good the charge of high-treason, abruptly adjourned to the third of July: the lords, therefore, after proclamation made three several times for his accusers to appear, discharged the earl from the impeachment, only three votes dissenting; and they ordered that he should be immediately set at liberty. Some writers have falsely said, that he was acquitted by his peers; but this is mistaking the case, for the charge was not inquired into, nor any evidence produced, the difference between the two houses putting an end to the judicial proceedings.

His lordship from this time passed his days in rural retirement, and in occasional society with men of letters, to whom he was a patron when in power, and a friend and companion in private life. He died in the year 1727, and left a son, who succeeded him in his honors and estate.

The characters drawn of this great statesman widely differ, His adversaries, though they admit some beauties, drew his por trait with such dark colours, that they are almost obscured. His friends, on the contrary, by pourtraying him as an angel, call in question their own integrity, and the resemblance of the picture to the man and the courtier. Lord Bolingbroke, in his curious letter to sir William Wyndham, printed in his lordship's works, confirms our first observations; and the following adula tory lines of the immortal Pope no less verify the last

A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

We presume therefore, that we shall be justified in recommending to the reader an attentive perusal of the best histories of the time in which he lived, as the only method of forming a judgment of him in his public capacity. As to his private life, his enemies allow that it was exemplary.

**Authorities. Collin's Lives of the earls of Oxford, Lond. 1752. Biog. Britan. Birch's Lives Continuation of Rapin's Hisp of England, by Tindal.

66

THE LIFE OF

ROBERT BOYLE

[A. D. 1627, to 1691.]

HISTORIANS and political writers, both ancient and modera, have advanced it as an unerring proposition; "That learning, and every branch of the liberal and polite arts, flourish in proportion to the freedom of civil societies." And some have refined so far upon this general maxim as to assert," that they succeed Better under republican than under monarchical governments." But the latter opinion seems to have been founded on the pro gress of human knowledge under the ancient republics of Greece; for it by no means holds universally true with respect to modern commonwealths.

Nor is the general maxim free from some exceptions.

France furnishes an instance to prove, that the sun of science may pervade the thick clouds of despotism, and shine forth with refulgent splendor for a season, even amidst the carnage of war, and the ravages of ambitious tyranny. Part of the age of Louis XIV., was the golden one of the arts and sciences in France; but not the whole of that eara, as Voltaire falsely as

serts.

The impolitic revocation of the edict of Nantz in 1685, banished. from that kingdom, with many thousands of ingenious and indust rious mechanic artists, some of the most eminent professors of polite Titerature, who could not submit to the intolerant persecuting spirit of popery. And the revolution in England in 1689, by which religious and civil liberty was fixed on a firm and permanent basis, was the era of the revival of science in this country, the progress of which had been interrupted by civil commotions, and by a royal conspiracy to overturn the free constitution of the realm, and to establish arbitrary power, by introducing its fit engine, the Romish religion.

From the Revolution to the present time, under the auspices of better sovereigns, and when the liberties of the people have been more firmly secured and established, the improvement of the human understanding has been the study and delight of men of superior genius in the walks of private life. And this æra has produced such a plentiful harvest of eminent divines, philosophers, poets, and artists, that it would far exceed the limits of this work, if we were to give only concise memoirs of each; it must therefore be our business to select such, whose learned labours have been most useful to their country; which obliges us to go back to a prior period, and to include two or three eminent men, who only just survived the glorious Revolution. Of this number is Robert Boyle, a man superior to titles, and almost to praise ; lilustrious by birth, by learning and by virtue.

He was the seventh son, and the fourteenth child, of Richard Boyle, earl of Corke He was born at Lismore, in the county of Cork, and province of Munster, in the kingdom of Ireland, in the year 1627; and though he was the only one of his father's sons who attained to manhood without being honored with a title, and also the only one who did not distinguish himself in public business, yet his life was not less useful to his country than that of the great

est statesman.

His father, whose life we have given in our second volume, committed him to the care of a plain country nurse, with instructions to bring him up as hardily as if he had been her own son; which she pursued, and thereby gave him a strong and vigorous constitution, which he afterwards lost by being treated with too great tenderness.

When he was about three years old, he had the misfortune to lose his mother; for which he shews great regret, in some memoirs that he has left us of the more early part of his life, esteeming it a singular unhappiness never to have seen one of his parents so as to remember her; and the more so, from the character he heard of her in her own family and from all who knew her.

Another accident happened to him while at nurse, which gave him no small trouble as long as he lived; and that was, his learning to stutter, by mocking some children of his own age, and of

which, though no endeavours were spared, he could never be per feetly cured.

His father sent for him home when he was about seven years old; and not long after, in a journey to Dublin, he ran a very great risk of losing his life, if one of his father's gentlemen had not taken him out of a coach, which in passing a brook swelled by some sudden showers, was carried away by the stream, and beaten to pieces.

While at home he was taught to write a very fair hand, and to speak French and Latin, by one of the earl's chaplains, and ą Frenchman whom he kept in his house.

In the year 1635, his father thought fit to send him to England, to be educated at Eton, under şir Henry Wotton, the earl of Cork's old adquaintance and friend. With this view in company with Mr. Francis Boyle, his elder brother, afterwards lord Shannon, he set out for Youghall, and from thence, not without great danger of being taken by some of the Turkish pirates then infesting the Irish coast, he crossed the seas to England, and landed happily at Bristol,

On his arrival at Eton, he was put under the care of Mr. Harrison, then master of that school; of whose attention for, and kindness towards him, he makes very honourable mention in his memoirs; and observes that it was chiefly by the prudent methods he pursued, that he came to have that taste and relish for learning, for which even in the earlier part of his life, he grew so remarkable. He likewise mentions," that the accidental perusal of Quintus Curtius, the celebrated Latin writer of the Life of Alexander the great, first made him in love with no other than pedantic

books."

He remained at Eton, in the whole, between three and four years; and then his father carried him to his own seat, at Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire; where he remained for some time, under the care of Mr. William Douch, then rector of the parish, and one of the earl of Cork's chaplains.

In the autumn of the year 1638, he attended his father to Lon. don, and remained with him at the Savoy, till his brother, Mr. Francis Boyle, espoused Mrs. Elizabeth Killigrew; and then towards the end of the month of October, within four days after the

marriage was celebrated, the two brothers, Francis and Robert, were sent abroad upon their travels, under the care of Mr. Marcombes, an eminent French preceptor, who had formerly been governor to the lords Kinealmeaky and Broghill.

They embarked at Rye, in Sussex, and from thence proceeded to Dieppe, in Normandy; from whence they travelled by land to Rouen, so to Paris, and from thence to Lyons; from which city they continued their journey to Geneva; and there the two young gentlemen pursued their studies with great assiduity. Mr. Boyle, during his stay here, resumed his acquaintance with the mathematics, or at least with the elements of that science, of which he had first obtained some knowledge from Eton.

He was now drawing towards fourteen, and his temper being naturally very grave and serious, his thoughts were often turned. to religious subjects, but however not withont some mixture of doubts and difficulties, as himself acknowledges, about the certainty of the christain revelation. This instead of having any bad effects, were productive of very good consequences; he examined coolly and circumstantially the evidence in favor of the gospel, and concluded, by dint of reasoning, that this was the only certain and sure way to salvation.

While he remained at Geneva, he made some excursions to visit the adjacent country of Savoy; and even proceeded so far as to Grenoble, in Dauphine, and took a view also of those wild mountains, where Bruno the founder of the Carthusian order of Monks lived in solitude, at the time he instituted that order.

In September 1641, he quitted Geneva, and passing through Switzerland, and the country of the Grisons, entered Lombardy, and taking his route through Bergamo, Brescia, and Verona, arrived at Venice, and having made a short stay there, returned to the continent, and spent the winter at Florence; and during his stay in that city, the famous astronomer Galileo died at a village not far from thence.

While he resided in this city, he had an opportunity of acquiring the Italian language, which he undertook perfectly, though he never spoke it so fluently as the French, of which he became so great a master, that as occasion required, he passed for a native of the country, in more places than one, during his travels.