Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/131

 RADCLIFFE. 113 progress, that his father, notwithstanding the in- cumbrance of a numerous family, all to be pro- vided for, resolved to give him an Oxford educa- tion, and entered him, at the early age of fifteen, a member of University College. He took his de- gree of A. B. in due time; he was made senior scholar of his college, yet, as no fellowship be- came vacant there, he removed to Lincoln College, of which he had been previously invited to become a Fellow. Here he was enabled, by a more liberal allow- ance granted him by his mother (for his father was now dead), to pursue the study of pliysic, which he had chosen, and attend the difi'erent courses of anatomy, chemistry, and botany, deli- vered in the University. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1672, as it is said, with uncom- mon applause. As to his academical career, we are told that he held logic in small esteem, but devoted liimself eagerly to the cultivation of more general literature. It w^as his boast that he did not prepare himself for the practice of the art of healing, by what he considered an useless appli- cation to the rubbish of antiquity contained in musty volumes, but by a careful examination of the most valuable treatises that made their appear- ance in his own times. His books, while he was a student of medicine, though well chosen, were so few in number, that, being visited by Dr. Bathurst, the Master of Trinity College (the com- panion of Harvey in his experiments upon the incubation of eggs), and asked by him where was his library, Radcliffe replied, by pointing to a I