Now placed in the Theatre of the College.
Freind. “The skill of the sculptor has been successfully employed here. The mild features of the old man are well expressed, and exhibit with fidelity his candid and gentle nature. I see him now, in my mind’s eye, after the surrender of Oxford to the Parliament, and the loss of his wardenship of Merton College, in his retirement at Richmond. The visit paid him there by his intimate friend Dr. George Ent, is related in so lively and pleasing a manner, that one is almost present at the interview. It was in the year 1651, when Harvey was in his seventy-first year. ‘I found him,’ says Ent, ‘in his seclusion, not far from town, with a sprightly and cheerful countenance, investigating, like Democritus, the nature of things. Asking if all was well with him, ‘How can that be?’ replied Harvey, ‘when the state is so agitated with storms, and I myself am yet in the open sea? And, indeed,’ added he, ‘were not my mind solaced by my studies, and the recollection of the observations I have formerly made, there is nothing which should make me desirous of a longer continuance. But thus employed, this obscure life, and vacation from public cares, which disquiets other minds, is the medicine of mine.’ Who does not admire,” continued Freind, “the modest altercation that arose between the great discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and Dr. Ent, about the publication of those most valuable papers containing his Exercitations on the Generation of Animals? One may imagine him replying to the importunity of his friend, that though, at his advanced age, it was of little consequence what the world thought of his writings, yet he could never forget, after the publication, at Frankfort, in 1628, of his doctrine of the circulation of the blood, that such was the general prejudice against him as an innovator, that his practice as a physician considerably declined. To be sure, he might look upon himself as recompensed in some degree for the ingratitude of the public by the regard and favour of his royal master Charles I. whose attachment to the arts and sciences formed a conspicuous part of his character. For the King, with some of the noblest persons about the Court, condescended to be spectators and witnesses of his experiments; and, indeed, His Majesty took so much interest in his anatomical researches, that, with respect to these very inquiries about the nature of generation, he had received much assistance from the opportunities afforded him of dissecting a vast number of animals, which were killed in the King’s favourite diversion of stag-hunting.
“Dr. Ent at last succeeded in obtaining the papers; and concludes the account of their interview by saying, ‘I went from him like another Jason in possession of the golden fleece; and when I came home, and perused the pieces singly, I was amazed that so vast a treasure should have been so long hidden.’”
Mr. Professor Ward. “You mention the destruction of a former building; pray, where did the College meet prior to the erection of the present edifice in Warwick Lane? Was it not somewhere in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s?”
Dr. Mead. “I am glad you have asked me that question, for the vicissitudes in the fortunes of our body will gradually be forgotten, and it would be very desirable before they are entirely blotted out from our memory, or misrepresented by traditional inaccuracy, that some more public record should be given of them, than that which is contained in our archives. Though as a narrative of events, which has now been continued uninterruptedly for about two centuries[33], it would be difficult to find another of fidelity and interest equal to that furnished by the Annals of the College.
1518. “Its very first meetings immediately after its establishment were held in the house of Linacre, called the stone house, Knight-Rider Street, which still belongs to the College.
