Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/84

 78 told us of Harvey's high appreciation of Aristotle's writings ; but in his own writings he refers to the Stagirite more frequently, I think, than to any other individual. And, as regards Vergil (the Latin author whom probably, if but one Latin classical writer could be saved from destruction, most men would choose to be that one, as Aristotle probably would be the similarly to be chosen Greek), Sir William Temple (Miscellanies, Part ii, On Poetry, p. 314) has told us that ' the famous Dr. Harvey, when he was read- ing Virgil, would sometimes throw him down upon the table and say he had a devil/ It was a similar spirit which dwelt in Sir Philip Sidney, who never heard the famous ballad of Percy and Douglas with- out feeling his 'heart moved more than with a trumpet.' It may seem to some but a small matter to vindicate for our great discoverer claims to a familiarity with Greek ; still, any one who will look at such passages as the one in the Exerci- tatio de Partu, p. 553, where he speaks of the mischief done by meddlesome midwives, or other passages (pp. 116, 129, and 133, Epi-