“Their learned speculations, And all their constant occupations To measure and to weigh the air And turn a circle to a square”[284]— a certain Italian enthusiast composed twenty-six stanzas of unqualified praise, one of which Oldenburg committed to memory and sent triumphantly to Boyle— “Heroic constellations dispense One ray of your celestial influence That with the telescope I may descry The sacred treasures of your Pansophy!” Perhaps the prettiest compliment of all came from a Parisian friend of Oldenburg’s, who was so charmed with Mr. Boyle’s writings, and so desolated to hear of Mr. Boyle’s delicate health, that he begged Oldenburg to suggest to Mr. Boyle that he should migrate into the sweet air of France. “Proposez-luy la chose: il pourra philosopher par tout, et faire provision de santé pour philosopher plus longtemps.” The message was duly delivered; but Boyle’s philosophising was to go on at home, and praise and blame seem to have had small effect upon him. “I freely confess,” he wrote, “that the great difficulty of things, and the little abilities I find myself furnished with to surmount it, do often, in general, beget in me a _great_ distrust even of things, whereof my adversary’s objections give me not _any_.”[285] The year 1663 saw the publication of three of Robert Boyle’s books. _Some Considerations touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy_, collected from the work of the previous year or two, was published at Oxford. _Some Experiments and Considerations touching Colour_ was published in London; and in the same year he published, also in London, _Some Considerations touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures_. This last, originally suggested to him by Broghill at Marston Bigot, had been the work of some years; and at the time of its publication he was interesting himself in a scheme for the translation of the New Testament for use in Turkey. Oldenburg “rejoiced hugely” over this scheme. “I confess,” says the Puritan secretary of the Royal Society, “it will be troublesome and dangerous to spread such a book as the Bible in Turkey; but yet it ought to be attempted.”