He struggled much against his sense of shyness, but was never able either to conquer or conceal it.

His biographer, in explaining its causes, says: "It was the shyness of a very delicate nature, that is not sure it will please, and is without the confidence and the vanity which often go to form characters that are outwardly more genial." [186] But the Prince shared this defect with some of the greatest of Englishmen.

Sir Isaac Newton was probably the shyest man of his age.

He kept secret for a time some of his greatest discoveries, for fear of the notoriety they might bring him.

His discovery of the Binomial Theorem and its most important applications, as well as his still greater discovery of the Law of Gravitation, were not published for years after they were made; and when he communicated to Collins his solution of the theory of the moon's rotation round the earth, he forbade him to insert his name in connection with it in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' saying: "It would, perhaps, increase my acquaintance--the thing which I chiefly study to decline." From all that can be learnt of Shakspeare, it is to be inferred that he was an exceedingly shy man.