The Hon. Charles Boyle, afterwards second Earl of Orrery, is wickedly described by Bentley as “the young gentleman of great hopes, whose name is set to the new edition” of _Phalaris_; and, as Boyle was but nineteen years of age at the time of publication, it may be considered certain that he received very material assistance from Dr. Atterbury, Dr. Friend, and from the admired Dean Aldrich. Perhaps all four had a very different idea of accurate criticism from that style of it which Bentley initiated in England, and which now seems somewhat overpowered by the burden of its research. The celebrated answer to Bentley’s _Dissertation_, published under Boyle’s name in 1689, was really a joint production of the leading Christ Church men, and Atterbury claimed a principal share. Between them they made a good fight for it; but it is difficult for any set of men, however learned, ingenious, and petulantly witty, to maintain a long controversy at the stress of being wholly wrong. Unquestionably it was premature in Aldrich to set young noblemen in their teens to publish editions of writers believed to have been contemporary with Pythagoras or thereabouts. Nevertheless such critical work as they could do would probably teach them something more than a dilettante knowledge of language: and this the Dean evidently understood to be a chief want of his time. Boyle was no match for Bentley; but he came to be an accomplished and gallant gentleman who never through a stirring life forsook the love of learning, or of his old abode of learning--perhaps rather, of literature. He could see the vast shapes of the natural sciences advancing with new wonders; and was the benefactor of George Graham, who named his great planetary instrument after his title. His gifts to the Christ Church Library should be commemorated; and he is one instance out of a great number of men who have made Christ Church to themselves a home of friends, and so from their Alma Mater forward have faced the world together.