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(p) Id. ibid.
(q) Ibid.(o) unwilling to ſurvive what he ſuſpected might not be auſpicious to the Engliſh, or conducible to the end for which it was deſigned; wherein he prophſied not ill (p). Mr Borlaſe tells us (q) that his lordſhip
Another writer (r) Cox, Introduction to the 2d volume of his Hiſtory of Ireland.(r) likewiſe gives him this character, that he waswas a perſon, for his abilities and knowledge in the affairs of the world, eminently obſervable, inaſmuch, as though he was no peer of England, he was admitted to fit in the lords houſe upon the wool-ſacks ut conſiliarius. And for all the eſtate he arrived at, (which was the greateſt in the memory of the laſt age) none ever taxed him with exorbitances, but ſuch as thought princes had too little, and religious men not enough.
one of the moſt extraordinary perſons, either that or any other age hath produced, with reſpect to the great and juſt acquiſitions of eſtate that he made, and the publick works that he began and finiſhed, for the advancement of the Engliſh intereſt and the proteſtant religion in Ireland; as churches, almshouſes, free-ſhools, bridges, caſtles, and towns, viz. Liſmore, Tallow, Cloghmakilty, Iniſkeen, Caſtletown, and Bandon, (which laſt place coſt him 14,000l.) inſo much that when Cromwell ſaw theſe prodigious improvements, which he little expected to find in Ireland, he declared, that if there had been an earl of Corke in every province, it would have been impoſſible for the Iriſh to have raiſed a rebellion. And whilſt he was carrying on theſe ſolid works, he lived in his family at a rate of plenty, that exceeded thoſe who conſumed great eſtates in the laviſh ways off ill-ordered exceſs. His motto, God's providence is my inheritance, ſhews, from whence he derived all his bleſſings; the greateſt of which was the numerous and noble poſterity he had to leave his eſtate unto.
Robert Boyle, Eſq; his ſeventh and youngeſt ſon, and one of the greateſt ornaments of this noble family, as well as the age and country in which he lived, had left us ſome memoirs of the younger part of his life, drawn up ſoon after his return from his travels, which the reader will undoubtedly chooſe to read in his own words.
An Account of PHILARETUS, [i. e. Mr. R. BOYLE,] during his Minority.
Not needleſsly to confound the herald with the hiſtorian, and begin a relation by a pedigree, I ſhall content myself to inform you, that the immediate parents of our Philaretus were, of the female ſex, [Catherine, daughter of Sir Geoffry Fenton] a woman, that wanted not beauty, and was rich in virtue, and on the father's ſside, that Richard Boyle, earl of Corke, who, by God's bleſſing on his proſperous induſtry, from very inconſiderable beginnings, built ſo plentiful and ſo eminent a fortune, that his proſperity has found many admirers, but few parallels.
He was born the 14th child of his father (of which five women, and four men, do yet ſurvive) in the year 1626–27, upon St. Paul's converſion day, at a countryhouſe of his father's, called Liſmore, then one of the nobleſt ſeats and greateſt ornaments of the province of Munſter, in which it ſtood; but now ſo ruined by the ſad fate of war, that it ſerves only for an inſtance and a lecture of the inſtability of