four days after which both brothers left England, under the care of Mr. Marcombes, with whom at his residence at Geneva, they spent nearly two years in the prosecution of their studies. In their way to that place, they passed through Paris and Lyons, at both which cities they devoted some time to observing every thing which was curious and worthy of attention. From Geneva he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring countries, and having on one occasion penetrated those wild and desolate mountains, rendered so gloomily interesting by the solitary life of the austere Bruno, and the establishment of the first and chief of the monasteries of his order (the Carthusian), he was so deeply affected, that be relates that "the devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melancholy, so sad a place, his own humour, which was naturally grave and serious, and the strange stories and pictures he found there of Bruno, suggested such strange and hideous distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, that though his looks did but little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbiddenness of self-dispatch prevented his acting it. In a mind so well regulated as that of Mr. Boyle, there could be little fear of such a catastrophe. He laboured under this melancholy for some months, and was at length recovered from it by an inquiry into the foundation of the christian religion; which terminating in his complete conviction of its truth, re-established his mind on that firm basis from which the wild and terrific localities which surrounded him, had almost caused it to totter.
In the autumn of 1641 he quitted Geneva, and went to Venice, whence, after spending a short time in that city, he proceeded to Florence, where he remained during the whole of the winter. This time he employed in the study of the Italian language, and in forming an acquaintance with the works of the celebrated astronomer Galileo, who died in a village in the neighbourhood, during Mr. Boyle's residence at this place. In March the
