In the mere names of these _Reflections_ may be traced the manner in which he spent his days: _Upon distilling the Spirit of Roses in a Limbick_: _Upon two very miserable Beggars begging together by the Highway_: _Upon the Sight of a Windmill standing still_: _Upon his Coaches being stopt in a narrow Lane_: _Upon the Sight of a fair Milkmaid Singing to her Cow_:[154] _Upon Talking to an Echo_: _Upon a Child that Cri’d for the Stars_;—in which last are quoted Waller’s lines— “Thus in a starry night fond children cry For the rich spangles which adorn the sky.” One of the _Reflections_, _Upon the Eating of Oysters_, possesses a secondary interest: it is supposed to have suggested to Swift his _Gulliver’s Travels_. Like others of the _Reflections_, it is written in the form of conversation between _Eugenius_ and _Lindamor_.[155] “EUG.—You put me in mind of a fancy of your Friend Mr. Boyle, who was saying, that he had thoughts of making a short Romantick story, where the Scene should be laid in some Island of the Southern Ocean, govern’d by some such rational Laws and Customs as those of _Utopia_ or the _New Atlantis_, and in the Country he would introduce an Observing Native, that upon his return home from his Travels made in Europe should give an account of our Countries and manners under feign’d Names, and frequently intimate in his Relations (or in his Answers to Questions that should be made him) the reasons of his wondring to find our Customs so extravagant, and differing from those of his Country....” The _Reflections_ show Robert Boyle as he lived and thought and felt; as he rose early on a “fair morning,” and looked up at the “variously coloured clouds,” and listened to the lark’s song overhead; as he picked up a horse-shoe, watched boys at their games, or tried a prismatical or triangular glass; as he fished with a “counterfeit fly” along the river-banks, or let the fish run away with the more homely bait; as he looked at his own shadow cast in the face of a pool, or his own face in a looking-glass with a rich frame. What an opportunity was the magnetical needle of a sundial, or the use of a burning-glass, or the drinking of water out of the brims of one’s own hat! What food for reflection was a syrup made of violets, or a glow-worm included in a crystal viol! What thoughts fluttered about the tail of a paper kite flown on a windy day, or about a lanthorn and candle carried by on a dark and windy night! And Robert Boyle did once shoot something, as may be seen from the title of one particular _Reflection_: “Killing a Crow (out of a window) in a Hog’s trough, and immediately tracing the ensuing _Reflection_ with a Pen made of one of his Quills....”