ROBERT BOYLE was the seventh son of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork, and his wife Catherine, only daughter of Sir Geoffry Fenton, secretary of state for Ireland. There were fifteen children of this marriage, and the subject of this memoir (the fourteenth) was born on the 25th of January, 1626, at Lismore, in the province of Munster. His sister Catherine, by marriage Lady Ranelagh, afterwards mentioned, was considerably older, having been born on the 22nd of March, 1614.

The autobiography and correspondence of Robert Boyle have been almost entirely forgotten in the superior fame which he has attained in chemistry and medicine. If we consider the position in which he stands among our philosophers, it will not appear superfluous, having his own words to quote, if we give the account of his earlier years at some length. The narration in question (in which he calls himself Philaretus, and writes in the third person) is prefixed to Dr. Birch's edition of his

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works in 5 vols. fol., which we here cite once for all'The Works of the Hon. Robert Boyle, in five volumes, to which is prefixed a Life of the Author,' London, printed for A. Millar, 1744. Of his birth and station he says, "that it so suited his inclinations and designs, that, had he been permitted an election, his choice would scarce have altered God's assignment." His father, having "a perfect, aversion for their fondness, who use to breed their children so nice and tenderly that a hot sun or a good shower of rain as much endangers them as if they were made of butter or of sugar," committed him to a nurse away from home, under whose care he formed a vigorous constitution. He lost his mother at an early age, this being one great disaster;" the other was the acquisition of a habit of stuttering, which came upon him from mocking other children. He was taught early to speak both French and Latin, and his studiousness and veracity endeared him to his father, "and indeed lying was a vice both so contrary to his nature, and so inconsistent with his principles, that as there was scarcely anything he more greedily desired than to know the truth, so was there scarcely anything he more perfectly detested than not to speak it; which brings into my mind a foolish story I have heard him jeered with by his sister, my Lady Ranelagh, how she having given strict order to have a fruit-tree preserved for his sister-in-law, the Lady Dungarvan, he accidentally coming into the garden, and ignoring the prohibition, did eat half a score of them, for which being chidden by his sister Ranelagh (for he was yet a child), and being told by way of aggravation that he had eaten half a dozen plums, Nay, truly, sister,' answers he simply to her, I have eaten half a score. At eight years old he was sent to Eton with his elder brother, the provost being Sir Henry Wotton, a person that was not only a fine gentleman himself, but very well skilled in the art of making others so." Here he was placed under the immediate care of Mr. Harrison, one of the masters, and became immoderately fond of study from "the accidental perusal of Quintus Curtius, which first

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made him in love with other than pedantic books." He always declared that he was more indebted to this author than was Alexander, the hero of the work. Two years afterwards, during an attack of the ague, the Romance of Amadis de Gaule was put into his hands "to divert his melancholy," and by this and other such works his habit of persevering study was weakened. He was obliged afterwards systematically to conquer the ill effects of this mental regimen, and "the most effectual way he found to be the extraction of the square and cube roots, and especially those more laborious operations of algebra which so entirely exact the whole man, that the smallest distraction or heedlessness constrains us to renew our trouble, and re-begin the operation." During his abode at Eton several remarkable escapes from imminent peril occurred to him, upon which, in after-life, he looked back with reverential gratitude, and with the full conviction that the direct hand of an overruling Providence was to be traced in them.

His father about the close of the year 1637 came to England, and settled at Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire; and Robert Boyle was soon after removed from Eton to his father's house, and placed under the tuition of the rector of the parish. In the autumn of 1638 he was sent to travel with an elder brother, under the care of M. Marcombes, a Frenchman, of whom he says, with many other encomia, that "if he were given to any vice himself, he was careful by sharply condemning it to render it uninfectious." "The worst quality he had was his choler; and that being the only passion to which Philaretus was much observed to be inclined, his desire to shun clashing with his governor, and his accustomedness to bear the sudden sallies of his impetuous humour, taught our youth so to subdue that passion in himself, that he "It was soon able to govern it habitually and with ease.' had been intended that he should have served in a troop of horse which his elder brother had raised, but the illness of another brother prevented this. He visited France and Switzerland, and settled with his governor at Geneva, for the prosecution of his studies. The only

incident which we shall mention as occurring during this period, is one which may be thought by many scarcely worthy of notice. Boyle himself used to speak of it as the most considerable accident of his whole life; and for its influence upon his life it ought not to be omitted. While staying at Geneva he was waked in the night by a thunder-storm of remarkable violence. Taken unprepared and startled, it struck him that the day of judgment was at hand; "whereupon," to use his own words, "the consideration of his unpreparedness to welcome it, and the hideousness of being surprised by it in an unfit condition, made him resolve and vow, that if his fears that night were disappointed, all further additions to his life should be more religiously and watchfully employed." He has been spoken of as being a sceptic_before this sudden conversion. This does not appear from his own account, further than as any boy of fourteen may be so called, who has never taken the trouble fully to convince himself of those truths which he professes to believe. He carried his theological studies to considerable depth. He cultivated both Hebrew and Greek, though a professed hater of verbal studies, that he might read the originals of the Scriptures. On this subject he remarks in his manuscripts (Works, vol. i. pp. 29, 30)— "When I have come into the Jewish schools, and seen those children that were never bred up for more than tradesmen, bred up to speak (what hath been peculiarly called) God's tongue as soon as their mother's, I have blushed to think how many gown-men, that boast themselves to be the true Israelites, are perfect strangers to the language of Canaan; which I would learn were it but to be able to pay God the respect usual from civil inferiors to princes, with whom they are wont to converse in their own languages. And I confess myself to be none of those lazy persons that seem to expect to obtain from God the knowledge of the wonders of his book upon as easy terms as Adam did a wife, by sleeping profoundly, and having her presented to him at his awaking.'

In September, 1641, he left Geneva, and travelled in

Italy, where he employed himself in learning the language, and "in the new paradoxes of the great stargazer Galileo, whose ingenious books, perhaps because they could not be so otherwise, were confuted by a decree from Rome; his highness the pope, it seems, presuming, and that justly, that the infallibility of his chair extended equally to determine points in philosophy as in religion, and loath to have the stability of that earth questioned in which he had established his kingdom." Having seen Florence, Rome, and Genoa, he came to Marseilles, and here his own narrative ends. At Marseilles he was detained for want of money, owing to the troubles in England; having, however, procured funds from his governor, he returned to London, where he found (in 1644) his father dead, and himself in possession of the manor of Stalbridge, with other property. At that place he resided till 1650, not taking any part in politics, and being in communication with men of influence in both parties, whereby his property received protection from both. The epistolary correspondence of Boyle is amusing, and furnishes one of the earliest specimens of the lighter style. Considering the formality of the age, and the then existing peculiarities of the English, the extracts we give from a letter to Lady Ranelagh will appear original; while the letter immediately following, written from Boyle when at Eton to his father (stated in the 'Biog. Brit.' to be taken from the original), will show the manners of the time :

"My most honoured Lord Father,

Heartily praying for the continuance of God's favor to your Lordship still in soul and body, I humbly prostrate myself unto your honorable feet, to crave your blessing and pardon for my remissness, in presenting my illiterate lines unto your honorable kind acceptance. Whereas I have been heretofore cloyed with our college exercise, I could not so often visit your Honour in writing; but now being by the ardent desire of our brother, and the licence of Sir Harry Wotton, and our schoolmaster, come to London, where we make four days'