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I am wearing the large black wig that was fashionable at the court of Hanover when this portrait was made. I disliked wigs but wore one because I spent much of my life in courts. I advised princes, organised archives, designed drainage systems for mines, proposed a universal logical calculus, and corresponded with every philosopher in Europe. I was also, at the time of my death, entirely alone. My employer had moved to London to become King of England. He did not bring me. I was not fashionable enough.

I died in 1716 with one secretary in attendance. No one else came to my funeral. Newton, in London, was given a state burial and buried in Westminster Abbey. We had the same idea, at the same time, by different paths. History preferred his story. I preferred my notation.