Sir Boyle Roche was an Irish politician. He was born in 1743 and died in 1807. He served in the American War and entered the Irish revenue department in 1775; at in the Irish Parliament from 1777 until the union with England in 1801; was appointed chamberlain to the viceregalcourt; and created a baronet in 1782. He rendered service to the government in connection with the Reform Bill of 1783, and warmly advocated the union. Research Boyle Roche
Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, was a British diplomatist and writer. He was born in 1676 and died in 1731. He was nominally the editor of the edition of the Epistles of Phalaris which led to a famous controversy with Bentley and to Jonathan Swift's Battle of the Books. He served in the army and as a diplomatist, and wrote a comedy and some worthless verse. The astronomical apparatus called the orrery took its name from him. Research Charles Boyle
Francis Atterbury was an English prelate. He was born in 1662 and died in 1731. Educated at Westminster and Oxford. In 1687 he took his degree of MA and appeared as a controversialist in a defence of the character of Luther, entitled, Considerations on the Spirit of MartinLuther, etc. He also assisted his pupil, the Honourable Mr. Boyle, in his famous controversy with Bentley on the Epistles of Phalaris. Having taken orders in 1691 he settled in London, became chaplain to William and Mary, preacher of Bridewell, and lecturer of St Bride's.
Controversy was congenial to him, and in 1706 he commenced one with Dr. Wake, which lasted four years, on the rights, privileges, and powers of convocations. For this service he received the thanks of the lower house of convocation and the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oxford. Soon after the accession of Queen Anne he was made Dean of Carlisle, aided in the defence of the famous Sacheverell, and wrote A Representation of the Present State of Religion.
In 1712 he was made Dean of Christ Church, and in 1713 Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster. After the death of the queen in 1714 he distinguished himself by his opposition to George I and having entered into a correspondence with the Pretender's party was apprehended in August, 1722, and committed to the Tower. Being banished the kingdom, he settled in Paris, where he chiefly occupied himself in study and in correspondence with men of letters. But even here, in 1725, he was actively engaged in fomenting discontent in the Scottish Highlands. He died in 1731, and his body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey. His sermons and letters are marked by ease and grace; but as a critic and a controversialist he is rather dexterous and popular than accurate and profound. Research Francis Atterbury
Sir John Watson Gordon was a Scottish painter, and president of the Royal Scottish Academy. He was born in 1790 at Edinburgh and died in 1864. He applied himself almost exclusively to portrait-painting in which he attained great excellence. He was employed to paint the portraits of many of the most eminent Scotsmen of the day, among whom may be mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Chalmers, Professors Wilson, Ferrier, Munro, and Simpson, Principal Lee, Lord-president Boyle, the Duke of Buccleuch, Sir George Clark, De Quincey, George Combe, etc. Research John Gordon
Richard Bentley was an English classical scholar and critic. He was born in 1662 near Wakefield, Yorkshire and died in 1742. At the age of fourteen he entered St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of BA in 1680. In 1682 he became a master of Spalding School, and in the following year was appointed tutor to Dr. Stillingfleet's son.
He lived in Dr. Stillingfleet's house during 1683 to 1689, studying deeply, and accompanied his pupil to Oxford. In 1684 he took his MA degree at Cambridge, and in 1689 at Oxford, where two years later he won immediate reputation by the publication of his epistle to Mill on the Greek Chronicle of Malelas.
Dr. Stillingfleet having been raised to the bishopric of Worcester made Richard Bentley his chaplain, and in 1692 a prebendary in his cathedral. The same year he delivered the first series of the Boyle Lectures, his subject being a confutation of atheism. In 1694 he was appointed keeper of the royal library at St James's Palace, and in 1696 came into residence there. Two or three years after began his famous controversy with the Honourable Charles Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, relative to the genuineness of the Greek Epistles of Phalaris, an edition of which was published by Boyle, then a student at Christ Church, Oxford.
In this dispute Richard Bentley was completely victorious, though the greatest wits and critics of the age, including Pope, Jonathan Swift, Garth, Atterbury, Aldrich, Dodwell, and ConyersMiddleton came to Boyle's assistance. Richard Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris appeared in 1699 and was described as 'a monument of controversial genius' and 'a storehouse of exact and penetrating erudition.'
In 1700 he was presented to the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, and from this period until 1738 he was at feud with the fellows of that college. A lawsuit, which lasted more than twenty years, was decided against him, but his opponents were unable to carry out the sentence depriving him of his mastership. In 1711 he published an edition of Horace, and in 1713 his remarks on Collins's Discourse on Free-thinking, by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. He was appointed regius professor of divinity in 1716. In 1726 he published an edition of Terence and Phsedrus.' He meditated an edition of Homer, but left only notes.
In Homeric criticism he has the merit of having detected the loss of the letter 'digamma' from the written texts. His last work was an edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, with conjectural emendations published in 1732. Research Richard Bentley
Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, was an English statesman. He was born in 1566 and died in 1643. In 1588 he went to Dublin with little or no money, but with good recommendations, and by prudence and ability he managed to acquire considerable estates. As clerk of the Council of Munster he distinguished himself by his talents and activity, and became successively a knight and privy-councillor. BaronBoyle of Youghal, and finally, in 1620, Viscount Dungarvan and Earl of Cork. He was an able and energetic ruler, introducing many useful arts and manufactures amongst the people. Disaffection and rebellion he put down with a strong and vigorous hand. Research Richard Boyle
Robert Boyke was an Irish natural philosopher. He was born in 1626 at Lismore, Ireland and died in 1691. He was the seventh son of Richard the first earl of Cork. After finishing his studies at Eton he travelled for some years on the Continent until, in 1644, he settled in the manor of Stalbridge, Dorsetshire, which his father had left him. Here he devoted himself to scientific studies, to chemistry and natural philosophy in particular. He was one of the first members of the society founded in 1645, afterwards known as the Royal Society. At Oxford, to which he had gone in 1652, he occupied himself in making improvements on the air-pump, by means of which he demonstrated the elasticity of air. Although his scientific work shows an accurate, minute, and methodical intellect, in religious matters he was subject to melancholy and fanciful terrors. With the view of settling his faith he began the study of those oriental languages which contain the origins of Christianity, and formed connections with such eminent scholars as Pococke, Clarke, Barlow, etc. He also instituted public lectures, known as the Boyle Lectures, 'for proving the Christian religion against Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans, not descending to any controversies amongst Christians themselves.' The first series was delivered by Richard Bentley. Samuel Clarke, Whiston, and F. D. Maurice have been amongst succeeding Boyle lecturers. Research Robert Boyle
Samuuel Clarke was an English theological and philosophical writer. He was born in 1675 at Norwich and died in 1729. Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, he became chaplain to Dr. More, bishop of Norwich, and between 1699 and 1701 published Essays on Baptism, Confirmation, and Repentance, replied to Toland's Amyntor, and issued a paraphrase of the Gospels. He was then presented with two livings, and in 1704 and 1705 twice delivered the Boyle lectures at Oxford on The Being and Attributes of God, and on The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion.
In 1706 he published a letter to Mr. Dodwell on the Immortality of the Soul, and a Latin version of Newton's Optics. He was then appointed rector of St Bennet's, London, and shortly afterwards rector of St James's and chaplain to Queen Anne. In 1712 he edited Caesar's Commentaries, and published his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, which became a subject of much controversy and of complaint in the Lower House of Convocation. His chief subsequent productions were his discussions with Leibnitz and Collins on the Freedom of the Will, his Latin version of part of the Iliad, and a considerable number of sermons. His philosophic fame rests on his a priori argument for the existence of God, his theory of the nature and obligation of virtue as conformity to certain relations involved in the eternal fitness of things, and his opposition to Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibnitz, and others. Research Samuel Clarke
Thomas Birch was an English historian and biographer. He was born in 1705 at London died in 1766 following a fall from his horse. He took orders in the church in 1730, and obtained in 1732 a living in Essex. In 1734 he engaged with others in writing the General Historical and Critical Dictionary, founded on that of Bayle, and completed, in ten volumes in 1741. He subsequently obtained various preferments in the church. Among his numerous works are Life of the Right Honourable Robert Boyle, 1744; Life of Archbishop Tillotson, 1752; Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1754; History of the Royal Society, 1757; etc. He was a friend and correspondent of Dr. Johnson. Research Thomas Birch
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
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