but a substantial proposition in presence of his opponent, and which there is tradition at least to assure us he was called upon to fulfil.—Harvey is reported to have made a public demonstration of his anatomical views at Nuremberg, satisfactory to all present save Caspar Hofmann himself; to whom, as he still continued to urge objections, the futile nature of which we in these days can readily understand, Harvey is further related to have deigned no other answer than by laying down the scalpel and retiring, conduct which we find in entire conformity with our estimate of the character of the man.[1]
On his return to England, in the winter of 1636, Harvey must have resumed his place near the person of the sovereign, and by and by, as in duty bound, accompanied him on his first hostile expedition into Scotland in 1639, when matters were happily accommodated between the King and his Scottish subjects, whom he had driven to take up arms so righteously in defence of their religious liberties. Harvey, as physician to the person, may be further presumed to have been with Charles when he marched towards the Border the following year, so memorable in the annals of English history, when the war with the Scots was renewed, when the king's authority received the first check at the battle of Newbury, and when Charles, returning to his capital after his defeat, encountered the still more formidable opposition of the English Parliament.
Harvey may now be said to have become fairly involved with the Court. From the total absence of his name in the transactions of the times, it is nevertheless interesting to observe how completely he kept himself aloof from all the intrigues
- ↑ Slegel (P. M.) De Sanguinis Motu Comment., 4to, Hamb. 1650, informs us in his Preface, that, whilst living with Hofmann in 1638, he had sedulously tried to bring him to admit the circulation; Slegel goes on to say, however, that it was in vain, and indeed that Harvey himself had failed to convince him: "Neque tantum valuit Harveus, vel coram (i.e. in his presence) cum salutaret Hofmannum in itinere Germanico, vel literis," &c. The old man, nevertheless, seems not to have been altogether deaf to reason; Slegel had hopes of him at last had he but lived: "Nec dubito quin concessisset tandem in nostra castra."
