led in Oxford, to be in the
society of Wilkins, Wallis, Goddard, Ward, Petty, Bathurst, Willis,
and other kindred scientific spirits, most of them recently
transferred from London to posts in the University, and so forming
the Oxford offshoot of the _Invisible College_, as distinct from
the London original. But still from Oxford, as formerly from
Stalbridge, the young philosopher made occasional visits to London;
and always, when there, he was to be found at the house of his
sister, Lady Ranelagh.--What property belonged to Lady Ranelagh
herself, or to her husband, lay also mainly in Ireland; but for many
years, in consequence of the distracted state of that country, her
residence had been in London. "In the Pall Mall, in the suburbs of
Westminster," is the more exact designation. Her Irish property
seems, for the present, to have yielded her but a dubious revenue;
and though she had a Government pension of L4 a week on some account
or other, she seems to have been dependent in some degree on
subsidies from her wealthier relatives. It also appears, though
hazily, that there was some deep-rooted disagreement between her and
her husband, and that, if he was not generally away in Ireland, he
was at least now seldom with her in London. She had her children with
her, however. One of these was her only son, styled then simply Mr.
Richard Jones, though modern custom would style him Lord Navan. In
1655 he was a boy of fifteen years of age, Lady Ranelagh herself
being then just forty. The education of this boy, and of her two or
three girls, was her main anxiety; but she took a deep interest as
well in the affairs of all the members of the Boyle family, not one
of whom would take any step of importance without consulting her. She
corresponded with them all, but especially with Lord Broghill and the
philosophical young Robert, both of them her juniors, and Robert
peculiarly her _protege_. In his letters to her, all written
carefully and in a strain of stately and respectful affection, we see
the most absolute confidence in her judgment; and it is from her
letters to him, full of solicitude about his health, and of interest
in his experiments and speculations, that we obtain perhaps the best
idea of that combination of intellectual and moral excellencies to
which her contemporaries felt they could not do justice except by
calling her "the incomparable Lady Ranelagh." For that name, which
was to be hers through an entire generation