LITERARY WORK. 99 



he is at present engaged on a work which will be a 

 valuable addition to the literature of sanitary science. 

 This work will embrace the important questions of 

 ventilation and heating, and will probably attract con- 

 siderable attention, by throwing much new light upon the 

 subject and upsetting many theories hitherto accepted as 

 correct. We have seen many seemingly sound theories 

 fall to pieces under the test of practical work, and for 

 this reason Mr. Boyle's statements will be received by 

 true scientists with an impartial spirit of inquiry, and 

 his arguments will doubtless have the weight which his 

 intimate knowledge of the subjects under discussion should 

 give them. 



In the lighter regions of literature where the pleasures 

 of imagination and the subtle art of word painting are 

 permitted scope and license, forbidden in the close logical 

 limits which bind within hard and fast lines the scientific 

 essayist, Mr. Boyle's innate ability has asserted itself by 

 many agreeable flashes of luminous and effective touches 

 of pathos. 



In these essays, some of them written at a very early 

 age, a correct observation of man and manners has been 

 supplemented by a very happy style of descriptive 

 writing. Of these entertaining sketches we may mention 

 "Two Hours in a Back Slum," "Saturday Night in the 



