BOYLE (John), earl of Cork and Orrery, a nobleman distinguished by his learning and genius, was the only son of Charles earl of Orrery, and was born on the 2d of January, 1707. He was educated at Christ-church college in Oxford: but, as he himself declares, early disappointments, indifferent health, and many untoward accidents, rendered him fond of retirement, and of improving his talents for polite literature and poetry; of which last art he gave several excellent specimens. He also wrote a Translation of Pliny the Younger's letters, with various notes, for the service of his eldest son the lord Boyle, in two volumes, 4to. This was first published in 1751. The year following, he published the Life of Dean Swift, in several letters, addressed to his second son Hamilton Boyle; and afterwards printed Memoirs of Robert Cary earl of Monmouth, a manuscript presented to him by a relation, with explanatory notes. He died in 1762.
BOYLE'S LECTURES, a course of eight sermons or lectures preached annually, set on foot by the honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. by a codicil annexed to his will in 1691; whose design, as expressed by the institutor, is, to prove the truth of the Christian religion against infidels, without descending to any controversies among Christians; and to answer new difficulties, scruples, &c. For the support of this lecture he assigned the rent of his house in Crooked-lane to some learned divine within the bills of mortality, to be elected for a term not exceeding three years, by the late Archbishop Tennison and others. But the fund proving precarious, the salary was ill paid: to remedy which inconveniences, the said archbishop procured a yearly stipend of L. 50 for ever, to be paid quarterly, charged on a farm in the parish of Brill in the county of Bucks. To this appointment we are indebted for many elaborate defences both of natural and revealed religion.