The life of the Honourable Robert Boyle / By Thomas Birch.

  • Thomas Birch
Date:
MDCDXLIV [i.e. 1744]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of the Honourable Robert Boyle / By Thomas Birch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    An Aeeotint of PHIL ARETUS, ra e. Mr. R. magne eres his Minority. OT necdletiy to confound the, herald | _ with the hiftorian, and begin a relation by a pedigree, I fhall content myfelf, to. inform ~ you, that the immediate parents of our Philaretus were, of the female fex, (Catharine, daugh- ter of Sir Geoffry Fenton] a woman, that wanted not beauty, and was rich in virtue, and on the fas } ther’s fide, that Richard Boyle, earl of Corke,, who; by God’s bleffing on his profperous induftry, from very inconfiderable beginnings, built fo plentiful — and fo eminent a fortune, that his profperity has found many admirers, but few parallels. Hx was born the 14th child: of his father (of which five women, and fout men, do yet fur- vive) in the year 1626-7, upon St. Paul’s converfi- on day, ata country-houfe of. his father’s, called Lifmore, then one of the nobleft feats and greateft Ornaments of the province of Munger, in which it ftood ; but now fo ruiried by the fad fate of war, that it ferves only for-an inftance and a lec- ture of the inftability of that happinefs, that is _ built upon the uncertain poffeffion of fuch fleeting goods, as itfelf was. . | To be fuch parents fon, and not their eldeft, — was a happinefs, that our Philaretus would men- tion with great expreffions of gratitude; his birth fo fuiting his inclinations, and defigns, that, had he been permitted an election, his choice would fcarce have altered God’s affignment. For as on the one fide, a lower birth would have too much aes
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