Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/175

164 BOYLE. canvassing the pretensions of an Irish gentleman, by name Valentine Greatraeks, who affirmed that be possessed a peculiar gift of curing diseases, by stroking the affected parts. In some instances, certainly, he had succeeded, owing most probably, to the effect produced on the ima- gination of the persons who underwent this operation. This gave rise to a controversy, in the course of which many pampblets appeared on both sides, and at length Mr. Henry Stubbe wrote "The Miráculous Conformist; or, an account of several marvellous Cures performed by the stroking of the hands of Mr. Valentine Greatraeks with a physical discourse thereupon, in a letter tol the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq." who, the morning after he received it, wrote a letter in answer, which evinces the greatest accuracy of judgment and correctness ofstyle, com- bined with that comprehensiveness of mind, which at one view taking in the whole of an extensive subject, arranges it with perspicuity. It contains twenty pages, and from the ability wbich it displays, can be hardly conceived to have been written in a single morning, where we not assured by the unimpeachable testimony of Mr. Boyle himself. Nor must we omit to mention, that at the very time in which Mr. Stubbe thus respectfully appealed to the decision of Mr. Boyle, he was engaged in a warm attack on the Royal Society, not one of whose members with the exception of Mr. Boyle alone, escaped his severe invective. In 1668 Mr. Boyle left Oxford, and settled in Pall Mall, in the house of his favourite sister, Lady Ranelagh, where he continued during the remainder of his life. Desirous of facilitating every information in his peculiar studies, he now resolved upon devoting a particular portion of the day to receive such men of science as should be desirous of communicating their discoveries to a person so well qualified to appreciate justly their claims to attention, and to point out the new lights they were likely to throw on the economy of nature. Such are the claims of society