The letter heralds Robert Boyle’s own arrival in Ireland on a visit to his sister at Castle Lyons, and to the various family homes in Munster. His Irish estates were certainly calling for his attention; but the visit was to be postponed. Broghill’s diplomatic victories were but the beginning of bloody warfare. Broghill was to serve Cromwell through the whole of the war with Ireland, in a series of brilliant engagements. “A’ Broghill! A’ Broghill!” was the battle-cry that led on his men; and he narrowly escaped with his life in the last engagement of all—his victory at Knockbrack. Broghill was the man aimed at. “Kill the fellow in the gold-laced coat!” the Irish soldiers shouted to each other. But Broghill was not killed, though “my boldest horse,” he wrote, “being twice wounded, became so fearful that he was turned to the coach.”[174] In the summer of 1650 Robert Boyle was still at Stalbridge, writing on May Day to thank Hartlib for his gossip about _Utopia_ and _Breda_:[175] “my inclinations as much concerning me in _Republicâ Literariâ_ as my fortune can do in _Republicâ Anglicanâ_. Nor am I idle, though my thoughts only are not at present useless to the advancement of learning; for I can sometimes make shift to snatch from the importunity of my affairs leisure to trace such plans and frame such models, etc., as, if my Irish fortune will afford me quarries and woods to draw competent materials from to construct after them, will fit me to build a pretty house in Athens, where I may live to philosophy and Mr. Hartlib.” At this time, Ireland and Athens were equally remote. Was there an attraction, other than the Invisibles, that still kept Robert Boyle within reach of London? Many years afterwards—after Robert Boyle was dead—his old friend John Evelyn, writing about him to Dr. Wotton said: “Tho’ amongst all his experiments he never made that of the maried life, yet I have been told he courted a beautifull and ingenious daughter of Carew,[176] Earl of Monmouth, to which is owing the birth of his _Seraphick Love_.” Was this, indeed, the love-story of Robert Boyle’s life? If so, it was lived through between the years 1648 and 1650. As early as the cold January of 1648, at Stalbridge, on the very day he came of age, in some moment of depression or decision, the boy had made a little sacrifice to Vulcan: he had resolutely burned most of the verses, “amorous, merry and devout” that he had written in idle moments, and laid away “uncommunicated.”[177] Then, when spring came, and the Stalbridge orchards were white with blossom, he had set off on his visit to London, and taken up his abode in those rooms in St. James’s that had been engaged for him by his sister Ranelagh. Early in June, he was writing to his friend Mrs. Hussey—presumably a Dorsetshire friend and neighbour—a letter full of political gossip, written the very day after he had supped with the ladies at Warwick House. But how does the letter end?