LETTERS FROM THE REV. WM. DERHAM, D.D. T 7 I 
impeached for fraud and was out of office during Queen Anne’s 
reign, on the accession of George I. he again became First Lord 
of the Treasury. He took a great interest in literature and 
science, and was President of the Royal Society from 1695 to 
1698. He was the patron of Rymer’s monumental work, the 
Boeder a. 
Lord Somers—1651-1716—John Somers, Lord Chancellor, 
created Baron Somers 1697 ; was much connected in public 
life with Lord Halifax, and from 1699 to 1704 was, like that 
nobleman, President of the Royal Society. It has been said 
that William of Orange reposed more confidence in him than in 
any other Englishman. 
The “ Mr. Hawkesby ” the Doctor speaks of, was Francis 
Hawksbee who was admitted Fellow of the Royal Society in 
1705, having already attained a reputation as an experimentalist. 
In 1709 he dedicated to Lord Somers a book on Physico-Mechani¬ 
cal Experiments. The Pneumatic Engine, as the Doctor terms 
it, was the air pump, then comparatively recently invented by 
the Hon. R. Boyle, and was called the “ Machine Boyleana.” 
Robert Boyle—1640-1696—son of Richard Earl of Cork, was 
a most distinguished natural philosopher and chemist. He 
appears while at Eton to have been a youthful prodigy of learning 
and industry. He employed Robt. Hooke as a chemical assistant 
and set him to contrive a less clumsy machine for exhausting 
air in a closed vessel than that already invented by Guericke. 
The result was the above-mentioned machine. Boyle took a 
leading part in founding the Royal Society, and wrote many 
books on scientific and religious subjects. 
Mr. Petiver, whose collection the Doctor visited, was in many 
ways a remarkable man : born 1663, he died 1718. He was 
educated at Rugby, and 1683 was apprenticed to the Apothecary 
of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He became in course of time 
Apothecary to the Charterhouse and obtained a considerable 
practice, although he was in his profession somewhat of a quack. 
He was a particular friend of the celebrated John Ray, who 
in the preface to the 2nd Volume of his Historia Plantarum 
acknowledges the assistance he had received from Petiver, and 
in the course of that great work refers frequently to the latter’s 
museum, and also to his writings. 
Petiver corresponded with naturalists all over the world 
