far as may be, the various and scattered experiments are brought together, and a good index added, but we cannot find any references to the originals. There is a list of Boyle's works in Hutton's mathematical dictionary, and another in Moreri. There is a copious life, taken mostly from Dr. Birch, in the Biog. Brit.,' and the same with some additions in Dr. Kippis's unfinished reprint.

It will be useful to remember as to contemporary chronology, that Boyle was born in the year in which Bacon died, and Newton in that in which Galileo died; Boyle being fifteen years older than Newton.

THIS eminent Nonconformist divine was born at Rowdon, a small village in Shropshire, on the 12th of November, 1615; but he resided till 1625 at Eaton Constantine, about five miles from Shrewsbury. The contiguity of his birth-place to the seat of Lord Newport was probably the means of introducing him to the notice of that nobleman. His father's little property was so much encumbered, as to prevent him from giving his son any education beyond what could be obtained from the village schoolmasters, who were neither competent teachers nor moral men. To Mr. John Owen, who kept the free grammar-school at Wroxeter, Baxter acknowledges some obligations. Though he was captain of the school, his acquirements were very inconsiderable when he left it. His ambition was to enter one of the universities to qualify himself for the ministry; but his master, Mr. Owen, probably perceiving that he required more regular instruction than he could expect to receive from

a college tutor, recommended him to Mr. Richard Wickstead, chaplain to the council at Ludlow, who had an allowance from government for a divinity student. Though the defects in his previous education were but ill supplied by this arrangement (Wickstead being a negligent tutor), he had access to a good library, where he acquired a taste for those studies which he pursued with such indefatigable diligence in after-life. Here he continued for eighteen months, when he returned to his father's house, and, at Lord Newport's request, supplied for a few months the place of his old master at Wroxeter grammar-school. Finding all his hopes of going to the university disappointed he resumed his professional studies under the direction of Mr. Francis Garbett, a clergyman of some celebrity, who conducted him through a course of theology, and gave him much valuable assistance in his general reading. While he was thus engaged, he was suddenly diverted from his pursuits by a proposition from his friend, Mr. Wickstead, to try his fortune at court. The project, singular as it was, seems not to have been unpalatable either to the future puritandivine or to his father: theology was thrown aside, and Baxter went up to Whitehall, specially introduced to Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels, as an aspirant to royal favour. His reception was courteous and even kind. For one month he mingled in the festivities of the palace-a period which was sufficient to convince him of the unsuitableness of such a mode of life to his tastes, his habits, and his conscience;—he then returned home, and resumed his studies with a determination never to be again diverted from them. Before he went to London, his religious impressions were deepened by the perusal of Bunny's' Resolution,' Sibbs's' Bruised Reed,' and other works of this kind. Some books which he read after his return increased that habitual seriousness which he derived from his natural disposition, as well as from the example of his father; and a protracted illness completed the preparation of his mind for the reception of those impressions of religious duty under which he acted through the remainder of his life.