Boyle, JOHN

Boyle, JOHN, born in 1707, succeeded as fifth Earl of Orrery in 1731, and of Cork in 1753. In spite of his father's statement in his will that his son had no taste for letters as a reason for bequeathing his library to Christ-Church, he made for himself a place in literature by Remarks on Swift (1751), a book marred by grudging praise and manifest malice, as well as an incapacity to comprehend the genius of his subject; as also by a translation of the Letters of Pliny (1751), which is still considered excellent. He died in 1762. He was long the intimate friend of Pope and Swift; the latter, indeed, writes to Pope that next himself he loves 'no man so well.' It is now impossible to determine why this much-loved friend tried to stab Swift when laid in the quiet safety of the grave. Berkeley said of Boyle that he 'would have been a man of genius had he known how to set about it,' and Johnson says he 'would have been a liberal patron if he had been rich.'