work of Harvey, let us for a moment try to eliminate from our knowledge the fact of the circulation of the blood,' and then imagine ourselves to be face to face with the diseases that we are daily treating; with fever, apoplexy-hæmorrhagic, embolic, or diathetic; with dropsy; with cardiac disease, recent or old; with degeneration of structure; or with functional derangement. It requires some force of fancy to realize what would be our position. The thermometer might teach us much; but it is difficult to see in what way either stethoscope, cardiograph, or sphygmograph, could do other than augment our bewilderment. Those who have made out for us the meaning of the cardiac sounds; those who have skilfully constructed apparatus so as to make the heart itself record, in some fashion, its own marvellous movements; and those who have delineated, in some sense, the curve and time-ordered elements of the radial pulse, would all admit that their work was based upon this foregone conclusion, the accepted fact, that the blood moved onwards in a circle. They have attained to knowledge that Harvey could not reach; but let me ask, could they have known what they now do, unless Harvey had raised the platform upon which they stood? (R., p. 21, et seq.)

Throughout Harvey's writings there is an eminently religious tone; a devout and reverential recognition of God, not only as the great primal, ever-acting force-behind, outside, and before all the works of nature-but as the being, "The Almighty and Eternal God," to whom, as he says in his last will and testament, "I do most humbly render my soul, as to Him that gave it, and to my blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” (R., p. 23.)

Although Harvey's name may be unknown to many in the days to come, yet, so long as disease lasts—so long as the movements of the blood form part of the study of the physiologist and the art of the physician—so long as any further light is to be thrown upon them by cardiograph or sphygmograph, or by any as yet unthought-of method of investigation—so long as

"the circulation" is a recognized fact of science, his work will live. (R., p. 21.)

Reading Harvey's own writings-his themes, their introductions, their dedications, his disquisitions, exercises, letters and "obiter dicta"-we find him writing, all unconsciously, his own biography; and this confers an unspeakable charm upon his works. He does not tell us of his birth-place, or parentage, or where he was taught, or how he lived, he reveals his very soul and life, his method of work, and his mode of thinking about it all, as he spent those long years of research, experiment, discovery, and disputation, together with all the toils of a teacher, and the cares of a busy practitioner of medicine. (R., p. 5.)

but

In the British Museum there are 52 books relating to Harvey and his work; 30 are in Latin, 18 in English, the others being in German. These include different editions of the same work. In 1847, Doctor Robert Willis published an able and, so far as I can ascertain, the first really creditable edition of the works of Harvey in English.

247

GROTIUS.-1583-1645.

Hugo Grotius *—in Dutch, De Groot-was born at Delft on the 10th April, 1583. His family had long been illustrious. The progress made by him in his studies was most remarkable. We are told that at the age of nine he wrote verses, that at fifteen his knowledge of philosophy, divinity, civil law, and philology was considerable; and that he had then written a commentary on Martianus Capella. In 1598 he accompanied the Dutch Ambassador into France, where he was well received by Henry IV., and there took his degree of doctor of laws. Returning to his native country, he practised at the bar, pleaded before he was seventeen years of age, and was made AdvocateGeneral in his twenty-fourth year. In 1613 he settled at Rotterdam, and was created pensionary of that town, and in the same year was sent to England respecting the disputes between the merchants of the two nations, and that on the subject he wrote under the style "Mare Liberum," a treatise, showing the right the Dutch had to the Indian trade. Being involved in the matters that undid his patron, Barnevelt,— the disputes between the Remonstrants (Armenians), of whom Barnevelt and Grotius were warm supporters, and their opponents the Calvinists-he was arrested in August, 1628, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the forfeiture of his estates. On the 18th May, 1629, he was confined in the castle of Louvestein, where, for about eighteen months, he was somewhat roughly treated. We are told that Mary de Regelsburg, his wife, having observed that the guards had grown weary of searching the large trunk that was sent backward and forward

*The matter of this sketch is derived from "The Rights of War and Peace." in three books, wherein are explained "the law of nature and nations, and the principal points relating to government." Written in Latin by the learned Hugo Grotius, and translated into English. To which are added all the large notes of Mr. F. Barbeyrac. London, 1738.

with books, and with dirty linen to be washed at Gorcum, a neighbouring town, advised her husband to put himself into it; that she made some holes with a wimble to admit the necessary air at the spot where his head would be: that he followed her advice; reached Gorcum in safety; that in the disguise of a joiner, rule in hand, he found his way in the public waggon to Antwerp; that his good and shrewd wife had pretended all the while that her husband was very sick, but that when satisfied he was safe, she, laughing, told the guards that the bird had flown; that at first it was resolved to prosecute her; that some of the judges suggested that she should be kept in prison instead of her husband; that by a majority, however, of votes she was released; and that by almost every one she was praised for having, by her wit, procured her husband's liberty. Be that as it may, Grotius and his prison parted company, and he found his way to France, where he was well received, and had a pension assigned him by the king of 3,000 livres. He there applied himself to study and to the writing of books; his first being:-"An apology for the Magistrates of Holland, who had been turned out of their places." After a stay of eleven years in France, he returned to Holland, encouraged to do so by Prince Frederick Henry, who had succeeded his brother. The enemies of Grotius, however, soon forced him to return to Hamburg, where he remained till 1634, when Queen Christiana of Sweden invited him to her country, made him one of her counsellors, and sent him as her ambassador to Louis XIII., much to the annoyance of Richelieu, who disliked him. That office he held for eleven years, after which he returned to Stockholm, gave the queen an account of his stewardship, and humbly begged his dismission. The queen reluctantly granted his request, and, upon his departure, gave him substantial marks of her esteem. The ship in which he embarked encountered a violent storm. Grotius was landed on the coast of Pomerania, sick and uneasy in mind. He continued his journey overland. His illness forced him to stop at Rostock, where, on the 28th August, 1645, he died.

"With the talents of the most able statesman, Hugo Grotius united deep and extensive learning. He was a profound theologian, excellent in exegesis, his Commentary on the New Testament being still esteemed; a distinguished belles-lettres scholar, an accurate philosopher and jurist, and an historian intimate with the sources of history. His writings have had a decisive influence on the formation of a sound taste, and on the diffusion of an enlightened and liberal manner of thinking in affairs of science. As a philologian, he seizes the genius of his author with sagacity, illustrates briefly and pertinently, and amends the text with facility and success. His material translations from the Greek are executed with the spirit of a poet. Among the modern Latin poets he holds one of the first places, and he also tried his powers in Dutch verse. But the philosophy of jurisprudence has been especially promoted by his great work on natural and national law-De Jure Belli et Pacis—which laid the foundation of a new science; besides which he wrote Annales Belgicae usque ad Ann. 1609; Parallelon rerum— publice; De veritate religionis Christ & Pamata." So says the author of the article in the Popular Encyclopædia.

His master-piece, the De Jure Belli et Pacis, printed in Paris in 1625, was dedicated to Louis XIII. M. Bignon, in a letter to Grotius dated the 5th March, 1635, says :- "I had almost forgot to thank you for your treatise, De Jure Belli, which is as well printed as the subject deserves it. I have been told that a great king had it always in his hands, and I believe it is true, because a very great advantage must accrue from it, since that book shows that there is reason and justice in a subject which is thought to consist only in confusion and injustice; those who read it will learn the true maxims of the Christian policy, which are the solid foundations of all governments; I have read it again with a wonderful pleasure."

His book was regarded as the revelation of a new and ennobling science. The fact that professors were specially appointed in the universities during his life to expound his