His education commenced in his father's house, under the direction of one of the Earl's chaplains, assisted by a French gentleman who lived in the fa mily. At the age of eight years, he was sent to Eton College, together with his brother Francis, and placed under the care of Mr Harrison. Sir Henry Wooton was at that time Provost of the College. In his eleventh year, his studies were in terrupted by an attack of ague, when romances, such as Amadis de Gaul, and other works of amuse ment, were put into his hands, and the pursuit of learning was suspended, till his Latin was almost en tirely forgotten. Upon his recovery, he was board ed in the family of the rector of Stallbridge, in Dor set, not far from his father's s' at there, and very soon after he was entrusted to the care of M. Marcombes, a native of France, who had accompanied two of his elder brothers in their travels. In the autumn of that year, 1638, he embarked with his brother and tutor for France. Having visited Rouen, Paris, and Lyons, in their route, they fixed their abode at Geneva, where M. Marcombes' family resided. At the end of three years, they proceeded to make the tour of Italy. During their stay at Florence, the celebrated philosopher Galileo died, within a league of that place. The non-arrival of bills of exchange, which were expected at Marseilles, obliged the tour ists to return to Geneva, where they were under the necessity of remaining two years, till at length their tutor, by taking up some jewellery on his own credit, for their use, enabled them to return to their native country. These difficulties appear to have been in part occasioned by the troubles attending the rebellion in Ireland. On their arrival in Eng land, they first received the intelligence of their fa ther's death. Their connections, however, made it easy for them to obtain protection for their estates ; and in the following year, Mr Robert Boyle, having obtained permission from Parliament, made an hasty visit to France, probably with a view to the discharge of his pecuniary obligations to his late tutor.
In the beginning of the year 1645, we first find him, now master of his time and actions, and well provided for, living in philosophical retirement on his manor at Stallbridge. Natural philosophy and chemistry were here his chief pursuit ; and with what reputation for success may be inferred, from his being chosen, though so young a man, one of the first members of that learned body, then in its infancy, which was as sembled in weekly meetings, first at Oxford, and af terwards at London, and was called at that time the Philosophical College, and after the Restoration was incorporated under the title of the Royal Society. Some treatises, which were not published till after an interval of many years, were composed by Mr Boyle at about this period, before he had reached his twentieth year. Of this number are his Seraphic Love, his Essay on Mistaken Modesty, and his Free Discourse against Customary Swearing,—productions of an early age, and possessing no extraordinary merit above the age at which they were produced. Subjects connected with theology divided his time and labour with philosophical research, during this part of his life ; and though he was probably never a very cri tical scholar, he now applied himself with consider able assiduity to the examination of the writings of the Old and New Testament in the original tongues.
The first of these studies was an Essay on the Scrip ture, begun about the year 1652, an extract from which, entitled Considerations on the Style of the Holy Scriptures, appeared separately. Thirty years after this period, he presented the world with the following treatises, also of a theological complexion : in 1681, a Discourse of Things above Reason ; in 1683, a Treatise on the high veneration Man's intel lect owes to God, particularly for his Wisdom and Power; in 1686, a Free Inquiry into the Vulgar and received notion of Nature. But whatever inge nuity may be displayed in some of his serious and miscellaneous productions, the literary reputation of the author is not at present much indebted to them ; the debt.is indeed on their side, as they owe to his reputation that they are known at all. The last of his theological essays, and which bears, as might be expected, a deeper stamp of philosophy than some of his earlier pieces, is the Christian Virtuoso : the first part was published by himself ; the second ap peared in an imperfect state, as he left it, after his decease.
Whatever direction the inquiries and studies of Mr Boyle may have taken at different times, it is as a philosopher alone that he is entitled to the grati tude and admiration of posterity. So early and com plete was his conviction that science was not to be promoted by conjectural hypotheses, nor in any other way than that of actual experiment, that he is said, when a young man, to have refused exposing him self to the seduction of the ingenious theories of Des cartes, and to have abstained from reading his works, when they were in the hands of almost every student of philosophy in Europe.
Betwixt the years 1652 and 1654, Mr Boyle's studies suffered considerable interruption from the necessity of repeated visits to Ireland ; in one of which he found means to carry on some anatomical dissections, with the assistance of doctor, afterwards Sir, William Petty. From the latter date to the year 1668, his principal residence was at Oxford, in the house of Mr Cross, an apothecary of that city, and founder of an hospital, near Ampthill, in Bed fordshire. His inquiries were now animated, and assisted by the society of the most eminent philoso phers of that day in England, who held their meet ings in Mr Boyle's apartments, and there, as has been remarked, laid the foundation of the Royal So ciety. If the names of Franklin, Priestly, and Black, are respectively associated with the great dis coveries in electricity, aerology, and chemistry, that of Boyle must be honoured by every lover of pneu matic philosophy. He was not indeed the inventor of the air-pump ; but, in conjunction with Mr Ro bert Hook, at that time his chemical assistant, he improved the construction of it, so as to render it a more manageable machine, and capable of more suc cessful application. This important service was ren dered to science about the year 1659. Long before this improvement was made, Mr Boyle stood high as a philosopher in the estimation of his countrymen, and had been chosen by Dr Nathaniel Highmore as the man to whom his History of Generation might be most fitly dedicated. But his first philosophical publication was subsequent to the improved construc tion of the air-pump.