Page:The Harveian oration, 1875 (IA b22314611).pdf/56

I began this lecture by presenting to you Harvey, the aged philosopher, endowing the college with his paternal estate, and providing for the annual delivery of the oration that bears his name. It is Harvey the old man whose words I shall finish by quoting, and it is Sir George Ent, on the errand that secured for us Harvey's Work on Generation, who speaks:—“I found him," he says, “Democritus like, busy with the study of natural things, his countenance cheerful, his mind serene, embracing all within its sphere." In answer to his salutation, Harvey, referring to the miserable distractions of the time, says:—“Did I not find solace in my studies, and a balm for my spirit in the memory of my observations of former years, I should feel little desire for longer life. But so it has been, that this life of obscurity, this vacation from public business, which causes tedium and disgust to so many, has proved a sovereign remedy to me." Again, in one of his letters to Nardi of Florence, in which he treats of some obscure matters connected with generation, he says: “I myself, though verging on my eightieth year, and sorely failing in bodily strength, nevertheless, feel my mind still vigorous, so that I continue to give