ROBERT BOYLE. 



tlie Royal Society. According to the account given in a letter 

 written many years after by Dr. Wallis, another member of the 

 club, to his friend Dr. Thomas Smith, it appears that these 

 meetings first began to be held in London, on a certain day 

 in every week, about the year 1645. ^^- Boyle's name does 

 not occur in the list of original members given by Dr. Wallis ; 

 but he professes to mention only several of the number. 

 There can be no doubt that Boyle joined them soon after the 

 formation of the association. According to Dr. Wallis, the 

 meetings were first suggested by a Mr. Theodore Haak, whom 

 he describes as a German of the Palatinate, then resident in 

 London. They used to be held sometimes in Wood Street, 

 at the house of Dr. Goddard, the eminent physician, who kept 

 an operator for grinding glasses for telescopes and microscopes; 

 sometimes at another house in Cheapside ; and sometimes in 

 Gresham College, to which several of the members were 

 attached. The subjects of inquiry and discussion are stated 

 to have embraced everything relating to "physic, anatomy, 

 geometry, astronomy, navigation, magnetics, chemics, mecha- 

 nics, and natural experiments," whatever, in short, belonged to 

 what was then called "the new or experimental philosophy." 

 In course of time several of the members of the association 

 were removed to Oxford ; and they began at last to meet by 

 themselves in that city, while the others continued their 

 meetings in London. The Oxford meetings began to be 

 regularly held about the year 1649, ^^ 1654 Mr. Boyle took 

 up his residence at Oxford, probably induced, in great part, 

 by the circumstance of so many of his philosophical friends 

 being now there, and engaged together in the same inquiries 

 with himself. The Oxford associates, according to Dr. Wallis, 

 met first in the apartments of Dr. Petty (afterwards the cele- 



