Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/769

BOY a particular eye on Lord Broghill, and if possible to take some occasion to confine him." But the wariness and discretion of Broghill saved him from a trap laid by the commissioners, and he at length secured all Munster in favour of Charles. Next he induced Sir Charles Coote, who had great influence in the north, to enter into his designs; and, all being ripe, he despatched his brother, Lord Shannon, with letters to the king, inviting him to Ireland, and also communicated with Monk. Shortly after this Broghill and Sir Charles declared openly for the king, and secured Ireland for his majesty. Notwithstanding an attempt of Coote's to injure Broghill in the estimation of the king, the latter was convinced of his loyalty and good services, and raised him to the dignity of earl of Orrery, making him a cabinet councillor, one of the lords-justices of Ireland, and lord-president of Munster. Lord Orrery now devoted himself to literature and politics. In the former he seems not to have attained to a high position. He wrote plays which are long since forgotten, and poems which, though they are not without some merit, will not take much hold of those who are familiar with his contemporaries, Dryden, Cowley, and Waller. He was, however, something better than a writer of mediocrity—a liberal patron of merit, and the friend of the most eminent men of learning of his day. As a politician he took an active part in opposing the petition of the Irish Roman catholics for a restoration of their estates forfeited in the rebellion, and was mainly instrumental in having it dismissed. He also drew up the act of settlement, not only providing for the protestant interest, but also for the restoration to their estates of such Roman catholics, as by their good conduct seemed to merit that grace. Upon the appointment of the duke of Ormond as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Orrery retired to his presidency in Munster, and his administration of justice there was so able and satisfactory that, it is said, he was offered the seals both by the king and duke of York after the fall of the earl of Clarendon, but declined the honour by reason of his failing health. At length, after suffering from repeated attacks of gout, he died on the 16th October, 1679, in his fifty-ninth year. As a soldier he was brave, active, prompt, and skilful; as a politician he was sagacious, prudent, and possessed of address and quickness; and, as a man of letters, he had good parts, well cultivated, and he was not deficient either in wit or taste. Upon the whole he must be looked upon as one of the leading men of his times.—J. F. W.  BOYLE,, the Honourable, was the seventh and youngest son of the great earl of Cork, and was born at Lismore in Ireland on the 25th of January, 1626. From the very dawn of reason his life seems to have been eventful, and his mind reflective. At three years of age he lost his mother, and the active and various pursuits in which his father was engaged deprived him almost entirely of the presence of this remaining parent, and left him exposed to many casualties and dangers; so that ere he had reached his seventh year he had twice narrowly escaped being killed—first, from being drowned by the fall of the horse on which he was carried across a brook swollen with rains; and secondly, by the fall of the ceiling of the chamber in which he slept. Sir Henry Wotton, his father's friend, being provost of Eton, thither the child was sent when only three years old, having the good fortune to be placed under the care of a Mr. Harrison, who seems to have watched him with great assiduity and care, and to have discovered, even then, the singular capacity of his pupil's mind, and to have directed and developed it with great judgment. Here he made much progress in classical learning, and attained a considerable intimacy with the best writers of antiquity. Being attacked by ague, he was obliged to intermit for a considerable time the application to study, and was allowed to occupy his mind with the perusal of romances and works of fiction. The effect of this upon an organization such as the boy possessed was to make him a castle-builder and a dreamer; and he has himself remarked, in his autobiography, upon the misfortune of allowing a mind of an active habit to be without fitting employment for its energies. But even at this early age, for he was not yet nine, the intellect of the boy could appreciate and even resist this intoxicating evil. He had the strength and resolution to shake off this disease of the spirit, by applying himself to the study of mathematics, no doubt at the suggestion of his instructors; and such was his industry that he soon mastered all the elementary parts of algebra, in which he became a forward student. Thus, even at this age, did Boyle give evidence of that eminently practical and earnest nature, and conscientious sense of duty, which so remarkably distinguished him throughout life. Leaving Eton, he came to his father's seat at Stalbridge, and was transferred to the care of a native of Geneva, a M. Marcombe, under whom he prosecuted his studies diligently. Of this gentleman he speaks in terms of high consideration, and attributes much of his moral improvement to the care and influence of the preceptor. When he had attained his eleventh year he set out on his travels through the continent, under the charge of M. Marcombe, in company with his brother Francis. Visiting Paris and Lyons, they proceeded to Geneva, and resided there for three years, during which time Boyle acquired such a knowledge of the French language that he was afterwards able to pass as a Frenchman in Rome. In 1641 he went to Italy, staying a short time in Venice, and spending the winter in Florence. Here he occupied himself with the sciences and the study of the Italian language, and became acquainted with the New Paradoxes of Galileo, who died the same winter; thence he went to Rome, where he contrived to evade the vigilance of the law prohibiting protestants to remain in the city. Leaving Rome, on his route homewards, he returned to Florence, and visited Pisa, Leghorn, Genoa, and Marseilles. Here being disappointed in the expectation of receiving funds from England, he was forced to return to Geneva; and after encountering many difficulties and embarrassments from want of money, he finally reached England in 1644.

The earl of Cork had died the previous year, leaving by his will the manor of Stalbridge, and considerable estates in Ireland, to his son Robert; but the disturbed state of that kingdom prevented his going there, and he took up his abode for a short time with his sister, Lady Ranelagh. The influence of this most accomplished and pious woman upon the young man was most salutary. Though Boyle was himself seriously impressed with religious feelings, and deeply attached to philosophic studies, yet his views were unsettled, and his temper and disposition—warm, excitable, imaginative, and romantic—exposed him to the temptations and tendencies which surround the young, especially if they are wealthy and highly-born; and he had formed the intention of entering the army. But his intercourse with this noble and good woman fixed his mind, and confirmed him in the right; thenceforth there was no wavering, and the rest of Boyle's life was spent in the cultivation and diffusion of knowledge, and the exercise of virtue and piety. Some time was unavoidably spent in the arrangement of his affairs, and obtaining the protection of parliament for his estates; after which Boyle retired to his house at Stalbridge in his eighteenth year, and spent the following four years in close and studious application. The range of his investigations was most extensive; ethics, mechanics, every department of natural philosophy, and chemistry were all investigated with an intensity and ardour that enabled him to accumulate that extraordinary amount of knowledge which distinguished him in afterlife. His seclusion was, however, not unbroken, nor his mind without the relaxation of occasional visits to London, Oxford, Paris, and Holland, and in correspondence with most of the distinguished men of the times, whose esteem and friendship he engaged even then. It will be remembered that it was just at this time that the nucleus of the Royal Society was formed, by the meeting of a few of the most eminent men of genius and learning, at first in London, and afterwards in Oxford. Amongst these men, mature in age and wisdom—the followers of Bacon and the precursors of Newton—Robert Boyle, ere he had attained the years of manhood, was included; and this connection no doubt conduced to increase his assiduity and mature his knowledge. He even added anatomy to his other studies, and obtained a competent knowledge of the construction and physiology of the human frame. "I satisfied myself," he writes, "of the circulation of the blood, and have seen more of the variety and contrivances of nature, and the majesty and wisdom of her Author, than all the books I ever read in my life could give me notions of." In quoting this remark of Boyle, one of his biographers makes the following just reflections:—"It is delightful to trace, as we proceed, the genuine character of the philosophic mind, seizing in its expansion those comprehensive truths which the sciolist, entangled in the first elements, so often rejects, because his sagacity fails to reach them. With precipitate quickness of parts, shrewd and acute, but limited, he mistakes operations for essential powers, and rashly idolizes nature, though he will hardly admit of God. It is equally pleasing to watch the peculiar impressibility of Mr. Boyle in all things, modifying the growth of his mind and, while it helped to excite 