Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/16

 Harvey, occupied with matters purely medical, found leisure in the intervals of practice for that brooding of the mind which is necessary for the effective incubation of all fertile ideas.

The intellectual and literary productiveness of these thirty years was such as must strike our special wonder. In this period Shakespeare pro- duced " Hamlet," Macbeth," "Othello," " Lear," and other plays, admittedly the greatest creations of the human mind; Gilbert published his work "De Magnete;" Galileo's discoveries were bringing him into conflict with the Holy Office at Rome, Kepler enunciated his laws; Napier announced the invention of logarithms, and Francis Bacon was busy in issuing his pregnant thoughts.

From 1629 to 1649 Harvey's life was less settled. First, he is appointed by the King to travel with the young Duke of Lennox; next he attends his Sovereign in Scotland, and then goes with Lord Arundel on an embassy to Vienna. This brings us to the year 1636, and three years later we find him appointed senior physician in ordinary to the King, with whose fortunes thenceforward he is closely and personally associated. Harvey was in charge of the young Princes at the battle of Edgehill in 1642, lived with the King at Oxford while that city served the functions of a Court and barrack as well as of a university, and was Warden of Merton College from April, 1645, to May, 1646, when the city finally capitulated to Fairfax.