BOYLE, ROBERT, was the seventh son, and four teenth child (the last but one) of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, by his second wife, Catharine, daugh ter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton. His father, a man of more than ordinary ability and address, commonly called the Great Earl of Cork, was a zealous pro moter of the Protestant and English interest in Ire land, where he ex( rted himself with such success in the improvement of his domains, and in the defence of them at the time of the Catholic rebellion, that the Protector Cromwell is said to have declared, on surveying them, if there had been an Earl of Cork in every province, it would have been imp,i‘sibip far the Irish to have raised a rebellion. Of his numer ous family, the greater put obtained distinction of rank, and many were eminent in endowments as well as condition. Robert Boyle, however, has secured to himself the principal place in the consideration of posterity. If Bacon pointed out the true way of science, Boyle was the first of our philosophers who struck into it, and pursued it with very considerable success, leaving a track which was to conduct his successors into the high-way of discovery. His name is always coupled with panegyric, and that in a strain above what the occasion will appear to war rant, if we look no farther than into the simple nar rative of his life ; but upon a careful examination of his works, the eulogium will hardly seem overstrain ed ; for though he may have gained the summit of fame sooner, and with less difficulty, sustained as he was by rank and fortune, than might have been prac ticable without such support, yet he is indebted to his merit and exertion alone for the place he still holds in the first rank of philosophers. Time, and subsequent discoveries, have confirmed his reputation, and borne the most honourable testimony to his skill and industry in conducting laborious and ingenious experiments, his fidelity in relating them, and his sagacity and discrimination in reasoning from them. His biographers have recorded little that deserves particular notice of his childhood, and the infancy of the philosopher is less likely to afford prognostics of future greatness, than that of the poet. The growth of reason is more tardy than that of imagi nation, and with less display of blossom.
Robert Boyle was born at Lismore, in the county of Cork, and province of Munster, in tne year 1627. When he was about seven years old, he lost his mo ther,—a loss which he mentions, in terms of much re gret, in his memoirs of the early part of his life. He was reared in the cottage of his nurse, who was in structed to bring him up in the same habits of exer cise, and plain diet, as if he were her own child ; but this precaution did not prevent his constitution being always delicate and feeble. He contracted one unfortunate habit under the humble roof of his nurse, which he might have escaped in his paternal man sion : Having learned to stutter'by imitation, he ne ver had the perfect use of the organs of speech ; for though he avoided stammering, he could never speak without hesitation and pauses. Of the moral ha bits of his childhood, the most remarkable was, a strict regard to truth, which his father said he never knew him to violate. This circumstance renders it probable, that his mind was impressed deeply at a very early age with religious principles ; and the same may be inferred with more certainty from the uniformity of his opinions through life, which do not appear to have departed at all from the establish ed creeds, from the style of his religious productions, and from his zeal in the support and propagation of the Christian religion. In the course of his life, he caused translations of the New Testament to be made and published in the Irish, Welsh, and Malay an languages, and contributed liberally to the trans lation of the New Testament into Turkish, by order of the Turkey Company. His donations to the propagation of the gospel in America exceeded 300/. and by a codicil to his will, he left a revenue of 501. per annum for lectures, consisting of eight sermons in the year, which were to be preached in illustration of the evidences of Christianity, and in opposition to infidel principles. His zeal, however, though it was sufficiently ardent and active to prompt liberal patronage, was uncontaminated with bigotry and intolerance. Bishop Burnet has remarked, that the expression of his sentiments was never pointed with severity and indignation, unless against the abettors of the persecution of religious opinion.