HIS CHARACTER. hxv 



The letter to Vlackveld was written the very year, within 

 a few weeks indeed, of his death. It is even touching it is 

 in vain, he says, to his correspondent, that he would apply the 

 spur ; he has already felt his right to demand his release from 

 duty; yet would he still be honorably considered by his 

 contemporaries, and he begs his friend Vlackveld to love him 

 to the last. 



We have taken occasion from time to time in the course 

 of our narrative, to glance at the mental and moral consti- 

 tution, and also at the personal character, of Harvey, prin- 

 cipally by way of inference from his conduct on particular 

 occasions, and from what appears in his writings. Happily we 

 have in addition a few particulars from the pen of a contem- 

 porary, John Aubrey, 1 which, though perchance they do not 

 harmonize in every respect with the facts in his public life and 

 the portrait he gives us of himself in his works, are neverthe- 

 less extremely interesting, and cannot be left unnoticed in a 

 Life of Harvey. 



" In person," Aubrey informs us, "Harvey was not tall, but 

 of the lowest stature ; round faced ; olivaster (like wainscot) 

 complexion ; little eye, round, very black, full of spirit ; his 

 hair black as a raven, but quite white 20 years before he 

 died/' The portrait we have of Harvey by Cornelius Jansen, 

 in the library of the Royal College of Physicians, as well as 

 of one, we presume by Bemmel, now in the possession of Dr. 

 Richard Bright, corresponds with this account : the tempera- 

 ment is nervous-bilious ; the forehead is compact and square, 

 and of greater width than usual between the temples ; the ex- 

 pression is highly intellectual, contemplative, and manly. 



" In temper," Aubrey says, " he was like the rest of his 

 brothers, very choleric, and, in his younger days, he wore a 

 dagger, as the fashion then was, which he would be apt to draw 

 1 Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1813. 



