Biography,Culture,and Science: The Formative Years of Robert Boyle

I am grateful to both Charles Webster and John Harwood who read the typescript of this paper and provided, very helpful suggestions throughout the various drafts of its composition. Representative biographies might include Thoren Victor , The Lord of Uraniborg: A biography of Tycho Brahe (Cambridge, 1991); Kragh Helge , Dirac: A scientific biography (Cambridge, 1990); Smith Crosbie and Wise M. Norton , Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989); Desmond Adrian and Moore James , Darwin (London, 1991); Cantor Geoffrey , Michael Faraday: Sandamanian and scientist (London, 1991). Cantor's very suggestive biography positively invites psychological conjecture regarding the linkages between Faraday's science and religion and Cantor deals with those linkages perceptively. See esp. ch. 10. Manuel Frank , A portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), provided a successful early example of the use of psychology in scientific biography. The centrality of intentionality and meaning in mind and culture is found in Geertz Clifford , The interpretation of cultures (New York, 1973) and Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology (New York, 1983); Searle John , Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind (Cambridge, 1983); Goodman Nelson , Of mind and other matters (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); Spence Donald , Narrative truth and historical truth: Meaning and interpretation in psychoanalysis (New York, 1982).

Bruner Jerome , Acts of meaning (Cambridge, Mass., 1990). A similar standpoint is that of Taylor Charles , Sources of the self (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). The computational model is well represented by Dennett Daniel C. , The intentional stance (Cambridge, Mass., 1987) and more recently in Consciousness explained (London, 1992). See also Stich Stephen P. , From folk psychology to cognitive science: The case against belief (Cambridge, Mass., 1983).

Bruner , op. cit. (ref. 2), 12–13.

Ricoeur Paul , Freud and philosophy: An essay on interpretation (New Haven, 1970).

Ever since Austin's John How to do things with words (Cambridge, 1962), there have been proponents of speech act theory more tightly wedding text to surrounding context, notably in history of political thought. For example, Skinner Quentin , “The limits of historical explanation”, Philosophy, xli (1966), 199–215; idem, “Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas”, History and theory, viii (1969), 3–53; idem, “Conventions and the understanding of speech acts”, Philosophical quarterly, xx (1970), 118–38; Pocock J. G. A. , Politics, language and time: Essays on political thought and history (New York, 1971); idem, The Machiavellian moment (Princeton, 1975); idem, Virtue, commerce, and history (Cambridge, 1985); Dunn J. , “The identity of the history of ideas”, Philosophy, xliii (1968), 85–103.

The preface to Peter Medawar's autobiography, Memoirs of a thinking radish (London, 1987), is a recent example of a practising scientist's rejection of the influence of personality on scientific work. The work of Frank Manuel has been a rare exception within history of science.

It is not known precisely when “Philaretus” was written. Rev. Miles H. , who carried out the extensive preparatory work for the collected edition of Boyle's writings contained in Birch Thomas (ed.), The works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. To which is prefixed The Life of the Author (5 vols, London, 1744; 2nd edn, 6 vols, London, 1772; 2nd edn is used for this paper) [hereafter Works] believed it dated soon after Boyle's return from the Continent in 1644. However, Boyle mentions in “Philaretus” burning youthful poetical efforts “the day he came of age” and that regarding his brothers and sisters, “five women and four men do yet survive” which indicates a dating after 25 Jan. 1648 and before 11 March 1656 when his sister Joan died. He also writes that “from that Howre to this; Ague & he haue still been perfect stranger” but his correspondence makes clear he had a serious attack in July 1649. However, Boyle seems to forget that elsewhere he records “being visited with a Tertian Ague”, while still a boy at Eton. See Maddison R. E. W. , The life of the Honourable Robert Boyle F.R.S. (London, 1969), 17–18. Nevertheless, together with the expression “during his Minority” in the title, Maddison's dating of after January 1648 and before July 1649 seems appropriate; ibid., 1. Unpublished manuscripts cited in this paper include the Early Letters and Boyle Papers in the Royal Society Archive, London [hereafter BL and BP]. MS transcription scheme: [] deletion; < > interlinear; {} marginal insertion; () // Robert Boyle, unless otherwise indicated. Maddison's work contains (pp. 2–45) a published transcription from the original MS in BP, xxxvii, and will be used here, though it is in both editions by Birch. The surviving leaves of “Philaretus” end with Boyle's arrival at Marseilles in 1642, though the account may well have ended in 1649. If so, the concluding pages have long since disappeared, since they were not available to Birch in the early eighteenth century. The Greek name “Philaretus” which Boyle often used to describe himself, was probably taken from Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics where it denotes a fondness for virtue.

Useful discussion of this literary genre can be found in Bottrall M. , Everyman a phoenix: Studies in seventeenth-century autobiography (London, 1958), esp. ch. 1. This cannot be said for a more recent work by Delany P. , British autobiography in the seventeenth century (London, 1969). His only comment on “Philaretus” is dismissive and superficial: “Boyle was obviously a forceful and intelligent youth, but his extreme self-righteousness prevents his autobiography from being more than a psychological curiosity” (p. 154).

Bottrall , op. cit. (ref. 8), 5.

Watkins Owen , The puritan experience (London, 1972), 2. Boyle's repeated examples of Providence operating in his early life may have been both for his own needs and like other contemporaries “to offer experimental proof of some of the eternal truths of Christianity …”, ibid.

This approach has been more recently defended by Gay Peter , Freud for historians (New York, 1985). One of Boyle's sisters, Mary, Countess of Warwick, has been studied from both a psychological and a feminist standpoint by Mendelsohn Sara H. , The mental world of Stuart women: Three studies (London, 1987). There is, of course, a substantial literature on the question of the family in early-modern England, and its usefulness in illuminating Boyle's family life will feature later in this paper.

Harwood John T. (ed.), The early essays and ethics of Robert Boyle (Carbondale, 1991), p. xxiii.

The most important recent study must be Canny Nicholas , The upstart earl: A study of the social and mental world of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, 1566–1643 (Cambridge, 1982). Also useful is Ranger Terence O. , “The career of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork in Ireland 1588– 1643” (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1959), and “Richard Boyle and the making of an Irish fortune, 1588–1614”, Irish historical studies, x (1956–57), 257–97. Ranger's studies emphasise the empire-building of Cork. A wealth of material on Cork is in Grosart Alexander B. (ed.), The Lismore papers (1st series, 5 vols, privately printed, 1886; 2nd series, 5 vols, privately printed, 1887–88) (hereafter I or II Lismore).

Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 4–6. MacCarthy-Morrough M. , The Munster plantation: English migration to Southern Ireland 1583–1641 (Oxford, 1986), 70.

MacCarthy-Morrough , op. cit. (ref. 14), 7.

II Lismore (ref. 13), v, 19, 22. Detail concerning both Boyle's Grand Tour and his tutor, Marcombes, is provided further on.

Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 11–12.

I Lismore (ref. 13), ii, 100–17. The 1632 updated version is in Works (ref. 7), 1744 edn, i, pp. vii–xi. The same view as Wentworth's — that Cork only pretended to possess honesty, piety and charity — is in Mendelsohn , op. cit. (ref. 11), 62.

Canny , op. cit. (ref.'13), 22–23. Cork's political views expressed the precarious position of the New English in Ireland and certainly influenced Boyle. A detailed discussion of Boyle's political stance will be discussed in Oster M. , “Virtue, providence, and political neutrálism: Robert Boyle and Interregnum politics” (forthcoming).

I Lismore (ref. 13), v, 170.

See Canny N. , The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland: A pattern established 1565–76 (Hassocks, Sussex and New York, 1976), 117–36.

Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 26.

MacCarthy-Morrough , op. cit. (ref. 14), 202.

Marcombes to Cork, 25 Feb. 1640/1 (II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 103).

Cork had read Sir Geoffrey Fenton's translation of Guicciardini's History of Italy, a copy of which was one of his prized possessions. See I Lismore (ref. 13), i, 170.

I Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 13, 14, 106, 159.

Croker T. C. (ed.), “Some specialities in the life of Mary, Countess of Warwick”, in The autobiography of Mary Countess of Warwick (Percy Society Publications, xxii; London, 1848), 1–50, p. 22.

Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 32.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 4. It is not being suggested that physical removal in itself was unusual, but rather the particular long-term impact on Boyle's character, as will be made evident. The fifteenth Boyle child was to die in infancy.

Ibid ., 5. As Cork mentions “Mounsier Francis de Carey, my children's French tutor”, 30 June 1630, in his diary, this means Boyle was three-and-a-half years old. See I Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 41.

Maddison , Life (ref. 7), “Philaretus”, 4. The loss of a parent early in life may not be without some significance and will be noted below.

ibid., 5.

I Lismore (ref. 13), ii, 340; iii, 98, 102; iv, 66–67, 120; Canny , op. cit. (ref. 5), 98.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 6.

Carew to Cork, 19 Oct. 1635, I Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 217–18. Carew himself was a dissembler who had long deceived Cork and the Provost of Eton, Sir Henry Wotton. See Maddison , Life (ref. 7), 8.

Wotton to Cork, 24 Nov. 1635, II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 219–21. Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639) was a diplomat and poet who had been ambassador in Venice and an M.P. He was Provost of Eton 1629–39. He took orders at Eton and was reported to spend hours in meditation. See The compleat angler: The lives of Donnes, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson , ed. by Keynes Geoffrey (London, 1929), 307. During a year at Geneva he met Theodore Beza and became a friend of Isaac Casaubon, in whose house he probably stayed, ibid., 289. Later he became an acquaintance of Arminius, the Dutch theologian, during a year at Leyden, and wrote of him as a “man of most rare learning”, ibid., 309. Boyle was to be a fervent admirer of Grotius, Arminius's disciple. John Beale, a later correspondent and colleague of Boyle, also studied under Wotton in the 1630s, D.N.B., xxi. Wotton was “a great enemy to wrangling Disputes of Religion”, Keynes (ed.), The compleat angler , 308. He was also an enthusiastic angler, which may well have influenced Boyle's later appreciation of the activity, ibid.

Carew to Cork, Nov. 1635; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 223–4.

Ibid ., 224. Compare with Boyle's own assessment in Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 9.

Marcombes to Cork, 16/26 Feb. 1636; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 239.

Carew to Cork, 29 Feb/11 Mar. 1636; ibid., 242.

Ibid. This is the earliest evidence of Boyle's ambivalence towards hunting which is discussed within the context of animal pain in Oster Malcolm , “‘The Beame of Diuinity’: Animal suffering in the early thought of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science, xxii (1989), 151–80.

II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 243.

Ibid.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 12.

ibid., 9.

Wotton to Cork, 6 Jun. 1636; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 261; Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 62.

II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 261.

Carew to Cork, 9 June 1637; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 268.

ibid.

His views on pursued thoughts are abundant in MS 197 in the Commonplace Book collection in the Royal Society and will be discussed further on.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 15.

Ibid. Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century) was author of Historiae Alexandri Magni. In B.L. Add. MS 4299, there is a collection of scattered material for a Life of Boyle. In f. 66 it is affirmed not only that he had a sharp memory and learned quickly, but that once when travelling he was taken ill and stopped at an inn, where he began reading Quintus Curtius so avidly that the coach left without him. His brother was to compose a long romance in the late 1640s, Parthenissa, which Boyle refers to in a letter to him of Dec. 1649 in Works (ref. 7), vi, 50.

Clark W. S. , The dramatic works of Roger Boyle (2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1937), 63–64. Roger Boyle (1621–79) was knighted and created Baron of Broghill, 1628; admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, 1630; Master of the Ordnance, Ireland, 1648; M.P. for Cork 1654; for Edinburgh 1656; Pres. of Council in Scotland 1655; Commisioner of Govt for Ireland 1660; created Earl of Orrery 1660; M.P. for Arundel 1660; Gov. County Clare 1661; impeached for treason 1669; died in County Cork, Oct. 1679. See Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 296.

Lewis Boyle to Cork, 27 Dec. 1638; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 276–8.

ibid., 278.

Marcombes to Cork, 27 Dec. 1638; II Lismore (ref. 13), iii, 279–80.

ibid., 280.

ibid., 281.

Boyle Lewis (1619–42) was knighted and created Baron of Bandon Bridge and Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeaky, 1628; admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, 1630; buried at Lismore.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 18–19. The contrast with Newton's view of his step-father could not be sharper. See Manuel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 24, 26, 32.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 20.

See Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 102–4.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 23.

I Lismore (ref. 13), v, 101–2; MacCarthy-Morrough , op. cit. (ref. 13), 280–1. Stalbridge, his first purchase in England, was assessed at 30 hearths in 1662–64, and ranked as the fifth largest manor house in Dorset. See Maddiosn, Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 60. Boyle's intended residence was to have been at Mallow in co. Cork and his lands in Kildare and Tipperary. The death of Lewis Boyle impelled the Earl to make a new will in Nov. 1642; ibid., 54.

Cork to Wotton, 4 Sept. 1635; cited in Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 71.

Hexter J. H. , “The education of the aristocracy in the Renaissance”, in his Reappraisals in history (New York and Evanston, 1963), 49–52.

Morgan John , Godly learning: Puritan attitudes towards reason, learning and education, 1560–1640 (Cambridge, 1986), 275–6. On the Grand Tour Boyle never took to dancing because he perceived it as frivolous, unlike his brother Francis. He also was given a great deal of instruction in mathematics, surveying and fortification. Boyle plays up to the depraved reputation of Italy in “Philaretus” by recounting a visit to “the famousest Bordellos”, and a homosexual advance from two friars “whose Lust makes no distinction of Sexes”. Maddison, “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 40.

Morgan , op. cit. (ref. 67), 277, 281–2. A detailed look at Boyle's understanding of the gentleman, particularly as it pertained to Christian gentleman naturalists interested in experimental philosophy, is in Oster M. , “The Scholar and the Craftsman revisited: Robert Boyle as aristocrat and artisan”, Annals of science, xlix (1992), 255–76.

Entry for 6 Aug. 1639 in Cork's diary; I Lismore (ref. 13), v, 101.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 26. Cork was very concerned about sexual relations for his son (in marked contrast to his young daughters) “and whither an vnripe marriage may not hinder his corperall growth”. Cork to Lady Stafford, 19 Sept. 1639; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 192.

Marcombes to Cork, 10 Nov. 1639; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 96.

Marcombes to Cork, 12 Feb. 1639/40; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 100. Marcombe's comments here should be set against Boyle's testimony in “Philaretus” that while he disliked dancing, tennis was “(a Sport he euer passionately lou'd;)”. Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 31.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 24.

Ibid.

II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 100–1.

Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 21.

Ibid ., 24. In B.L. Add. MSS 4299, f. 60, there is a description of his inclination to be “Cholerick” but he governed it so that it never appeared” except in his lookes a little”.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 4; Marcombes to Cork, 25 Feb. 1640/1; II Lismore (ref. 13), ii, 102. For interesting discussion surrounding the debates on stuttering see Rockey Denise , Speech disorder in nineteenth century Britain (London, 1980), esp. ch. 5.

Marcombes to Cork, 25 Mar. 1640/1; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 113.

Marcombes to Cork, 16 Apr. 1640; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 114; Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 32.

Marcombes to Cork, 23 June 1640; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 116.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 32–33.

Marcombes to Cork, 20 Jan. 1640/1; II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 170. Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 35.

Marcombes to Cork, 20 Dec. 1641 (N.S.); ibid., 232–3.

ibid., 233–4 (my italics).

Ibid . Boyle mentions a treatise titled “Christian Gentleman” in “Philaretus”, although there is no surviving treatise with that title. See Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 33. Maddison correctly speculates that the three essays, “Of sin”, “Of piety” and “Of valour” in MS 196 Commonplace Book, Royal Society, may have been part of the treatise. The first two essays are now published in Harwood , op. cit. (ref. 12), 143–83. The letter throws great doubt on the thesis of Jacob James , Robert Boyle and the English Revolution (New York, 1977), ch. 2, where it is argued he rebelled against the prevailing gentleman's code in the mid-1640s because of his reduced material circumstances.

See note in Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 34; Croker , op. cit. (ref. 19), 4–5. On Killigrew's world see Butler Martin , Theatre and crisis 1632–42 (Cambridge, 1984), 116–17.

II Lismore (ref. 13), iv, 235.

Boyle to Cork, 25 May 1642 (N.S.); II Lismore (ref. 13), v, 72. Cork had already written to Viscount Dungarvon on 24 Feb. 1643, explaining that he could not grant Francis's request to take up a command in Ireland as “I have lost one of my Sonnes already … I pray you excuse his not coming …”, B.L. MS Egerton 80, f.15v.

II Lismore (ref. 13), v, 73.

Boyle to Kynalmeaky, 1 Aug. 1642; ibid., 97.

ibid., 98.

Boyle to Cork, 30 Sept. 1642; ibid., 114.

ibid., 115.

The most controversial interpretation since Laslett has been Stone Laurence , The family, sex and marriage in England 1500–1800 (New York, 1977), which, though widely admired on publication, was later subject to serious criticism by Alan Macfarlane in History and theory, xviii (1979), 103–25, who drew on his own work on an Essex clergyman, The family life of Ralph Josselin: A seventeenth-century clergyman (Cambridge, 1970). Another important work in the same year as that of Stone was Greven Philip , The Protestant temperament: Patterns of child-rearing, religious experience, and the self in early America (New York, 1977). More recently, a solid survey has been provided by Houlbrooke Ralph A. , The English family 1450–1700 (London, 1984).

Greven , op. cit. (ref. 95), 269–74.

Macfarlane , op. cit. (ref. 95), 205–10. It is interesting to note that the divine, Richard Baxter (1615–91) lived away from his parents with his grandfather until he was ten years old, though he provides no particular reason. See Keeble N. H. (ed.), The autobiography of Richard Baxter (3rd edn, London and Melbourne; first publ. 1931), 3.

Stone, op. cit. (ref. 95), for example pp. 55, 60, 70, 81, 117, 420, 680.

Boyle to Cork, May 1642 and Sept. 1642, pp. 71–73 and 114–15 respectively in II Lismore (ref. 13), v.

I Lismore (ref. 13), ii, 110–12, 207, 227, 317; iii, 174–5; iv, 45, 165–6; v, 102, 169, 189.

Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 3, 6. The day in question was a feast day in the church calendar, and specifically celebrated conversion. Newton was to attach great importance to his premature birth on Christmas Day, 1642. See Manuel, op. cit. (ref. 1), 23.

Royal Society MS 195, 123r and Harwood , op. cit. (ref. 12), 52. The Aretology or Ethicall Elements of Robert Boyle. Begun at Stalbridge, The /Blank/ of 1645. Thats the tru Good that makes the owner so; MS 192 appears a draft for the work. See Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 63–64. For the dating of MS 195, note title page and Works (ref. 7), i, 17, 20. As the Aretology has now been published in Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 1–141, page numbers cited are from this edition.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 77.

Simonton Dean , Scientific genius: A psychology of science (Cambridge, 1989), 109. See also Roe Ann , Scientific American, clxxxvii/5 (1952), 21–25 and Eiduson B. T. , Scientists: Their psychological world (New York, 1962) which emphasize traits of solitariness and studiousness, a highly developed capacity for independence linked to parental loss, and a history of illness. Apart from Boyle's childhood “Tertian Ague” this latter characteristic does not show itself until Boyle's early twenties when an attack of the stone (1647) and then of Ague (1649) inaugurates a constant recurrence of ill health. By 1653 William Petty, one of Boyle's early associates, believed Boyle to be a hypochondriac. See Works (ref. 7), vi, 138. See Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 219–22 for Boyle's personal appearance and health.

Detail on Boyle's early scientific links with the predominantly Anglo-Irish group of intellectuals he meets when returning to England will only be alluded to here. See Webster Charles , The Great Instauration: Science, medicine and reform 1626–1660 (London, 1975), 57–67; Barnard T. C. , Cromwellian Ireland, English government and reform in Ireland 1649–1660 (Oxford, 1975), especially ch. 8; Oster Malcolm , “Nature, ethics and divinity: The early, thought of Robert Boyle” (D. Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1990), ch. 1. Boyle Katherine (1615–91), the seventh child of Cork, married Arthur Jones, the second Viscount Ranelagh, whose family had allied with Cork against Strafford before 1640. Through Jones, Katherine became sister-in-law of Sir John Clotworthy, the prominent Presbyterian parliamentarian, and niece of Dorothy Moore, wife of John Dury, the divine, and sister of the planter, Sir Robert King. Besieged in Athlone Castle for two years during the Irish Rebellion, she then made her way to London, eventually establishing her home in Pall Mall. Though as a daughter of Cork, she had been given little formal education, there are numerous testimonies in the Boyle correspondence to her forceful participation in political, religious and philosophical questions. For her interest in medical receipts see B.L. Sloane MS 1367, and MS 1340, Wellcome Institute, London; Harwood (ed.) op. cit. (ref. 12), p. lxii.

Royal Society Commonplace Book, MS 197. Dating is uncertain, though see ref. 109 below. The discourse is published in Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 185–202. As Boyle's own title for the MS is illegible, Harwood suggests the title “The doctrine of thinking”, a work Boyle refers to in “Of time and idleness”, c. 1650, BP, xiv, f. 17v; ibid., 185.

ibid., 186.

ibid., 186.

ibid., 186. This indicates the piece would not have been penned before 1646 at the earliest.

ibid., 187.

Ibid . This contrasts sharply, however, with his vivid recollection of homosexual advances from two friars in Italy on the Grand Tour. See Maddison , op. cit. (ref. 7), 40.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 187–8.

ibid., 189.

ibid., 189.

ibid., 190.

ibid., 192.

Ibid ., 192. Of interest here is the wider question of whether 1642 was the culmination of sustained moral and doctrinal attack on playhouses. Butler , op. cit. (ref. 87), 96–98, argues this was not the case and that even the earlier complaints of the Root and Branch petition of December 1640 did not extend to demands for the theatres to be closed. The Puritan critic William Prynne, author of Histriomastix, a wide-ranging diatribe against plays, still admitted it might be lawful to read plays or comedies, particularly if they possessed godly purposes. For Prynne stage performance was the problem and probably was for Boyle as well.

Butler , op. cit. (ref. 87), 96.98; B.L. Add. MS 4299, f. 39.

Harwood , op. cit. (ref. 12), 193.

Ibid., 194. Boyle reiterates and expands on this process through the device of dialogues in the Occasional reflections composed c. 1646–49 (London, 1665). Note his comments in Works (ref. 7), ii, 327, 330, 336. Also Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 86), 28–29.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 195. Boyle repeats the debt he owes mathematics in fixing thoughts in Maddison , “Philaretus” (ref. 7), 17; Works (ref. 7), i, p. xlix.

BP, xiv, ff. 15–23 and Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 237–48. The essay mentions at one point (ibid., 241) the previous “Discourse of Thinking”, e.g. MS 197 (refs 106, 109), which probably dates the piece between 1647 and 1649/50.

BP, vii, f. 291.

ibid., f. 291r.

ibid., f. 291v.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 164–5. The letter is titled “To my MISTRESS presenting hir the Amorous Controuersys”, and dated 2 May 1645 from Bristol. The identity of “Madam” is unknown, but there are several more surviving letters written to her in 1647 and they may well be only a few of the total written.

ibid., f. 164r.

ibid., f. 165r.

ibid., f.165r.

Houlbrooke , op. cit. (ref. 95), 4, 32.

Clark , op. cit. (ref. 53), i, 11.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 204–8. Dated London, 12 Feb. 1647.

ibid., f. 204r–204v.

ibid., f. 204v.

ibid., f. 205v.

ibid., f. 205v.

ibid., ff. 205v–206r. In BP, xxxvii, ff. 158–9, there is an incomplete letter to a woman, not signed in the usual way to “Madam”, in which Boyle openly concedes his own personal problem with painted women: “for I must confesse my hart is much more tinder to the Fire that flashes through the Cheekes, then to that which is shot from the Eyes”, fol. 158r. He goes on to assert that “Certainly Shame is the strongest Curbe that Nature has giu'n Virtue, to restraine the Passions with”, f. 158v. As the letter mentions “Cleanthes”, an imaginary woman of vice, it was probably written in 1647.

ibid., f. 206v.

ibid., f. 206v.

ibid., f. 207r.

BP, xiv, ff 2v–4r, 7 March 1647, under the heading “Scripture observations”. It is now transcribed in Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 283–5.

ibid., 283.

Ibid ., 284. Note how Boyle has taken on the perspective of Potifar's wife directly. Boyle was to underline how admirable Joseph was to finally overcome his temptations and reveal the true temper of his mind. Works (ref. 7), ii, 397–8.

BL, i, 109, dated 15 Apr. 1647 from Stalbridge. The opening two leaves may well have been copied from a draft of the letter to “Madam” of 2 May 1645. See Maddison, Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 61.

Ibid ., f. 109v. This rare use of the term ‘Puritan’ by Boyle does not indicate an appropriation of the label for himself, but is spoken of from a distance.

ibid., f. 110r.

ibid., f.110r.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 196–203, dated London, 15 Aug. 1647, and titled “The Duty of a Mother's Being a Nurse asserted”. It is signed at the end with the addition “most passionate” which he does with all letters to “Madam”.

ibid., f. 196r.

Ibid ., f. 196v; Houlbrooke , op. cit. (ref. 95), 32, 132.

BP, xxxvii, f. 197r; Houlbrooke , op. cit. (ref. 95), 25.

BP, xxxvii, f. 197r; also Houlbrooke , op. cit. (ref. 95), 133.

BP, xxxvii, f. 198r.

ibid., f. 198v.

Ibid ., f. 199r. Boyle was no doubt aware, though he does not directly say so, that the Church had reluctantly condoned wet-nursing on precisely these grounds. See McLaren Dorothy , “Marital fertility and lactation 1570–1720” in Prior Mary (ed.), Women in English society 1500–1800 (London, 1985), 22–53, p. 27.

BP, xvii, f. 200r.

McLaren , op. cit. (ref. 155), 28; Houlbrooke , op. cit. (ref. 95), 133.

BP, xvii, f. 201r.

Ibid., f. 201v; Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 4; McLaren , op. cit. (ref. 155), 22.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 144–9. Letter to “Fidelia”, London, 2 Dec. 1647, and signed C. K. Given the tone of the writing, with scenes enacted from the heroic genre, C. K. may well stand for Christian Knight, a Christianized play on the Arthurian legend. This is the only letter where the term is used. However, it correlates with the heading of a letter to Broghill from Boyle, 18 Apr. 1647, viz “Prince of Round Table” in BL, i, ff. 137–8.

BP, xxxvii, f. 145v. Boyle no doubt drew on court culture and romance literature for the names used in these set pieces.

ibid., f. 146r–146v.

ibid., ff. 147v–148r.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 150–5, London, 1 Dec. 1647, “Against confidence”. The dating is torn off leaving a single numeral, so it is likely it was written between 10 and 19 December.

ibid., f. 151 v.

ibid., f. 153r.

Works (ref. 7), ii, 430.

Ibid ., vi, 46. The letter dated 7 July from London does not identify the woman concerned. Maddison speculates the woman might be Elizabeth Carey (1631–76), daughter of the 2nd Earl of Monmouth; Maddison, Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 73.

I Lismore (ref. 13), v, 190, 216, 11 Sept. 1641, 16 Nov. 1642 respectively; Maddison, Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 55. Anne Howard's marriage was towards the end of 1645, as her son was about three years old in Sept. 1649; ibid. There is the strong suggestion (in the preface) that the writing of Seraphic love in August 1648 was occasioned by his disappointment over the whole affair. See Works (ref. 7), i, 243–94.

Ibid ., iv, 534. Cited in Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 55–56.

Works, iv, 258.

Royal Society MS 196, “Of piety”, in Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 179.

Works (ref. 7), vi, 48–49. Note the importance of this letter for helping date the composition of “Philaretus”.

Evelyn's posthumous description is from a letter to William Wotton dated 29 March 1696 and cited in Maddison, Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 222. Boyle's own conjectures about his health were published in the preface to Medicinal experiments (London, 1692). The portrait by Kerseboom c. 1689 is reproduced as Plate XXX in Maddison, Life of Boyle (ref. 7) and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Works (ref. 7), vi, 51–52, letter dated London, 21 Dec. 1649; Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 18 and 295.

Works (ref. 7), vi, 51.

ibid., 51.

ibid., 51–52.

Works (ref. 7), ii, 429.

Ibid. One may recall, in particular, the disastrous marriage of Lettice Boyle to George Goring and Boyle's two visits to her home as a young boy in 1636 and 1637. The marriages of Joan Boyle to the Earl of Kildare in 1630, of Alice, Katherine, and finally Mary to Charles Rich in 1641, were all examples for Boyle to draw on.

Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 297; Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 107; Croker , op. cit. (ref. 87), 21; Canny , op. cit. (ref. 13), 34; Mendelsohn , op. cit. (ref. 6), 81–84.

Works (ref. 7), vi, 291–3; Evelyn to Boyle , 29 Sept. 1659.

ibid., 292–3.

Gay , Freud for historians (ref. 11), 75.

Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 40–41.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 14.

For general information on the humours and psychological behaviour see Dictionary of the history of science , ed. by Bynum W. F. Browne E. J. and Porter R. (London, 1981), 191–3; Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 78. Generally, in seventeenth-century England, the law bore far more heavily upon youthful delinquents, as they were perceived as potentially dangerous in their late twenties between adolescence and parenthood. Houlbrooke, op. cit. (ref. 95), 194.

Works (ref. 7), i, p.xliii. Birch says the letter was sent when he was barely twenty, and though no particular evidence is forthcoming, the tone clearly fits that pivotal year of 1647. The letter appears to be missing from Maddison's R. E. W. “A tentative index of the Honourable Robert Boyle F.R.S.”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xiii (1958), 128–201.

Works (ref. 7), i, p. xliv.

BL, i, ff. 137–8, see f. 137r; Stalbridge, 18 Apr. 1647; Clark , op. cit. (ref. 53), 13–14. The tone of this letter may be compared also with Boyle's Dedication to Broghill in Style of the Scriptures, c. +, where Boyle concedes the piece might be construed as a sermon rather than a letter. See Works (ref. 7), ii, 247–322.

BL, i, f. 137r.

ibid., f. 137r.

ibid., f. 137v.

ibid., f. 138r.

ibid., f. 138v.

ibid., f. 138v.

Works (ref. 7), ii, 336.

ibid., 378.

ibid., 379–80.

ibid., 380.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 131. The quotation may well suggest something of his political perceptions of the mid- to late 1640s.

Royal Society MS 196, “Of valor”, f. 63v.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 87.

Works (ref. 7), vi, 50. Boyle to Broghill, London, 20 Dec. 1649.

Ibid.

BP, xxxvii, ff. 166–7.

ibid., ff. 166r–166v.

ibid., ff. 166v–167r.

ibid., f. 167r.

ibid., f. 167v.

ibid., f. 167v.

Boyle to Ranelagh Lady , 31 Aug. 1649, Works (ref. 7), vi, 49–50; Boyle to Worsley , ibid ., 39–41; Boyle to Lady Ranelagh, 13 Nov.?, ibid., 43–44. See Steven Shapin's perceptive discussion of Boyle's private experimental space in “The House of Experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404, pp. 384–9.

ibid., 385–6.

Burnet Gilbert , [A] sermon preached at the funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London, 1692), 194.

ibid., 178, 187, 201, 210.

Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 18.

Maddison , Life of Boyle (ref. 7), 35.

See Harwood (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), pp. lxiii–lxvii; Hunter Michael , “The conscience of Robert Boyle: Functionalism, ‘dysfunctionalism’ and the task of historical understanding” (forthcoming).

Storr Anthony , “Psychoanalysis and creativity”, in Churchill's black dog and other phenomena of the human mind (Glasgow, 1989), ch. 7.

Shapin Steven , “Understanding the Merton Thesis”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 594–605, p. 598.

ibid., 598.

Ibid ., 601. Merton Robert K. , Science, technology and society in seventeenth-century England (orig. publ. in Osiris, iv (1938), 360–632; 2nd edn, New York, 1970), 81–82, 101, 107, 136.