The year 1661 saw the publication not only of Boyle’s _Physiological Essays_[275] already mentioned, but of his epoch-making _Scepticall Chymist_.[276] It was the first year of “Our Society’s” existence; a year of immense interest and activity among its members; but Boyle himself was not always in London, and not indeed wholly occupied with the claims of experimental science. In 1662 he found himself unexpectedly in possession of more Irish land, a grant of “forfeited impropriations” having been obtained from the King in Robert Boyle’s name, though without his knowledge. To Boyle, the gift seems to have been somewhat in the nature of a white elephant, and he applied for advice in the matter to his friend the Bishop of Lincoln.[277] He was not sure if he ought to take the grant at all, and still less decided as to what he ought to do with the proceeds. He did not wish to “reflect upon those persons of honour” who had done him the kindness unasked, and he would dearly have liked to spend the proceeds, if he did take the grant, in “the advancement of real knowledge.” Ultimately he did decide to accept it, and to spend two-thirds of the proceeds in Ireland on the relief of the poor and the maintenance of the Protestant religion; while the other third was to go to the purposes of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of which the King had lately appointed him governor. This, too, had been done without Boyle’s knowledge. “So that the main benefit I intend to derive from the King’s bounty,” says Boyle laconically, “is the opportunity of doing some good with what, if my friends had not obtained it, might have been begged by others, who would have otherwise employed it.”[278] The matter settled—to nobody’s entire satisfaction—Boyle went on with his work in Oxford, sending his communications to the Royal Society through the secretary, Henry Oldenburg. Present or absent, Mr. Boyle was the hero of the hour at Gresham College, and his air-pump the chief attraction of its meetings.[279] “I waited on Prince Rupert to our assembly,” says Evelyn, “where we tried severall experiments in Mr. Boyle’s _vacuum_. A man thrusting in his arm upon exhaustion of the air had his flesh immediately swelled so as the blood was neare bursting the veins: he drawing it out we found it all speckled.”[280]