Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ... his companions, who still feel and advance upon the bottom beneath them. The line by degrees narrows into a column, and the column, after a longer interval, narrows into a single file. To the foremost horseman courage is necessary, as imagination is to the discoverer, and, impelled by this feeling, he may put a wide interval between himself and his companions, and reaching the opposite bank long before them, may have leisure to look down upon them, may be looked up to by them and by the rest of the world, whilst for some time in solitary occupation of that vantage ground. Such I conceive to be a fair representation, in the way of metaphor, the best and shortest way, perhaps, of representing such complex relations, of the relations held by Harvey, and indeed by most or all discoverers, to their contemporaries, to their compeers, and to the conditions whereby they are surrounded. It may be expected, perhaps, that, coming from Oxford, and having been recently elected a Fellow of the College--the Wardenship of which Harvey held for something more than a year (April 1645 t midsummer 1646)--I should have made search for whatever records there may be left of him unpublished in Oxford, and especially in Merton College. After diligent search, I have to report that there is but little to be learned of Harvey's history from any unpublished document which I have been able to find in Oxford. The Merton College Kegister gives the following account of his election to the Wardenship. In 1645 King Charles I, after the execution of Archbishop Laud, took upon himself the functions of Visitor, and, having removed Sir Nathaniel Brent from the office of Warden, for having joined 'the Rebells now in armes against' him, he directed the Fellows to take the...
