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In pneumatics and chemistry the Honourable Robert Boyle made some discoveries, and considerably improved the air-pump; and Robert Hooke, already mentioned as one of the earliest theorists of gravitation, also had a pretty clear notion of the gas now termed oxygen. Thomas Sydenham is a great name in medicine of this time; and the department of natural history took a new start under the hands of Ray, Willoughby, Lester, and others. Ray published his "Historia Plantarum," and edited Willoughby's works on birds and fishes. Conchology was advanced by Martin Lester, and Woodward opened up the new region of mineralogy. The two most extraordinary discoveries, however, next to those of Newton, were those of the circulation of the blood by Harvey (b. 1578; d. 1657), and of the steam-engine by Solomon de Caus, introduced into England by the Marquis of Worcester (b. 1601; d. 1667).

The theory of the circulation of the blood, like almost every other great theory founded on fact, was not left for Harvey to think out ab origine. That the blood flowed from the heart to the extremities was known to the ancients, and stated by Aristotle. Galen even had argued, from the discovery of valves in the pulmonary artery, that the blood was also returned to the heart. Servetus, of Geneva, the same who was put to death for heresy, had demonstrated the circulation through the lungs, and again this theory had been propounded by Rualdus Columbus in 1559. In 1571 Cæsalpinus of Arezzo came still nearer to the true theory, from observing the swelling of veins below a ligature—thence inferring that the blood flowed from the extremities as well as to them. It is clear, therefore, that all but positive demonstration was arrived at when Harvey appeared. But though this demonstration was all that was now needed, it was a work of no ordinary courage and genius. The few facts known were overlaid by such a mass of absurd and contradictory notions amongst medical men, that nothing but the nicest and completest experiments could establish the truth. This Harvey undertook to do, and accomplished it. He informed Boyle, as we learn from that philosopher's "Treatise on Final Causes," that the idea of the true circulation was first suggested to him when studying under Fabricius Aquapendente, at Padua, by noticing the valves in the veins—the same that had attracted the attention of Galen. To ascertain the fact, he made numerous accurate experiments on both dead and living animals, and the result was the clearest proof of the fact that the blood is propelled from the heart through the arteries, and returned to it through the veins. Besides this, his experiments threw a flood of light on the action of the heart, on its diastolic and systolic functions, as observed both in adult subjects and in the fœtus; on the true action of the lungs on the blood, and other important points. His completed views were so opposed to the notions of the Faculty at the time, that a stupendous prejudice was raised against him, and his practice fell off greatly from the clamour which was raised against what his fellow-practitioners called his wild speculations. It is a well-known fact that not one medical man who had passed his fortieth year ever admitted the discovery of Harvey. The most famous anatomists abroad joined in the outcry against his theory. Primrosius, Parisanus, Riolanus, professors of anatomy at Paris, and Plempius, professor at Louvain, were violent against it. Harvey very modestly permitted the storm to blow, certain that a truth built on positive facts would in the end prevail. He refused to answer the attacks of any one but Riolanus; but his friend, Dr. Ent, ably wielded the pen in his defence, and Harvey had the pleasure to see Plempius before long confess himself a convert, and many others then followed.

Besides Harvey's great discovery, he made many other anatomical investigations with great care and ability, and especially on a vital subject, detailed in his treatise "De Generatione." His merits became so fully acknowledged that he was elected President of the College of Physicians.

But the gifted men of this age who could determine the laws of worlds, and systems of worlds, and the vital principles of the living body, failed to perceive the wondrous capabilities of another invention destined to revolutionise society at a later day. The Marquis of Worcester, whom we have seen figuring conspicuously as the Earl of Glamorgan, in the civil strife of Charles I.'s reign, constructed a steam-engine—a very rude one, of course—which Sorbiere, a Frenchman, saw at work at his lordship's house at Vauxhall in 1663. It was capable of throwing up water to a great height. This engine is described by the marquis in his "Century of Inventions," published this same year, 1663. It is the sixty-eighth in the catalogue, and entitled "An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire." He used a cannon for his boiler, and says he has seen "water run like a constant fountain-stream forty feet high. One vessel of water rarefied by fire driveth up forty of cold water."

The marquis had learned this invention from the work of a Frenchman, Solomon de Caus, entitled "Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes." This De Caus had travelled in England, and had importuned his own countrymen to examine what he deemed a wonderful discovery—the power of steam; but, like Thomas Gray, when urging on England a system of railroads, he was treated as a bore and a maniac. The marquis found De Caus actually confined in the Bicêtre in Paris as a madman, for wanting to convince his countrymen of the marvellous powers of steam. The marquis's own notion appeared to be that the engine might be employed chiefly for the raising of water—a trait attributed to him by Stuart, in his "Anecdotes of Steam-Engines," published in 1651, in which the writer mentions a little engine at work at his house in Lambeth, which "might be applied to draw or hale ships, boates, etc., up rivers against the stream; to draw carts, wagons, etc., as fast without cattel; to draw the plough without cattel, to the same dispatch, if need be."

The views of the marquis were thus rapidly expanding on the subject; and it is wonderful that the invention should have been suffered to sleep a century and a half longer. Still more wonderful is it that the powers of steam slept so long, when, according to Gibbon, the architect of St. Sophia, Constantinople, centuries ago, was so well aware of it that he used to shake the house of his neighbour, an enemy of his, with steam machinery.

Of architecture there was none belonging to this period. The glorious old Gothic had closed for the time its career, and even the most eminent architects despised it. Inigo Jones introduced an Italian style, and committed the atrocity of erecting Grecian screens in Gothic cathedrals; and we shall find Wren, the architect of the noble classical fabric of St. Paul's, equally incapable of perceiving the beauty of Gothic. To him it was barbarian.

With Charles II. came in French taste, and almost all the professors of painting, sculpture, and engraving were foreigners. The whole art of painting was expended in portraiture and on the decorations of walls and ceilings after the fashion of Le Brun, but not with his genius. Verrio and Sir Peter Lely engrossed the patronage of the Court, and the admiration of the public.

Antonio Verrio, a Neapolitan painter, who transferred himself to France and then to England, covered immense spaces of wall and ceiling at Windsor Castle and other places with his gods, goddesses, and similar figures, pouring them out, as Walpole observes, without much invention and as little taste, but certainly with a great show of colour. He painted most of the ceilings at Windsor, one side of the Hall of St. George and the chapel, most of which works are now destroyed. On the ceiling of St. George's Hall he drew Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, as Faction dispersing libels; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Marriott, as Fury, because she had offended him. He was paid an enormous sum for these works, and spent it in ostentation. He had a house in St. James's Park, and was also master gardener to the king. Walpole gives an extraordinary example of his freedom in demanding money of the king. He had just received a thousand pounds when he appeared at Court, and found Charles in such a circle that he could not approach him; but, nothing daunted, he called out to him that he desired to speak to him. Being asked what he wanted, he replied, "Money." The king smiled, and reminded him of the thousand pounds just had. "Yes," said he, "but pedlars and painters cannot give long credit; that was soon paid away, and I have no gold left." "At that rate," said Charles, "you would spend more than I do." "True," replied the impudent foreigner; "but does your majesty keep an open table as I do?"