*

More than two years had elapsed since Milton's last letters to
Oldenburg and young Ranelagh (ante pp. 366-367). They were then at
Saumur in France, where they remained till March 1658; but since that
time they had been travelling about, and from May 1659, if not
earlier, they had been boarding in Paris. There are glimpses of them
in letters from Oldenburg to Robert Boyle, and also in letters of
Hartlib to Boyle, in which he quotes passages from letters he has
received both from Oldenburg and from young Ranelagh. Thus, in a
letter of Hartlib's to Boyle of April 12, 1659, there is this from
Oldenburg's last: "I have had some discourse with an able but
somewhat close physician here, that spoke to me of a way, though
without particularizing all, to draw a liquor of the beams of the
sun; which peradventure some person that is knowing and experienced
(as noble Mr. Boyle) may better beat out than we can who want
experience in these matters." Young Ranelagh seems to have fully
acquired by this time the tastes for physical and experimental
science which characterized his tutor; and his uncle Boyle may have
read with a smile this from Hartlib of date October 22, 1659:--"This
week Mr. Jones hath saluted me with a very kind letter, containing a
very singular observation in these words: 'Concerning the generation
of pearls I am of opinion that they are engendered in the
cockle-fishes (I pray, Sir, give me the Latin word for it in your
next) of the same manner as the stone in our body,--which I endeavour
fully to show in a discourse of mine about the generation of pearls;
which, when I shall have done it, shall wait upon you for my part in
revenge of your observations. I heard lately a very remarkable story
about margarites from a person of quality and honour in this town,
which you will be glad, I believe, to hear. A certain German baron
of about twenty-four years old, being in prison here at Paris, in
the same chamber with a Frenchman (who told this, as having been
eyewitness of it, to him that told it me), they having both need of
money, the baron sent his man to a goldsmith to buy seven or eight
ordinary pearls, of about twenty pence a piece, which he put
a-dissolving in a glass of vinegar; and, being well dissolved, he
took the paste and put it together with a powder (which I should be
glad to know) into a golden mould, which he had in his pocket, and so
put it a-warming for some time upon the fire; after which, opening
t