Page:The Harveian oration for 1874.djvu/19

 we come to a sentence which begins, ‘When I was at Venice in former years;’ but as we read on, in hopes to find some record of the impression left on Harvey’s mind by that wonderful city, it turns out that the place is mentioned merely because it was there that Aromatari, a learned physician, showed him a specimen of unusually exuberant vegetable growth as illustrative of the influence of soft air, mild climate, and bright sky on the development of plants.

Harvey’s whole mind, almost his whole heart, seem to have been devoted to his favourite pursuits. He did not care for wealth, he did not care for fame; married, but childless, his first affections seem to have been set on the places where he had studied or had taught. Aubrey tells us (I am not quite sure whether correctly) that in spite of his brother’s entreaties he persisted in giving the stone house where he and all his brothers were born to Caius College, Cambridge. His diploma of Doctor of Medicine of Padua, his earliest trophy,