HIS PUBLIC CAREER. xxxvii 



of his profession had been tendered to him, and gracefully 

 declined. To a mind like Harvey's, and with the opportunity 

 afforded him of making so graceful a concession, the foremost 

 place was certainly a higher distinction unaccepted, than it 

 had been enjoyed. The excuse for declining the office of 

 president was not merely personal : it was not alone that he 

 was an old man, infirm in health, and incompetent for so great 

 a trust ; but, the affairs of the college had greatly thriven 

 under the prudent management and constant care of the late 

 president, and it was no more than right that he who had 

 but just laid down should be re-established in authority. 



Harvey, we have said, was childless ; his wife, though we 

 have not the date of her death, he had certainly lost by 

 this time. His only surviving brother Eliab was rich ; his 

 nephews were prosperous merchants and on the road to the 

 independence and titles which several of them afterwards 

 achieved : he, therefore, determined to make the College of 

 Physicians not only heirs to his paternal estate, worth, at that 

 time, 56/. per annum, but to bestow it on them in free gift 

 during his life. This purpose he carried into effect by means 

 of a formal instrument, which he delivered to the college in 

 the month of July, 1656 ; the special provisions in the deed 

 settling one sum, by way of salary for the librarian, and 

 another sum, for the delivery of a solemn oration annually, in 

 commemoration of those who had approved themselves bene- 

 factors to the college, and, by extension, who had added aught 

 to the sum of medical science in the course of the bygone year. 1 



1 There is much information on the life of Harvey in the inscription upon the 

 copper-plate which was attached to his portrait in the old College of Physicians. I 

 give it entire, anxious to set before the reader every authentic word of his times that 

 was uttered of Harvey. This inscription, but, unless I mistake, abbreviated, may be 

 found in printed letters under the bust of Harvey in the theatre of the Royal College 

 of Physicians : 



GULIELMUS HARV/EUS, 

 Anglus natus, Galliac, Italia 1 , Germaniae hospes, 



Ubique Amor et Desiderium, 

 Quein omnis terra expetisset Civem, 



