1 6 HER OES OF IN VENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 



zealous or more incessant. From his boyhood till his deatli 

 he may be said to have been almost constantly occupied in 

 making philosophical experiments ; collecting and ascertaining 

 facts in natural science; inventing or improving instruments 

 for the examination of nature ; maintaining a regular corre- 

 spondence with scientific men in all parts of Europe ; receiving 

 the daily visits of great numbers of the learned both of his own 

 and ether countries; perusing and studying not only all the 

 new works that appeared in the large and rapidly widening 

 department of natural history and mathematical and experi- 

 mental physics, including medicine, anatomy, chemistry, geo- 

 graphy, «S:c., but many others relating especially to theology 

 and Oriental literature ; and lastly, writing so profusely upon 

 all these subjects, that those of his works alone which have 

 been preserved and collected, independently of many others 

 that are lost, fill, in one edition, six large quarto volumes. So 

 vast an amount of literary performance, from a man who was 

 at the same time so much of a public character, and gave so 

 considerable a portion of his time to the service of others, shows 

 strikingly what may be done by industry, perseverance, and 

 such a method of life as never suffers an hour of the day to 

 run to waste. 



In this last particular, indeed, the example of Mr. Boyle well 

 deserves to be added to those of the other distinguished men 

 in this department. Of his time he was, from his earliest years, 

 the most rigid economist, and he preserved that good habit to 

 the last. Dr. Dent, in a letter to Dr. Wotton, tells us that " his 

 brother, afterwards I^ord Shannon (who accompanied him on 

 his continental tour with Mr. Marcombes), used to say that 

 even then he would never lose any vacant time ; for, if they 

 were upon the road, and walking down a hill, or in a rough 



