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lives of the two last eminent men are chiefly remarkable as affording striking examples of the combination of the scholar and physician, and showing how much we are indebted to the profession of physic, for the introduction of classical literature, and the general revival of learning, amongst us. The establishment of the College of Physicians, and the characters of its founder and of his immediate successor, have contributed more than anything else to promote and continue, to the present day, that highly advantageous and creditable union of the science of physic with the scholastic attainments of the University. To this fortunate association, the rank in society occupied by physicians in this country (so much superior to what they hold in any other) is chiefly to be ascribed. But neither Linacre nor Caius, though they advanced and adorned their profession by elegant accomplishments, can be considered as having given a new era to medical science, by any great or signal discovery.

The subject of the present chapter calls up recollections that justly place his name in the highest rank of natural philosophers. The same services which Newton afterwards rendered to optics and astronomy, by his theories of light and gravita-