BOYLE, ROBERT. 



BOYLE, ROBERT. 



foreign prince; a circumstance which was the more evident, they 

 alleged, owing to some of his newly-acquired possessions being on the 

 coast, and possessed of advantages for facilitating an invasion, an event 

 which at the time was generally anticipated. Mr. Boyle, who had 

 been informed of these machinations, had resolved upon repairing to 

 the English court in order to defend his interests and character, but 

 the rebellion of Munster broke out before he could quit Ireland. His 

 estate was ravaged by the rebels, and as he himself states, " I could 

 not say that I had one penny of certain revenue left me.'* 



He now returned with forlorn prospects to the Temple ; but when 

 the Earl of Essex was sent to Ireland, he was received in the suite of 

 that nobleman. On again reaching the country his former enemies 

 made another attempt to crush his reviving hopes. They were so far 

 successful as to occasion his being put under confinement, but on his 

 case coming before the English Privy Council he was fortunate to 

 secure the presence of the queen, who listened with interest to his 

 able and successful defence. Before he concluded he exhibited the 

 principal instigator of the proceedings (Sir Henry Wallop, treasurer of 

 Ireland) in the character of a public peculator, and clearly proved 

 that he passed his accounts in an irregular and dishonest manner. 

 When he had done speaking, the queen said, " By God's death, all 

 these are but inventions against this young man, and all his sufferings 

 are for his being able to do us service, and those complaints urged to 

 forestall him therein ; but we find him a man fit to be employed by 

 ourselves, and will employ him in our services. Wallop and his 

 adherents shall know that it shall not be in the power of any of them 

 to wrong him, neither shall Wallop be our treasurer any longer." A 

 new treasurer was immediately appointed, and Boyle was made clerk 

 of the council of Munster ; " and this," he says, " was the second rise 

 that God gave to my fortunes." 



He returned to Ireland to discharge the duties of his office, and 

 shortly afterwards, on the Spaniards and Tyrone being defeated with 

 great loss, was sent to announce the victory to the English court. He 

 performed this duty with extraordinary celerity, having, as he says in 

 his memoirs, left the lord president at Shannon Castle, near Cork, 

 " on the Monday morning about two of the clock, and the next day, 

 being Tuesday, I delivered my packet and supped with Sir Robert 

 Cecil, being then principal secretary, at his house in the Strand, who 

 after supper held me in discourse till two of the clock in the morning ; 

 and by seven that morning called upon me to attend him to the court, 

 where he presented me to her Majesty in her bedchamber." The 

 queen again received him in a gracious manner. 



His fortunes now took a more prosperous turn. He bought at a 

 low price the Irish estates of Sir Walter Raleigh, which contained 

 12,000 acres, and by judicious management greatly increased their 

 value. In July 1603 Mr. Boyle married a daughter of Sir Geoffrey 

 Fenton, principal secretary of state ; on which occasion his friend Sir 

 George Carew, the lord-deputy of Ireland, knighted him on his 

 wedding-day. In 1 606 he was sworn a privy councillor to King James 

 for the province of Munster; in 1612 a privy councillor for the king- 

 dom of Ireland; in 1616 he was created Lord Boyle, baron of 

 Youghall; and in 1620 Viscount Dungarvan and Earl of Cork. In 

 1629 he was constituted one of the lords justices of Ireland; in 1631 

 lord high treasurer, an office which waa made hereditary in his 

 family. 



Charles I., out of regard to the Earl of Cork's character and talents, 

 and as an acknowledgment of his services, created the earl's second son 

 then living, Lewis, a child of eight years old, Viscount Kynelineaky. 

 Lewis was killed in the battle of Liacaroll in 1642, and his widow 

 was created Countess of Quildford in her own right by Charles II. 

 The Earl of Cork was a witness against Lord Strafford, with whom 

 he had not been on cordial terms in consequence partly of the jealousy 

 with which Lord Strafford during his residence in Ireland as lord- 

 lieutenant had regarded the influence of the Earl of Cork. 



The Earl of Cork died September 15th, 1644, in the seventy-eighth 

 year of his age. His wife, by whom he had fifteen children, died in 

 1630. 



(Budgell, Memoiri of the Family of the Boyles, 1732 ; Life of the 

 Hon. Hubert Boyle, by Birch ; Memoirs written by the Earl of Cork in 

 1632, called True Remembrances.) 



BOYLE, ROBERT, was the seventh son of Richard Boyle, earl of 

 Cork, and his wife Catherine, only daughter of Sir Geoffrey 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. 



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 

 bis 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 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, 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." He lost his mother at an early age, this 



BIOO. BIT. vor.. i. 



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 studious- 

 ness and veracity endeared him to his father. 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 made him in love with other than 

 pedantic books." He always declared that he was more obliged to 

 this author than was Alexander. Two years afterwards the 'Romance 

 of Amadis de Gaule' was put into his hands "to divert his melan- 

 choly," 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." His 

 father had now come to England, and settled at Stalbridge in Dorset- 

 shire ; on which account Robert Boyle was soon 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, to whom he 

 acknowledges himself in various ways greatly indebted. It had been 

 intended that he should have served in a troop of horse which his 

 eldest brother had raised, but the illness of another brother prevented 

 this. He travelled through France, and settled with his governor at 

 Geneva, for the prosecution of his studies. A thunderstorm which 

 happened there in the night was the cause of those religious impres- 

 sions which he retained throughout his life. He carried his theo- 

 logical studies to considerable depth. He cultivated both Hebrew and 

 Greek, that he might read the originals of the Scriptures. 



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

 employed himself in learning the language, and " in the new para- 

 doxes of the great star-gazer, Galileo, whose ingenious books, perhaps 

 because they could not be so otherwise, were confuted by a decree 

 from Rome." Having seen Florence, Rome, and Genoa, he proceeded 

 to Marseille, and there his own narrative ends. At Marseille 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 correspond- 

 ence of Boyle is amusing, and furnishes one of the earliest specimens 

 of the lighter style. 



From this time to the end of his life he appears to have been engaged 

 in study. His chemical experiments date from 1646. He was one of 

 the first members of the Invisible College, as he calls it, which has 

 since become the Royal Society. The rest of his public life is little 

 more than the history of his printed works, which are voluminous, 

 and will presently be further specified. He must have written with 

 singular rapidity, for an argumentative and elaborate letter, written 

 as appears on the face of it in the morning, previously to making his 

 preparations for a journey in the afternoon, is of a length equal to 

 nearly four columns of this work. After various journeys to his Irish 

 estates, he settled at Oxford in 1654, where he remained till 1668. 

 Here hia life (' Works,' vol. i.) states him to have invented the air- 

 pump, which is not correct, though he made considerable improvements 

 in it. On the accession of Charles II. in 1660 he was much pressed to 

 enter the Church, but refused, both as feeling the want of a sufficient 

 vocation towards that profession, and as desirous to add to his writings 

 in favour of Christianity all the force which could be derived from 

 his fortune not being interested in its defence. When he left Oxford 

 lie took up his abode with his elder sister, Lady Ranelagb, in London, 

 and in 1663 was one of the first council of the newly-incorporated 

 Royal Society. In the year 1666 his name appears as attesting the 

 miraculous cures (as they were called by many) of Valentine Greatraks, 

 an Irishman, who by a sort of animal magnetism made his own hands 

 the medium of giving many patients almost instantaneous relief. At 

 the same time, in illustration of what we shall presently have to say 

 on the distinction between Boyle as an eye-witness and Boyle as a 

 judge of evidence, we find him in 1669 not indisposed to receive, and 

 that upon the hypothesis implied in the words, the " true relation of 

 the things which an unclean spirit did and said at Mascon in Burgundy," 

 &c. That he should have been inclined to prosecute inquiries about 

 the transmutation of metals needs no excuse, considering the state of 

 chemical knowledge in his day ; and we find even Newton inclined to 

 fear the consequences which might follow from the further prosecution 

 of some experiments of Boyle, the results of which only had been 

 stated. 



It appears that both Boyle and Newton were startled with the result 

 of Boyle's experiments; and the treatment which old believers in 

 alchemy have experienced from the present age will render it no less 

 than just to say that faith iu alchemy now, and the same in the middle 



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