Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/78

 been recorded, with the exception of the somewhat uncertain gossip of the gossiping Aubrey. But what we do know of the place during those years which elapsed between the battle of Edgehill and 1646, makes us certain that scientific, and indeed any other work, must have been carried on in it under great disadvantages. We read of the plague, and of the 'morbus campestris,' described by a former Harveian orator and Linacre lecturer as desolating the town and driving people out of residence. It was, besides, a centre for military operations; and military life has been shown, by the experience of all ages (though this experience appears to have been lost upon the heedlessness and ignorance of this), to be out of harmony with the habits of men, old as was Harvey then (aet. 64-68), young as our under-graduates are now, who are, or who ought