“For my Lord of Warwick, I can assure you, as he does me, that he is not only not afraid, but desirous of your company here; he advises your lying at Kimbolton, my Lord Chamberlain’s house, a day’s journey from Oxford; and from thence at Audley End, another day’s journey, and thence hither, but to Mr. Waller’s,[304] which I hope is uninfected ... and thence to Parkhall,[305] which is also clear for aught I know, and thence hither is your nearest way, and Crip would send a man to guide you....” And she leaves her strongest argument for the postscript— “_If you make not haste, the Court will overtake you at Oxford._” Robert Boyle was no courtier. He did run away from Oxford, but not, it seems, to Leeze. He disappeared almost as effectively as Milton disappeared at the Restoration. For a time his friends did not know his retreat, and sent letters to him haphazard “by way of London.” In November the Plague was decreasing, and Lady Ranelagh could report that at Leeze they were still all well—“Crip only excepted, who had lately a roaring fit of the gout, but a very short one, in respect of those he used to have at this time of year, which he attributes much to his chewing of scurvy-grass.” Lady Ranelagh herself was reading all her brother’s books over again to comfort herself for his absence, and was lending them, one after the other, to the “few studious persons” whom she met at Leeze. And her fingers were itching to open a sealed roll of papers belonging to him, labelled “About Religious Matters.” It was January 22 before the Royal Society met again. “The first meeting of Gresham College since the Plague,” says Pepys, who had, with exceptional bravery, remained in London through it all. “Dr. Goddard did fill us with talk, in defence of his and his fellow-physicians going out of town in the plague-time, saying that their particular patients were most all gone out of town, and they left at liberty, and a great deal more, etc. But what, among other fine discourse pleased me most, was Sir G. Ent[306] about Respiration; that it is not to this day known, or concluded on among physicians, nor to be done, either, how the action is managed by nature, or for what use it is.” April came; and the brilliant, wanton Court was back in London; and Robert Boyle had come, not into London itself, but to a lodging found for him in the village of Newington, on the Surrey Side. Oldenburg had walked out to Newington one day in March, before Boyle arrived, and inspected the house and its surroundings— “It seems to be very convenient for you,” he wrote to Boyle, “there being a large orchard, a walk for solitary meditations, a dry ground round about, and in all appearance a good air”; advantages which were accompanied by “a civil Landlord and fair Landlady.”[307]