Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/173

 162 BOYLE precept of Seneca "Ounibus rebus, omnibusque serino- nibus, aliquid salutare miscendum est;" the meanness of some of the subjects exposing him to the ridicule of the celebrated Dean Swift, whieh was severely bestowed in " A pious Meditation on a Broom Stiek; in the Style of the Honourable Robert Boyle." This was the only attack which Mr. Boyle ever sustained; and, although we can- not approve of the severity of the censure, we must allow that his style is occasionally too verbose and prolix, and this more particularly in his theological treatises. He bas also, and not without justice, been blamed for believing many things too easily on the credit of other people; although this has been attempted to be accounted for, by stating that, as he abhorred to afirm what was false him- self, he was unwilling to believe others capable of so mean a practice. A certain writer, however, by way of making reprisals upon Swift for this attack, which he affirms to be as cruel and unjust as it is trivial and indecent, has observed, that, from this very treatise which he has thus held up to ridicule, he borrowed the first idea of his Gul- liver's Travels 5 an assertion which certainly appears to be strongly supported by the following passage, which he has quoted in proof of his opinion " You put me in mind of a fancy of your friend Mr. Boyle, who was saying that he had thoughts of making a short romantic story, where the scene should be laid in some island of the Southern Ocean, governed by some such rational laws and customs as those of the Utopia or the New Atalantis; and in this country he would intro- duce an observ1ฏg native, that, upon his return home from his travels made in Europe, should give.an account of our countries and manners under feigned names; and fre- quently intimate in his relations, or in his answers to ques- tions that should be made him, the reasons of his wonder- ing to find our customs so extravagant, and differing from those of his own country. For your friend imagined that, by such a way of exposing many of our practices, we