Robert Boyle, author of Boyle’s Law, Fellow of the Royal Society, and like Roger Boyle, a son of the great Earl of Cork, makes an odd appearance in this company. His _Preface to Theodora and Didymus_ (1687) has psychological rather than historical significance. He, too, considered gravely the claims of history against the rival attractions of fiction and imagination but his remarks have the merit of focussing a problem which was of immediate importance to him and called for nicety and skill in finding a solution. The story he was contriving into a “voluminous romance” was one of tragic import. There is nothing that savours of Cyrus or Oroondates. “True examples,” he maintains, “do arm and fortify the Mind far more efficaciously than Imaginary or Fictitious ones can do.” Yet how could this effect be realized when the scanty materials provided were insufficient to give body to his book? Besides, the nature of the theme forbade those “Imbellishments which, in other themes, are wont to supply the deficiencies of the matter.” Boyle is not won over by the siren voices which might have urged him to give imagination full rein. His integrity makes such a course impossible, but he fully realizes the nature of his quandary. Theodora’s sad choice between death or ravishment and her request to Didymus that he should kill her with his sword rather than let her be dishonoured, opened a new vein for the sentimental school and set a problem in speculative ethics of which Richardson, with his nicely adjusted views of heavenly rather than poetic justice, would exploit with resounding success in _Clarissa Harlowe_. There is a hint, even in Boyle, that these vicarious pleasures are concocted to a recipe that is intended to please the guests at the feast rather than the cooks who prepared it. Defoe’s principle that all should be left to “the gust and palate of the reader” receives perhaps its first expression here and helped create a sense of the relativity of all values without which, in every age, the novelist would find it difficult to pursue his avocations or stimulate his readers’ interest. Charles Davies University College of N. Wales, Bangor NOTE _Parthenissa_ is reproduced, with permission, from the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, the other works from the copies in the British Museum. PARTHENISSA, A ROMANCE. In Four Parts. Dedicated to the Lady _NORTHUMBERLAND_, And the Lady _SUNDERLAND_. The First Part. _LONDON_, Printed for _Humphrey Moseley_ and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Prince’s Arms in St _Paul’s_ Church-yard. 1655. THE PREFACE. _Though a Preface before a booke of this Nature is seldome writt, and seldomer Read, yet I could not herein Confine my selfe unto the Examples of others, but have rather elected to decline a Generall Practice, to follow my owne Inclination, than observe one, to immitate the inclination of others._