HARVEY. 49 While at the University, he is supposed to have written a Httle book, in duodecimo, against Riolan, in which he makes out his doctrine of the circula- tion more clearly. But when Charles, in evil hour, was persuaded to put himself in the power of the Scottish army at Newark, and orders were issued for the surrender of Oxford, Harvey was obliged to resign his shortlived appointment of Warden of Merton (Dr. Brent resuming his office), and came up to London in 1646, and lived with his brother Eliab, a rich merchant, who re- sided opposite to St. Lawrence in the Poultry, and who had also a country house at Roehampton. In 1649, he is said, by a contemporary writer, to have travelled again into Italy, in company with his friend. Dr. £nt ; but no other of his^ biographers mentions this circumstance, and Au- brey, the author alluded to, is not always to be relied upon ; for, as a late eminent critic observed of him, " he thought little, believed much, and confused every thing." It is certain, however, that Harvey withdrew from the world about this time, and passed his time in retirement, in a house which he possessed at Combe, in Surry. Here there was good air and a pleasant prospect ; and, to indulge a whim he had of delighting in being in the dark, he caused caves to be made in the earth, in which, in summer time, he was pleased to meditate. In this seclusion lie was found, in the year 1651, by his intimate friend, Dr. Ent : the result of whose visit was the pub- lication of Harvey's second work, called his " Exercitations on the Generation of Animals ; " which had employed almost as large a portion E
