Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/186

 BOYLE. 175 his great contemporary and intimate friend; and from the facts of his life, and the internal evidence of his writings, we cannot conceive that the hand of friendship has been called upon to slur over the faults which might otherwise have appeared, or to place in a stronger light the virtues he possessed ; to draw the character of Boyle it needed not the pen of a friend, it is handed down to us in his works of science, in his religious reflections, and in his deeds of charity. Mr. Boyle was in person, tall and slender, with a pale countenance, and a weakness in his eyes, which made him very careful of them. His constitution was so delicate, that he had cloaks of different substances, to wear when he went out, and which he put on according to the ther- mometer, although he was in his infaney committed to the care of a country nurse, his father, as he informs us, " having a perfeet aversion for the tenderness of those parents which made them breed their children so nice and tenderly, that a hot sun or a good shower of rain, as much endangers them as if they were made of butter, or of sugar." The effect of this hardy treatment was a strong and vigorous state of health, which was unfortunately soon destroyed on his return home, through too much indulgence and mistaken kindness. For the last forty years of his life, so low were his health and spirits, that it was a wonder to all who knew bim, how he could read, study, make experiments, and write in the manner he did He also had an impediment in his speech, whieh continued through the whole of bis life, he having contracted it when a child, from mocking the stutter of other children of the same age. Mr. Boyle was never married, though he is said by Evelyn to have formed an attachment to the interesting daughter of Cary, Earl of Monmouth; and there is extant a letter of Dr. John Wallis to him, by which we fiad, that there was an overture made him with respect to Lady Mary Hasting, sister to the Earl of Huntingdon. Burnet