Orrery, Charles Boyle, 4th earl of

Orrery, Charles Boyle, 4th earl of (or'urē) [key], 1676–1731, English nobleman; grandson of the 1st earl of Orrery. He succeeded his brother as earl in 1703. A supporter of Sir William Temple in his controversy with Richard Bentley over modern and antique scholarship, Orrery edited (1695) The Epistles of Phalaris. The issue was satirized—and made famous—by Jonathan Swift in his Battle of the Books. Orrery rose to the rank of major general (1709) in the War of the Spanish Succession, and assisted in the negotiation of the Peace of Utrecht (1713–14). He was a patron of the inventor George Graham, who designed the planetarium called the orrery.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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