with the elements of that science, of which he had first obtained fome knowledge at Eaton.

He was now drawing towards fourteen, and his temper being naturally very grave and ferious, his thoughts were often turned on religious fubjects, but, however, not without fome mixture of doubts and difficulties, as himself acknowledges, about the certainty of the Christian revelation. This, instead of having any bad effects, was productive of very good confequences; he examined cooly and circumftantially the evidence in favour of the the Gofpel, and concluded, by dint of reafoning, that this was the only certain and fure way to falvation.

We might poffibly fufpect the truth of this, confidering his youth, and the little care that perfons at fuch years take, or indeed are capable of taking, in matters of fo great importance; but it so falls out, that we have an original letter of his, written at this time to his father; which plainly proves that his capacity was, even at that early feafon, very capable of fuch arduous enquiries.

While he remained at Geneva, he made fome excurfions to vifit the adjacent country of Savoy; and even proceeded fo far as to Grenoble, in Dauphine, and took a view also of those wild mountains, where Bruno, the first author of the Carthufian monks lived in folitude, at the time he erected that order.

In September, 1641, he quitted Geneva, and, paffing through Switzerland and the country of the Grifons, entered Lombardy, and, taking his rout through Bergamo, Brefcia, and Verona, arrived at Venice, and, having made a fhort ftay there, returned to the Continent, and spent the winter at Florence; and, during his stay in that city, the famous, Galileo died at a village not far from thence..

While he refided in this fair city, he had. an opportunity of acquiring the Italian language, which he understood perfectly, though he never spoke it fo fluently as the French, of which he became fo great a mafter,, that, as occafion required, he paffed for a native of the country in more places than one during his travels.

About the end of March, he began his. journey from Florence to Rome, which took. up but five days; and, after having furveyed. that famous city, the heats. difagreeing with his brother, he returned to Florence, from thence to Leghorn, and fo by fea to Genoa. He made but a fhort stay there, and then pafs ing through the county of Nice, croffed the fea to Antibes, from whence he went to Marfeilles by land..

He was in that city in the month of May, 1642, when he received his father's letters, with a dreadful account of the rebellion juft then broke out in Ireland; and advice, likewife, that, with great difficulty, his lordflip. had procured two hundred and fifty pounds,.

which he remitted his fons to enable them to return home; but of this money they never faw a farthing; for, being put into the hands of one Mr. Perkins, a confiderable trader in the city of London, he proved unfaithful to his truft; which drove these two noble youths -to the utmost diftrefs, till, with much ado, their governor, Mr. Marcombes, fupplied them with as much as brought them to Geneva, where they continued with him for fome time; and, having neither fupplies nor advices from England, he was obliged, in order to enable them to go home, to take up fome jewels on his own credit, which they difpofed of with as little lofs as might be, and, with the money thus produced, continued their journey for England, where they arrived in the year 1644.

On his arrival there he found his father dead; and, though he had made an ampleprovifion for him, as well by leaving him his manor of Stalbridge, in England, as other confiderable eftates in Ireland, yet it was fome time before he could receive any mo

ney.

During this fpace he lodged with his fifter,. the lady Ranelagh; and, by her intereft, and that of his brother lord Broghill, he procured protections for his eftates in England and Ireland from thofe who had the power then in their hands. He alfo obtained their leave to. go over, for a fhort space, into France; probably that he might have an opportunity of

fettling his accounts with his good old go vernor and conftant friend Mr. Marcombes i but he did not flay long abroad, fince we find him, the December following, at Cambridge.

In the month of March, 1646, he retired to his own feat at Stalbridge; from whence he made various excurfions, fometimes to London, fometimes to Oxford, applying himself as affiduously to his ftudies as his own circumftances, or thofe of the times, would permit ; and indeed it is very amazing to find, what a prodigious progrefs he made, not only in ma-. ny branches of literature, but in fome that have been always held the most difficult and abftrufe. He omitted no opportunity of ob taining the acquaintance of perfons diftinguished for parts and learning to whom he was, in every refpect, a ready, ufeful, and. generous affiftant; and with whom he maintained a conftant correfpondence. He was alfo one of the firft members of that fmall but learned body, which held its first meetings at London, then removed to Oxford, ftiled by him, the Invifible, by themfelves, the Philofophical College; and which, after the reftoration, were incorporated and diftinguished, as they well deferved, by the title of the Royal Society.

It is no fmall honour to this worthy person, that, when he was fo young a man, his merit and knowledge gained him admittanceamong ft perfons, the moft diftinguished for the

acute

acuteness of their understandings, and the fingularity, as well as extent, of their science, The great diligence and application of Mr. Boyle, was fo much the more to be esteemed and commended, as, at this time, his health was very much difordered by frequent fits of the stone, a disease to which he was extremely fubject, and to which his fedentary life and clofe application to his ftudies, might poffibly contribute. But, notwithstanding this, and the frequent occafions he had to remove from. place to place, fometimes on the score of bufinefs, at others to vifit his many noble relations; yet he never fuffered his thoughts to be difordered, or the defigns he had formed to be. broken or interrupted by any of these accidents, as appears by his having compleated. three regular and excellent pieces before he had reached the age of twenty: viz. his Seraphic Love; his Effay on Miftaken Modefty; and the Swearer filenced; to which he after wards gave the title that it now bears, of A Free Difcourfe against customary Swearing. Befides thefe, it plainly appears, as well from the writings he has published, as from many of his private letters, that he had made large collections upon other fubjects, from fome of which he afterwards drew distinct treatifes.

The retired courfe of life, which, for the fake of his health, from the bent of his temper, and from the nature of his defigns, he took a pleasure to lead, could not hinder his reputation from rifing to fuch a height as made