The extensiveness of his knowledge furpaffed every thing but his modefty, and his defire of communicating it; which appears equally in all his compofitions; for in them we may difcern his fear of offending, and his fear of concealing and this, not from any timid apprehenfions of oppofition, but from a benevolent inclination to inftruct without feverity, and to part with wisdom as freely as he had received it.

He had the jufteft conception of truth that the human mind can frame; fo cautious in examining and reporting, as to avoid, in the opinion of all true judges, the least imputation of credulity; and, on the other hand, so well acquainted with the power of nature, that he never prefumed to fet any limits thereto, or hindered any acceffion of knowledge, by that fort of incredulity which fometimes attends fuperior learning. In a word, confidered in every light, as a man, as a philofopher, as a Chriftian, he came as near perfection as the defects of human nature would allow; and, though he never fought it, yet the moft univerfal praife, both at home and abroad, waited on his labours living, and have conftantly attended his memory; for it may be truly faid, that never any fame was more unquestioned than that of Mr. Boyle's both was and is; and we may, with great fafety, add, that, as he is the peculiar honour of his family, and the great glory of this nation, so foreigners, who

cannot

cannot contend with us in these points, endeavour to outvie us in their commendations.

In treating this fubject, we have, perhaps, gone too far; but whoever confiders it attentively, will eafily excufe a fault that it was almoft impoffible not to commit; and for which we can only atone by confeffing, that all we have or could fay, is fo much below his merit, that it ferves only to exprefs our fenfe of it, and our defire of rendering him that justice, which, without abilities equal to his own, can never be performed.

THE LIFE OF

JOHN TILLOTSON.

OCTOR JOHN TILLOTSON, archbishop

mily antiently of the name of Tilfton, of Tilfton, in Cheshire, the ancestor of which was Nicholas de Tilfton, lord of the manor of Tilfton, from whom defcended Nicholas de Tilfton, in the ninth year of king Edward III. The doctor's father was Mr. Robert Tillotson, a confiderable clothier, of Sowerby, in the parish of Hallifax, in the county of York, where he was born, at a house called Haugh, about the end of September, or beginning of October, 1630; and baptized there on the third of October: his mother being Mary, (the daughter of Thomas Dobfon, a gentle. man of the fame place) a woman of excellent character, but unhappy, for many years of her life, in the lofs of her understanding. Both his parents were nonconformists.

After he had, with a quick proficiency, paffed through the grammar-fchools, and attained a fkill in the learned languages, fuperior to his years, he was fent to Cambridge, in the year 1647, at the age of feventeen, and admitted

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Arch Bishop Tillotson).

are tranfmutable, fo that out of one of them others may be produced. The fame year, he communicated to the public, The Second Part of his Continuation of New Experiments touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, and a large Appendix, containing several other difcourfes.

He published, in 1683, nothing that I find, except a fhort letter to the reverend Dr. John Beale, in relation to the making fresh water out of falt, publifhed at the requeft of the patentees, who were embarked in Mr. Fitzgerald's project for that purpose, the propofals for which were addreffed to Mr. Boyle; and the author acknowledges therein the obligations he was under to him for his affiftance.

In the fucceeding year, 1684, he printed two very confiderable works. The firft was, his Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood; and his fecond, Experiments and Confiderations about the Porofity of Bodies, divided into two parts; the first relating to animals, the fecond to folid bodies and his works being now grown to a very confiderable bulk, the celebrated Dr. Ralph Cudworth, whose praise alone was fufficient to establish any man's title to fame, wrote to him in very preffing terms, to make an entire collection of his feveral treatises, and to publish them in a body, and in the Latin tongue, in his own life-time, as well out of regard to his reputation, as to the general intereft of mankind,

and