Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/87

Rh of his time—among others to the Lord Chancellor Bacon, whom, Aubrey informs us, "he esteemed much for his witt and style, but would not allow to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, 'He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor'—speaking in derision." Harvey's penetration never failed him: the philosopher of fact cared not for the philosopher of prescription; he who was dealing with the Things, and, through his own inherent powers, exhibiting the Rule, thought little of him who was at work upon abstractions, and who only inculcated the Rule from the use which he saw others making of it. Bacon has many admirers, but there are not wanting some in these present times who hold, with his illustrious contemporary, that "he wrote philosophy like a Lord Chancellor."

Harvey was also acquainted with all the men of letters and science of his age—with Hobbes, Dryden, Cowley, Boyle, and the rest. Dryden, in his metrical epistle to Dr. Charleton, has these lines, of no great merit or significance:—

The circling streams once thought but pools of blood, (Whether life's fuel or the body's food,) From dark oblivion Harvey's name shall save."

Cowley is more happy in his ode on Dr. Harvey:— "Thus Harvey sought for truth in Truth's own book — Creation—which by God himself was writ; And wisely thought 'twas fit Not to read comments only upon it,
 * But on th' original itself to look.

Methinks in Art's great circle others stand Lock'd up together hand in hand:
 * Every one leads as he is led,
 * The same bare path they tread,

A dance like that of Fairies, a fantastic round, With neither change of motion nor of ground.
 * Had Harvey to this road confined his wit,
 * His noble circle of the blood had been untrodden yet."

Cowley and Harvey must often have encountered; both