Upon my Spaniel’s carefulness not to lose me in a Strange place, and Upon his manner of giving Meat to his Dogg, are two of these Reflections.[152]
There is nothing very original in Robert Boyle’s method of feeding a dog, except that it carries with it his inevitable moral conclusions; but the youthful essay hands down the picture of master and dog to posterity:—
“For but observe this Dogg. I hold him out meat, and my inviting Voice loudly encourages and invites him to take it. ’Tis held indeed higher than he can leap, and yet, if he leap not at it, I do not give it him; but if he do, I let it fall half-way into his mouth.”
Spaniels have fetched their masters’ gloves from time immemorial; but none quite so graphically as Robert Boyle’s:—[153]
“How importunate is he to be imployed about bringing me this glove! And with what Clamours and how many fawnings does he court me to fling it him! I never saw him so eager for a piece of Meat as I find him for a Glove. And yet he knows it is no Food for him, nor is it Hunger that creates his Longings for it; for now I have cast it him, he does nothing else with it but (with a kind of Pride to be sent for it, and a satisfaction which his glad gestures make appear so great, that the very use of Speech would not enable him to express it better) brings it me back again....”
In the mere names of these Reflections may be traced the manner in which he spent his days: Upon distilling the Spirit of Roses in a Limbick: Upon two very miserable Beggars begging together by the Highway: Upon the Sight of a Windmill standing still: Upon his Coaches being stopt in a narrow Lane: Upon the Sight of a fair Milkmaid Singing to her Cow:[154] Upon Talking to an Echo: Upon a Child that Cri’d for the Stars;—in which last are quoted Waller’s lines—
“Thus in a starry night fond children cry
For the rich spangles which adorn the sky.”
One of the Reflections, Upon the Eating of Oysters, possesses a secondary interest: it is supposed to have suggested to Swift his Gulliver’s Travels. Like others of the Reflections, it is written in the form of conversation between Eugenius and Lindamor.[155]
“Eug.—You put me in mind of a fancy of your Friend Mr. Boyle, who was saying, that he had thoughts of making a short Romantick story, where the Scene should be laid in some Island of the Southern Ocean, govern’d by some such rational Laws and Customs as those of Utopia or the New Atlantis, and in the Country he would introduce an Observing Native, that upon his return home from his Travels made in Europe should give an account of our Countries and manners under feign’d Names, and frequently intimate in his Relations (or in his Answers to Questions that should be made him) the reasons of his wondring to find our Customs so extravagant, and differing from those of his Country....”