HARVEY. 39 J The interesting relics just mentioned had been carefully kept at Burleigh-on-the-hill, and were I presented to the College by the Earl of Winchilsea, I the direct descendant of the Lord Chancellor j Nottingham, who married the niece of the illus- trious discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The noble donor, in presenting them to the Col- Ilege of Physicians, about eight years ago, ex- pressed a hope, in a letter addressed to the President, that these specimens of the scientific researches of Harvey might be deemed worthy of ii their acceptance, and thought that they could no- I where be so well placed as in the hands of that learned body of which he had been so distinguished a member. The date of the first promulgation of his doc- trine of the circulation is not absolutely ascer- tained: it is commonly asserted that he first disclosed his opinion on the subject in 1619, after he had been lecturing four years. The index, however, of his MS. in the British Mu- seum, which contains the propositions on which the doctrine is founded, refers them to April, 1616. Yet, with a patience and caution peculiarly cha- racteristic of the sound philosopher, he withheld his opinions, as has been observed before, from the world, until reiterated experiment had amply confirmed his system, and had enabled him to de- monstrate it in detail, and to advance every proof of its truth of which the subject is capable. It was not before he had attained his 50th year, that his " Treatise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood, dedicated to Charles I." appeared, having been committed to the press at Francfort, in 1628.
