. Fluxions and gravitation would have been of no use without a pretty niece.' This needs to be tempered with the fact that Voltair and the Montagus had a number of public intellectual disputes.
Catherine Barton changed Newton's attitude to life, and his house was furnished with bright colors, predominantly crimson, which would have shocked the puritans! His dinner parties became famous as, unlike her uncle, Catherine was known for her brilliant conversation. Jonathan Swift said he loved her more than anyone else in London and Voltaire trumpeted her fame around Europe. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was impressed!