Gabriel Harvey

“ Facetious analogies of Gabriel’s literary genius!
He then paints to the life the grotesque portrait of Harvey; so that the man himself stands alive before us. “He was of an adust swarth choleric dye, like restie bacon, or a dried scate-fish; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece 122 of burnt parchment, with channels and creases in his face, and wrinkles and frets of old age.” Nash dexterously attributes this premature old age to his own talents ”

“ E. J. L. Scott, Camden Society) , contains rough drafts of the correspondence between Spenser and Harvey, letters relative to the disputes at Pembroke Hall, and an extraordinary correspondence dealing with the pursuit of his sister Mercy by a young nobleman. A copy of Quintilian (1542) , in the British Museum, is extensively annotated by Gabriel Harvey. After Greene’s death Harvey published Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets (1592) , in which in a spirit of righteous superiority he laid bare with spiteful fulness the miserable details of Greene’s later years. ”

“ In 1585 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford, and is found practising at the bar in London. Gabriel's brother, Richard, had taken part in the Marprelate controversy, and had given offence to Robert Greene by contemptuous references to him and his fellow wits. ”

“ Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto”—
afford a fair sample of the success of Harvey’s metrical experiments, which presented a fair mark for the wit of Thomas Nashe. “He (Harvey) goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable, and down the dale in another,” says Nashe in Strange Newes, and he mimics him in the mocking couplet:
“But eh! ”

“ The room was hushed in silence as Harvey's tear-stained face was bowed beside his friend. He spoke no word, and no touch of tenderness was felt except the slow tightening of his arm about the furrowed neck, holding the quivering form close in strong and silent fondness. David spoke at length. "I want you to come along with me, Harvey."
"Where?" Harvey asked in a startled voice.
"Oh, not there," said David, smiling. "You thought I meant the long, long road. No, not that; but I'm goin' to the communion, Harvey—that's what I meant—I'm goin' to join the church." ”

“ After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. They feasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off in their great happiness, while the trains roared in and out around them. Harvey ate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one breath, and when he had a hand free his mother fondled it. His voice was thickened with living in the open, salt air; his palms were rough and hard, his wrists dotted with the marks of gurry-sores; and a fine full flavour of cod-fish hung round rubber boots and blue jersey. ”

“ Harvey yielded to the embrace—and understood. When at length David partially released him, he looked into the face before him. The eyes that met his own were swimming, and David's face was aglow with the yearning and compassion that only great souls can know.
"Oh, Harvey," the shaking voice began, hardly above a whisper, "I love you like my own son. Don't, Harvey—for God's sake, don't; kill your mother some other way," and again he drew the now sobbing lad close to his bosom. ”

“ How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the dory, but quite as lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once; he was dropped into a dark, heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he fell asleep. ”

“ So long as we do not deify human intellect, every triumph that it achieves enriches all; and it is as proud a thing for us to be able to claim citizenship with Newton or with Bacon as with Wellington or with Nelson. Nor is this all, but in Harvey’s time the manner in which he conducted his enquiries was in its teachings of value little less than was the result at which he arrived. ”

“ It was these very observations upon fishes and frogs, which eventually gained the day in favor of Harvey's ideas on the circulation of the blood, at which the learned men of his own age had laughed so much. He was dead by that time it is true, as has happened but too often in such cases, but do not let us pity him too much! He who has had the rare good-fortune to lay hold of a new truth, and launch it into the world, is sufficiently recompensed in advance. ”

“ Nothing is there now so much in my vowes as to be at peace with all men, and make submissive amends where I have most displeased.’ Declaring himself tired of the controversy with Harvey, he acknowledged in generous terms that he had rashly assailed Harvey's ‘fame and reputation.’ But Harvey was deaf to the appeal; ‘the tears of the crocodile,’ he declared, did not move him. He at once renewed the battle in his ‘New Letter of Notable Contents.’ In a second edition of his ‘Christes Teares’ Nash accordingly withdrew his offers of peace, and lashed Harvey anew with unbounded fury. ”

“ It was immediately deposited in the sarcophagus in the presence of the President, the Office Bearers, and many Fellows of the Royal College of [174] Physicians. A leaden case was also deposited within the sarcophagus containing the quarto edition of Harvey’s works in Latin, edited in 1766 by Drs. Akenside and Lawrence, with a memorial bottle hermetically sealed and containing a scroll with the following memorial:
“The body of William Harvey lapt in lead, simply soldered, was laid without shell or enclosure of any kind in the Harvey vault of this Church of Hempstead, Essex, in June, 1657. ”

“ But my search has yielded little fruit, partly, I suppose, from Harvey’s own character. The man who needed the cannon-shot at Edge Hill [4] to arouse him from his studies and to make him remove for the sake of the Princes committed to his care to a safer place, lived too entirely in his own pursuits to take much heed of life beyond them. It was with him much as it has been with many of our greatest artists, to whom the external world was but suggestive of the inner world in which they lived ”

“ There he stood in the inner circle on the other side of Harvey's prostrate body fastening the belt around his waist. Tall, majestic, with the same unearthly beauty that I possessed illuminating his countenance. But his was the cold beauty of a statue. There was no warm, pulsing humanity to temper it. I wondered how I could ever have been drawn to him even in my thoughts.
"So we meet again, my Goddess," he said, "and I owe the meeting to your lover." He touched Harvey's inanimate body with his foot. ”

“ It is long since I have done anything at Exploring Expedition plants. I am now going at them. It is a shabby, unsatisfactory collection....
Cambridge, November 2, 1849.
... Sorry I am that you could not be here while Harvey is here; he will he south by Christmas. He desires me to say that he expects to spend the first half of December in New York at Dr. Hosack’s, and will be most glad to see you. I am sure you will like him. We are perfectly charmed with him. A quiet, unaffected, pleasant man—extremely lovable. He works away at a table in my study. His course is a very interesting one. ”

“ We can imagine no discomfiture while the heavenly light shines through us. Harvey, though he thought with humility of his past as impotent and ignoble in respect of action, felt with his rich vivid consciousness that he was capable of entering into her subtlest emotions. He could not think of the future without her; he could not give up the hope of drawing nigh with her to those mysteries of life which haunted them both. ”

“ Then Harvey leaned forward and, with unerring aim, threw something he took out of his belt into the bowl. A soft swirling smoke rose from it, almost like sea mist. It billowed around the inner circle and gradually spread to the other one, until it enveloped Harvey and me. I could no longer see the strange, mystical passes that Harvey was making with his hands, but I could hear his voice intoning unfamiliar words And beyond his voice the sound of the sea pounding on the shore—a deep, minor undertone that had a rhythmic quality. ”

“ If ever the world was an oyster for a youth the world of Harvey and the fullness thereof was an oyster to Thomas Van Dorn. He had all that the crude western community cherished: the prestige of money, family, education, and that indefinable grace and courtesy of body and soul that we call charm. And Harvey people seemed to be made for him. He liked their candor, their strength, their crass materialism, their bray and bluster, their vain protests of democracy and their unconscious regard for his caste and culture. ”

“ Question as to Harvey's Originality.—The question of how near some of his predecessors came to anticipating his demonstration of the circulation has been much debated. It has been often maintained that Servetus and Realdus Columbus held the conception of the circulation for which Harvey has become so celebrated. Of the various accounts of the views of Harvey's predecessors, those of Willis, Huxley, [Pg 47] and Michael Foster are among the most judicial; that of Foster, indeed, inasmuch as it contains ample quotations from the original sources, is the most nearly complete and satisfactory. ”

“ Harvey was never so far in the background as when he appeared in the foreground. One seldom took notice of him unless he was out of sight, or at least out of hearing.
He was not effeminate; he was not the puerile, shiftless creature the foregoing sentences may have led you to suspect. He was simply a weakling in the strong grasp of circumstance. He could not help himself; to save his life, he could not be anything but Nellie Duluth’s husband.
Not a bad-looking chap, as men of his stamp go. Not much of a spine, perhaps, and a little saggy about the shoulders; all in all, rather a common type. ”

“ I have hitherto dwelt upon the claims to our honor of Harvey the philosopher; one word, in conclusion, concerning Harvey the man. There have been great men whose personality one would gladly forget: brilliant capacities besmirched with the stains of inordinate ambition, or vanity, or avarice; or soiled by worse vices; or men of one idea, unable to look beyond the circle of their own pursuits. But no such flaw as any of these defaces the fair fame of William Harvey. ”

“ Tawdry enough it was, and duly fractured in the head; but it redeemed the wretched room with the flavour of humanity, and the solitary sunbeam that had braved the grimy window played about the battered brow, and the vision of some child's wan face rose above the hapless bundle.
"He's a jewel," Dr. Horton said in a half whisper, "a jewel of the first water."
"Who?" asked Harvey.
For answer, the doctor jerked his head backward towards the adjoining room. "He just lives among poor people like these—they're all idolaters of his. He gives away every cent he makes ”

“ So much care and circumspection in search for truth, so much modesty and firmness in its demonstration, so much clearness and method in the development of his ideas, should have prepossessed everyone in favor of the theory of Harvey ”

“ In every thing except his politics, Harvey’s character was unimpeachable.
I never knew two persons much more dissimilar than were the commander-in-chief of the insurgents and the rebel governor of Wexford, Captain Keogh. The latter was a retired captain of the British service, who had fought in America, and, like many others, had there received a lesson on civil liberty which never escaped his memory. He was married to an aunt of Lady Barrington; and, for many years, when I went the circuit, I lived at his house, and had conceived the greatest friendship for him. He was a very clever man. ”

“ In the end we all mounted Miss Harvey's car, and sailing off left the groom in the dust of the road, a dirty, smudgy, unintelligent-looking object, to whom Miss Harvey waved an indulgent farewell. He stood, staring after us with a dull, meditative set of his expressionless face.
"That's a man," said I, to my companions, "whom I am persistently endeavoring to avoid. He clings like a burr."
"Oh, he's great fun," said Miss Harvey, laughing.
"He looks respectable enough," said Perdita, kindly.
"He's just a treat," said Miss Harvey, as we hummed up the lane. ”

“ Neither mother nor son uttered a word till they were some little distance from the doctor's office. Suddenly the former spoke.
"The world's full of trouble, Harvey—but I believe it's fuller of kindness. It's wonderful how many tender-hearted folks there are. Wasn't it good of him?"
Harvey made no answer, but his hand loosened itself from hers. "I believe I—I forgot something," he said abruptly. "Just wait here, mother; I'll be back in just a minute—you can rest here, see," leading her to a bench on the green sward of a little crescent not much more than half a stone's throw away. ”

“ Harvey was physician to James I. and Charles I., the latter of whom had a high regard for him; and at the outbreak of the civil war he adhered to the royal side, and quitted London with the king, attending him at the battle of Edgehill, and afterwards at Oxford. He died in 1658, it is said from the effects of opium which he had taken with suicidal intent, while suffering under the acute pangs of gout. Posterity has been more faithful and grateful than his own age to the greatest modern discoverer in medical science ”