 At this time Boyle settled in Stalbridge (on an estate left to him by his father) and occupied himself mainly in writing or planning works in ethics and theology. Much of his time during the early part of this Stalbridge period was spent in moral philosophy — “My Ethics go very slowly on,” he wrote to his sister Katherine on March 30, 1646 (BC 1:34) — and there was at this stage no reason to think that he would become one of the great natural philosophers of his time. (See further, Hunter 2009, chs. 4 and 5; Corneanu 2020.) He already approximated to the “lay-bishop” that Aubrey, quoting Anthony Walker, was later to find him to be. He was, in fact, a serious, somewhat priggish young man, though he often gave signs of light-heartedness both as a boy and in later life. After his death Gilbert Burnet claimed that “As for Joy, he had indeed nothing of Frolick and Levity in him,” a judgement accepted by Steven Shapin, but this fails to allow for the lighter moments that Boyle undoubtedly  enjoyed.[13]