ROBERT BOYLE. 



indebted to his visit to Florence, probably influenced to a 

 greater extent the future course of his pursuits ; we mean the 

 knowledge he obtained of the then recent astronomical dis- 

 coveries of Galileo. This great philosopher died in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Florence, in the beginning of the year 1642, while 

 Boyle and his brother were pursuing their studies in that city. 

 The young Englishman, who was himself destined to acquire so 

 high a reputation by his experiments in various departments of 

 physical science, some of them the same which Galileo had 

 cultivated, probably never even beheld his illustrious pre- 

 cursor ; but we cannot tell how much of Boyle's love of experi- 

 mental inquiry, and his ambition to distinguish himself in that 

 field, may have been caught from this, his accidental residence 

 in early life in a place where the renown of Galileo and his 

 discoveries must have been on the lips of all. 



Boyle returned to England in 1644. Although he was yet 

 only in his eighteenth year, he seems to have thought that his 

 education had been long enough under the direction of others, 

 and he resolved, therefore, for the future to be his own 

 instructor. Accordingly, his father being dead, he retired to 

 an estate which had been left him in Dorsetshire, and gave 

 himself up, we are told, for five years to the study principally 

 of natural philosophy and chemistry. His literary and moral 

 studies, however, it would appear, were not altogether sus- 

 pended during this time. In a letter written by him from his 

 retirement to his old tutor, Mr. Marcombes, we find him 

 mentioning, as also among his occupations, the composing 01 

 essays in prose and verse, and the study of ethics, " wherein," 

 says he, " of late I have been very conversant, and desirous to 

 call them from the brain down into the breast, and from the 

 school to the house." 



