616 LETTERS. 



books forwarded at the same time, have come to hand or not. 

 I should be happy to have news on this head at your e arliest 

 convenience, and also to be made acquainted with the progress 

 you make in your ' Noctes Geniales/ and other contemplated 

 works. For I am used to solace my declining years, and to 

 refresh my understanding, jaded with -the trifles of every-day 

 life, by reading the best works of this description. I have 

 again to return you my best thanks for your friendly offices to 

 my nephew when at Florence in former years ; and on the 

 arrival in Italy of another of my nephews (who is the bearer 

 of this letter), I entreat you very earnestly that you will be 

 pleased most kindly to favour him with any assistance or 

 advice of which he may stand in need. For thus will you 

 indeed do that which will be very gratifying to me. Farewell, 

 most accomplished sir, and deign to cherish the memory of 

 our friendship, as does most truly the admirer of all your 

 virtues, 



WILLIAM HARVEY. 

 London, Oct. 25th, in the year of the Christian era 1655. 



LETTER IX. 



To the distinguished and accomplished John Vlackveld, 

 Physician at Harlem. 



LEARNED SIR, Your much esteemed letter reached me safely, 

 in which you not only exhibit your kind consideration of me, 

 but display a singular zeal in the cultivation of our art. 



It is even so. Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly 

 to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows 

 traces of her workings apart from the beaten path; nor is 

 there any better way to advance the proper practice of medi- 

 cine than to give our minds to the discovery of the usual law 

 of nature, by the careful investigation of cases of rarer forms 

 of disease. For it has been found in almost all things, that 

 what they contain of useful or of applicable, is hardly per- 

 ceived unless we are deprived of them, or they become de- 



