xxviii THE LIFE OF HARVEY. 



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 de- 

 monstration 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 re- 

 lated to have deigned no other answer than by laying down 

 the scalpel and retiring, conduct which we find in entire con- 

 formity 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 trans- 

 actions of the times, it is nevertheless interesting to observe 

 how completely he kept himself aloof from all the intrigues 



1 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, vcl 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 : " Nee 

 dubito quin concessisset tandem in nostra castra." 



