A free discourse against customary swearing. And a dissuasive from cursing.

By the late Honourable Robert Boyle. Published by John Williams, D. D. London: Printed by R.R. for Thomas Cockerill, 1695. First edition. Octavo, half-calf over marbled boards (rubbed), pp. [xvi]; 131; [3]; 30; (2 – contents, with a tear to the leaf), lacking the engraved portrait frontispiece of Boyle, and the terminal advertisement leaf, title leaf with contemporary owner’s name Charles Shillito inscribed.

A polemic discourse on the sins of blasphemous swearing, published during the Restoration nearly half a century after being penned by Boyle.

Robert Boyle is perhaps best known (along with Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier) as the ‘father of modern chemistry’ and the namesake of ‘Boyle’s Law’ however his interests were wide ranging and in depth, and saw Boyle publish treatises on theories of race, divinity and alchemy. Boyle died in 1691 and this discourse, ostensibly written in 1647, was published four years later by John Williams, dedicated ‘To the Right Honourable Richard, Earl of Burlington and Cork, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland. And the Honourable Sir Henry Abhhurst, Baronet, executors to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire’. A free discourse against customary swearing. And a dissuasive from cursing  has traditionally attracted opinion from scholars which doubt it’s authenticity as Boyle’s writing (Fulton, Agassi), however Edward B. Davis notes in his paper The Anonymous Works of Robert Boyle and the Reasons Why a Protestant Should not Turn Papist (1687), Boyle’s treatise The Swearer Silenc’t and The Appendix to it was sighted as early as 1650 with supplementary fragmentary notes discovered in Boyle’s papers confirming his authorship of the text.

Fulton 197; Wing B3978.

Reference : DAVIS, Edward B. The Anonymous Works of Robert Boyle and the Reasons Why a Protestant Should not Turn Papist (1687), in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 611-629