_From an original Picture, in the possession of Lord Dover._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
Towards the close of 1637, as it should seem, his father, who had
purchased the manor of Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, took him home. In
October, 1638, he was sent abroad, under the charge of a governor, with
his brother Francis. They visited France, Switzerland, and Italy; and
Philaretus’s narrative of his travels is not without interest. The only
incident which we shall mention as occurring during this period, is one
which may be thought by many scarcely worthy of notice. Boyle himself
used to speak of it as the most considerable accident of his whole life;
and for its influence upon his life it ought not to be omitted. While
staying at Geneva, he was waked in the night by a thunder-storm of
remarkable violence. Taken unprepared and startled, it struck him that
the day of judgment was at hand; “whereupon,” to use his own words, “the
consideration of his unpreparedness to welcome it, and the hideousness
of being surprised by it in an unfit condition, made him resolve and
vow, that if his fears that night were disappointed, all further
additions to his life should be more religiously and watchfully
employed.” He has been spoken of as being a sceptic before this sudden
conversion. This does not appear from his own account, farther than as
any boy of fourteen may be so called, who has never taken the trouble
fully to convince himself of those truths which he professes to believe.
On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1642, the troubled state of
England, and the death of the Earl of Cork, involved the brothers in
considerable pecuniary difficulties. They returned to England in 1644,
and Robert, after a short delay, took possession of the manor of
Stalbridge, which, with a considerable property in Ireland, had been
bequeathed to him by his father. By the interest of his brother and
sister, Lord Broghill and Lady Ranelagh, who were on good terms with the
ruling party, he obtained protections for his property, and for the next
six years made Stalbridge his principal abode. This portion of his life
was chiefly spent in the study of ethical and natural philosophy; and
his name began already to be respected among the men of science of the
day.
In 1652 he went to Ireland to look after his property, and spent the
greater part of the next two years there. Returning to England in 1654,
he settled at Oxford. That which especially directed him to this place,
besides its being generally suited to the prosecution of all his
literary and philosophical pursuits, was the presence of that knot of
learned men, from whom the Royal Society took its rise. It consisted of
a few only, but those eminent; Bishop Wilkins, Wallis, Ward, Wren, and
others, who used to meet for the purpose of conferring upon
philosophical subjects, and mutually communicating and reasoning on
their respective experiments and discoveries.
At the restoration, Boyle was treated with great respect by the King;
and was strongly pressed to enter the church by Lord Clarendon, who
thought that his high birth, eminent learning, and exemplary character
might be of material service to the revived establishment. After serious
consideration he declined the proposal, upon two accounts, as he told
Burnet; first, because he thought that while he performed no
ecclesiastical duties, and received no pay, his testimony in favour of
religion would carry more weight; secondly, because he felt no especial
vocation to take holy orders, which he considered indispensable to the
proper entering into that service.
From this time forwards, Boyle’s life is not much more than the history
of his works. It passed in an even current of tranquil happiness, and
diligent employment, little broken, except by illness, from which he was
a great sufferer. At an early age, he was attacked by the stone, and
continued through life subject to paroxysms of that dreadful disease:
and in 1670, he was afflicted with a severe paralytic complaint, from
which he fortunately recovered without sustaining any mental injury. On
the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1663, he was named as one of
the council, in the charter; and as he had been one of the original
members, so through his life he continued to publish his shorter
treatises in their Transactions. In 1662 he was appointed by the King,
Governor of the Corporation for propagating the Gospel in New England.
The diffusion of Christianity was a favourite subject of exertion with
him through life. For the sole purpose of exerting a more effectual
influence in introducing it into India, he became a Director of the East
India Company; and, at his own expense, caused the Gospels and Acts to
be translated into Malay, and five hundred copies to be printed and sent
abroad. He also caused a translation of the Bible into Irish to be made
and published, at an expense of £700; and bore great part of the expense
of a similar undertaking in the Welsh language. To other works of the
same sort he was a liberal contributor: and as in speech and writing he
was a zealous, yet temperate advocate of religion, so he showed his
sincerity by a ready extension of his ample funds to all objects which
tended to promote the religious welfare of his fellow-creatures.
In the year 1666 he took up his abode in London, where he continued
for the remainder of his life. We have little more to state of his
personal history. He was elected President of the Royal Society in
1680, but declined that well-earned honour, as having, in his own
words, “a great (and perhaps peculiar) tenderness in point of oaths.”
In the course of 1688 he began to feel his strength decline, and set
himself seriously to complete those of his undertakings which he
judged most important, and to arrange such of his papers as required
to be prepared for publication. It gives us rather a curious notion of
the scientific morality of the day, to learn that he had been a great
sufferer by the stealing of his papers. Such at least was his own
belief, hinted in a public advertisement, and expressed more fully in
his private communications. His manuscript books disappeared in an
incomprehensible way, insomuch that he resolved to write upon loose
sheets of paper, “that the ignorance of the coherence might keep men
from thinking them worth stealing.” Notwithstanding he complains of
numerous losses, and expresses a determination to secure the
“remaining part of his writings, especially those that contain most
matters of fact, by sending them maimed and unfinished, as they come
to hand, to the press.” A still more serious loss occurred to him
through the carelessness of a servant, who broke a bottle of vitriol
over a box of manuscripts prepared for publication, by which a large
part of them were utterly ruined. To these misfortunes, the
non-appearance of many promised works, and the imperfect state of
others, is to be ascribed. During the years 1689–90, he gradually
withdrew himself more and more from his other employments, and from
the claims of society, to devote himself entirely to the preparation
of his papers. He died, unmarried, December 31, 1691, aged sixty-five
years, and was buried in the chancel of St. Martin’s-in-the-fields.
To give merely the dates and titles of Boyle’s several publications,
would occupy several pages. They are collected in five volumes folio, by
Dr. Birch, and amount in number to ninety-seven. The philosophical works
have been abridged in three volumes quarto by Dr. Shaw, who has prefixed
to his edition a character of the author, and of his works. From 1660 to
the end of his life, every year brought fresh evidence of his close
application to science, and the versatility of his talents, and the
extent of his knowledge. His attention was directed to chemistry,
mathematics, mechanics, medicine, anatomy; but more especially to the
former, in its many branches: and though he is not altogether free from
the reproach of credulity, and appears not to have entirely freed
himself from the delusions of the alchymists, still he did more towards
overthrowing their mischievous doctrines, and establishing his favourite
science on a firm foundation, than any man; and his indefatigable
diligence in inquiry, and unquestioned honesty of relation, entitle him
to a very high place among the fathers of modern chemistry. On this
point we may quote the testimony of the celebrated Boerhaave,
(Chemistry, vol. i. p. 55,) who says, that among the writers who have
treated of Chemistry with a view to natural philosophy and medicine, we
may reckon among the chief, the Hon. Robert Boyle. Redi also, in his
‘Experimenta Naturalia,’ affirms that in experimental philosophy there
never was any man so distinguished, and that perhaps there never will be
his equal in discovering natural causes.
It is, however, as the father of pneumatic philosophy that his
scientific fame is most securely based. To the invention of the air-pump
he possesses no claim, an instrument of that sort having been exhibited
in 1654 by Otto Guericke of Magdeburg: but his improvements, and his
well-combined and ingenious experiments first made that instrument of
value, and proved the elasticity of the air. These were given to the
world in his first published, and perhaps his most important work,
entitled, ‘New Experiments upon the Spring of the Air.’
A considerable portion of Boyle’s works is occupied by religious
treatises. Two of these, ‘Seraphic Love,’ and a ‘Free Discourse against
Swearing,’ were written before he had reached the age of twenty; though
not published for many years after. He established by his will an annual
lecture, “in proof of the Christian religion against notorious
infidels.” Bentley was the first preacher on this foundation.
Boyle’s funeral sermon was preached by Bishop Burnet, who had been under
some obligation to him for assistance in publishing his History of the
Reformation. The sermon has been considered one of Burnet’s best; and it
has this advantage, that funeral panegyric has seldom been more
sincerely and honestly bestowed. We conclude by quoting one or two
passages, which illustrate the beauty of Boyle’s private character. “He
had brought his mind to such a freedom that he was not apt to be imposed
on; and his modesty was such that he did not dictate to others; but
proposed his own sense with a due and decent distrust, and was ever very
ready to hearken to what was suggested to him by others. When he
differed from any, he expressed himself in so humble and obliging a way
that he never treated things or persons with neglect, and I never heard
that he offended any one person in his whole life by any part of his
demeanour. For if at any time he saw cause to speak roundly to any, it
was never in passion, or with any reproachful or indecent expressions.
And as he was careful to give those who conversed with him no cause or
colour for displeasure, he was yet more careful of those who were
absent, never to speak ill of any, in which he was the exactest man I
ever knew. If the discourse turned to be hard on any, he was presently
silent; and if the subject was too long dwelt on, he would at last
interpose, and, between reproof and raillery, divert it.
“He was exactly civil, even to ceremony, and though he felt his easiness
of access, and the desires of many, all strangers in particular, to be
much with him, made great waste of his time; yet, as he was severe in
that, not to be denied when he was at home, so he said he knew the heart
of a stranger, and how much eased his own had been, while travelling, if
admitted to the conversation of those he desired to see; therefore he
thought his obligation to strangers was more than bare civility; it was
a piece of religious charity in him.
“He had, for almost forty years, laboured under such a feebleness of
body, and such lowness of strength and spirits, that it will appear a
surprising thing to imagine how it was possible for him to read, to
meditate, to try experiments, and write as he did. He bore all his
infirmities, and some sharp pains, with the decency and submission that
became a Christian and philosopher. He had about him all that unaffected
neglect of pomp in clothes, lodging, furniture, and equipage, which
agreed with his grave and serious course of life. He was advised to a
very ungrateful simplicity of diet, which, by all appearance, was that
which preserved him so long beyond all men’s expectation. This he
observed so strictly, that in the course of above thirty years he
neither ate nor drank to gratify the varieties of appetite, but merely
to support nature; and was so regular in it, that he never once
transgressed the rule, measure and kind that were prescribed him. * * *
“His knowledge was of so vast an extent, that were it not for the
variety of vouchers in their several sort, I should be afraid to say all
I know. He carried the study of Hebrew very far into the Rabbinical
writings and the other Oriental languages. He had read so much out of
the Fathers, that he had formed out of it a clear judgment of all the
eminent ones. He had read a vast deal on the Scriptures, and had gone
very nicely through the whole controversies on religion, and was a true
master of the whole body of divinity. He read the whole compass of the
mathematical sciences; and though he did not set himself to spring any
new game, yet he knew even the abstrusest parts of geometry. Geography,
in the several parts of it that related to navigation or travelling,
history, and books of travels, were his diversions. He went very nicely
through all the parts of physic; only the tenderness of his nature made
him less able to endure the exactness of anatomical dissections,
especially of living animals, though he knew them to be most
instructive. But for the history of nature, ancient or modern, of the
productions of all countries, of the virtues and improvements of plants,
of ores and minerals, and all the varieties that are in them in
different climates, he was by much, by very much, the readiest and
perfectest I ever knew, in the greatest compass, and with the truest
exactness. This put him in the way of making that vast variety of
experiments, beyond any man, as far as we know, that ever lived. And in
these, as he made a great progress in new discoveries, so he used so
nice a strictness, and delivered them with so scrupulous a truth, that
all who have examined them, may find how safely the world may depend
upon them. But his peculiar and favourite study was chemistry, in which
he engaged with none of those ravenous and ambitious designs that draw
many into them. His design was only to find out Nature, to see into what
principles things might be resolved, and of what they were compounded,
and to prepare good medicaments for the bodies of men. He spent neither
his time nor his fortune upon the vain pursuits of high promises and
pretensions. He always kept himself within the compass that his estate
might well bear. And as he made chemistry much the better for his
dealing with it, so he never made himself either the worse, or the
poorer for it.”
It would be easy to multiply testimonies of the high reputation in which
Boyle was held: indeed the reader will find numerous instances collected
in the article Boyle, in Dr. Kippis’s Biographia Britannica, the perusal
of which will amply gratify the reader’s curiosity. Still more detailed
accounts of Boyle’s life and character will be found in other works to
which we have already referred, especially in Dr. Birch’s Life.
[Illustration: Air-Pump.]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._