Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/88

lxxxiv had the confidence of the king, but in very different ways: Cowley lent himself to the privacies and intrigues of the royal family and its adherents, for whom he even consented to play the base part of spy upon their opponents. He was also the cypher-letter writer, and the decypherer of the royal correspondence, and thus mixed up with all the littlenesses of the court party, by whom he must have been, as matter of course, despised, as he was subsequently neglected. Harvey was a man of another stamp, composed of a different clay; and it gives us a high sense of his independence and true nobility of nature that in the midst of faction and intrigue, he is never found associated with aught that is unworthy of the name of man in his best estate. The war of party and the work of destruction might be going on around; Harvey, under a hedge, and within reach of shot, was cooly engaged with his book, or in the chamber of his friend Dr. Bathurst, wrapt in contemplation of the mysteries of Generation.

Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities; "Man" he says "comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature had destined him for a social creature and ordained that he should live under equitable laws and in peace; as if she had desired that he should be guided by reason rather than be driven by force." The whole of the opposition to his new views on the circulation was got up at a distance; all within his own sphere were of his way of thinking. His brethren of the College of Physicians appear to have revered him. The congregated fellows must have risen to their feet by common consent as he came among them on the memorable occasion after they had elected him their president.