Harvey’s building was a noble example of Roman architecture (of rustic work with Corinthian pilasters). It stood close to the site now occupied by Stationers’ Hall, and consisted of two stories, a great parlour with a kind of convocation house for the Fellows to meet in below and a library above. This inscription was engraved upon the frieze outside the building in letters three inches long: “Suasu et cura Fran. Prujeani, Praesidis et Edmundi Smith, elect: inchoata et perfecta est haec fabrica An. Mdcliii” (This building was begun and finished in the year 1653, at the suggestion and under the eye of Francis Prujean, the President, and Edmund Smith, an Elect). Harvey therefore with characteristic modesty refrained from taking any share in the praise; perhaps he was wise. The building is destroyed and forgotten, Smith’s name has perished, Prujean’s is only remembered as that of a square in the Old Bailey, but Harvey’s memory remains and needs neither bricks and mortar, nor pictures, nor a statue to perpetuate it.
Harvey not only paid for the building but he furnished its library with books, amongst which were treatises on geometry, geography, astronomy, music, optics, natural history, and travels, in addition to those upon medical subjects. It was to be open on Fridays from two till five o’clock in summer, but only till four in winter; during all meetings of the College and whenever the librarian, being at leisure, should choose to be present; but no books were allowed to be taken out. The Museum contained numerous objects of curiosity and a variety of surgical instruments. The doors of the buildings were formally opened on February 2, 1653, when Harvey received the President and the Fellows at a sumptuous entertainment, and afterwards addressed a speech to them in which he made over to the College the title-deeds and his whole interest in the structure and its contents.
The College gave a fresh proof of its gratitude by choosing Harvey unanimously as its President when Dr. Prujean’s term of office came to an end on Michaelmas Day, 1654. As he was absent when the election took place, the Comitia was prorogued until the next day, and Dr. Alston and Dr. Hamey, two of the Elects, were asked to wait upon him to tell him of the honour his colleagues had done themselves and him, and to say that they awaited his answer.
Every act of Harvey’s public life that has come down to us is marked, as Dr. Willis very properly observes, not merely by propriety, but by grace. He attended the Comitia or assembly of the College next day, thanked his colleagues for the distinguished honour of which they had thought him worthy—the honour, as he said, of filling the foremost place amongst the physicians of England; but the concerns of the College, he proceeded, were too weighty to be entrusted to one who, like himself, was laden with years and infirm in health; and if he might be acquitted of arrogance in presuming to offer advice in such circumstances, he would say that the College could not do better than reinstate in the authority which he had just laid down their late President, Dr. Prujean, under whose prudent management and fostering care the affairs of the College had greatly prospered. This disinterested counsel had a fitting response, and Harvey’s advice being adopted by general consent, Dr. Prujean was forthwith re-elected President. His first act was to nominate Harvey one of the Consilarii—an honourable office which he did not refuse to accept, and to which he was reappointed in 1655 and 1656.
That Harvey’s complaint of age with its attendant infirmities was no mere figure of speech may be gathered from his letters written about this time. Thus he tells Dr. Horst, the principal physician at Hesse Darmstadt, on the 1st of February, 1654-1655: “I am much pleased to find that in spite of the long time that has passed, and the distance that separates us, you have not yet lost me from your memory, and I could wish that it lay in my power to answer all your inquiries. But indeed my age does not permit me to have this pleasure, for I am not only far stricken in years, but am afflicted with more and more indifferent health.” And writing again to Dr. Horst five months later he says: “Advanced age, which unfits us for the investigation of novel subtleties, and the mind which inclines to repose after the fatigues of lengthened labours, prevent me from mixing myself up with the investigation of these new and difficult questions; so far am I from courting the office of umpire in this dispute [about the digestion and absorption of the food] that I send you the substance of what I had formerly written about it.”
Harvey appears to have devoted much of his time in his later years to a study of general literature, which must always have had many attractions to his cultivated mind—a study which is indeed absolutely necessary as a relaxation to one whose mind is bent upon the solution of obscure scientific problems if he desires to make his results intelligible. Writing to Nardi on the 30th of November, 1653, to thank him for a commentary on Lucretius’ account of the plague, he goes on to say, “Nor need you plead in excuse your advanced life. I myself, though verging on my eightieth year and sorely failed in bodily health, nevertheless feel my mind still vigorous, so that I continue to give myself up to studies of this kind, especially connected with the sacred things of Apollo, for I do indeed rejoice to see learned men everywhere illustrating the republic of letters.” It would seem too as if he had gained some reputation as a judge of general literature, for Howell in his familiar letters writes to him:—
“To Dr. Harvey, at St. Lawrence Pountney.
“Sir,—I remember well you pleased not only to pass a favourable censure but gave a high character of the first part of ‘Dodona’s Grove,’ which makes this second to come and wait on you, which, I dare say, for variety and fancy, is nothing inferior to the first. It continueth an historical account of the occurrences of the times in an allegorical way, under the shadow of trees; and I believe it omits not any material passage which happened as far as it goes. If you please to spend some of the parings of your time and fetch a walk in this Grove, you may haply find therein some recreation. And if it be true what the Ancients write of some trees, that they are fatidical, these come to foretell, at least to wish you, as the season invites me, a good New Year, according to the Italian compliment, Buon principio, miglior mezzo, ed ottimo fine. With these wishes of happiness in all the three degrees of comparison,