that the two names constitute one register? Again, with hardly an exception to the contrary, all the entries on the page are in Latin; and it would not only be difficult to account for the deviation into the vulgar tongue in the case of the poet's widow, but to explain why, unless the whole register referred to one individual, the officiating minister, who described one Anna, at full length, as "Uxor Richardi James," should have been content without describing the other Anna at full length also, as Vidua Gulielmi Shakspeare. But how then is this apparently double entry to be accounted for ?-Why thus: the parish books, which now exist, are authentic copies of the original registers. And my conjecture is, that the old documents reported no more than the interment of Anna James; but that, as the lady was better known at Stratford as the wife of our great poet, was so commemorated in the epitaph on her gravestone, and lay buried among his family in the chancel of the church, the “Mrs. Shakspeare" was inserted by the copyist to indicate that Mrs. James was she, and to anticipate the suspicion of a defect in his transcript." London, July, 1845. WILLIAM HARNESS. 1 Shakespeare was acquainted with some people named James, as appears from an epitaph on Elias James, which is ascribed to him in a MS. book in the Bodleian. His widow, perhaps, married one of the family. ART. XVII.-On a passage in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar. I observe by the late report of the Shakespeare Society, that the members are invited to communicate to the secretary such incidental circumstances as may in any way illustrate the works and life of our great dramatist. I am thus encouraged to address you for the purpose of communicating a remark lately made to me on a passage in Julius Cæsar, which, so far as I know, has not been noticed by any of the editors. The passage referred to is the well-known one "You are my true and honourable wife; Now, what I wish to call your attention to in this passage is, that it contains, what I cannot view otherwise, than as a distinct reference to the circulation of the blood, which was not announced to the world, as is generally supposed, until some years after the death of Shakespeare. Harvey is supposed to have brought forward his views as to the circulation of the blood in Lumleian Lectures, in 1618, but their actual publication in one of his works was in 1628. There is, however, a manuscript in the British Museum, dated April, 1616, (the very month Shakespeare died) entitled "De Anatome Universali," in which the germ of his great discovery is to be found. Now, granting that the passage in Julius Cæsar will bear the construction I have put upon it, several very interesting questions arise. 1st., Is it not a material fact as to the time when Julius Cæsar was written? and does it not go far to prove that Mr. Collier is wrong when he places the tragedy so early as 1603?-2d., Granting the force of Mr. Collier's arguments as to the date of production, can his opinion be reconciled with a supposition that Shakespeare had been made acquainted, by Harvey himself, with his first crude notions on the subject? On this point it may be said, that it is believed that Harvey's first ideas on this subject had their origin while he was a student at Padua from 1599 to 1602, when he returned to England, being then twenty-four years of age. Is it then impossible that Harvey, a young medical practitioner, may have become acquainted with Shakespeare, may have become intimate with him, and may have acquainted him with those great ideas by which he also hoped to become famous? In illustration and support of this, I may remark that there appears to me to run through the whole play of Julius Cæsar a more medical spirit than is to be found in any other of his works; as if he had been discoursing with Harvey on the great wonders of the human frame. It is really surprising, too, how often the blood is referred to in the course of the play. In several passages, also, reference is made to the influence of bodily ailments upon the intellect and spirits of individuals; and with reference to the more mysterious influence of the mind upon the body, no man of science, fully acquainted with all that is known morally and physically on the subject, could touch upon it with greater accuracy than Shakespeare displays in the 1st Scene of the 2nd Act, when Brutus says "Between the acting of a dreadful thing, The genius, and the mortal instruments The nature of an insurrection." I could say more on this subject, but I have already allowed my observations to run out to a greater length than I intended. What I have advanced may not be new, and may not be true, but such as it is, I consider that the best I can do with it is to send it to the Society for their opinion. I shall be too happy if I only direct the attention of men much more competent to form an opinion than I am to the subject. In conclusion, I may remark, that the line which follows the passage in question is curious, although I would not venture to say that it bore a double meaning. Portia says"If this were true, then should I know this secret." THOMAS NIMMO. New Amsterdam, Berbice, 16th June, 1844. Ingenious as the preceding suggestion of Mr. Nimmo may be, it carries along with it nothing that to my mind can be regarded as satisfactory on the subject. It is surely too loose a conjecture to say, "Is it then impossible that Harvey, a young medical practitioner, may have become acquainted with Shakespeare-may have been intimate with him, and may have acquainted him with those great ideas by which he also hoped to become famous?" Harvey was born in 1578. At the early age of fourteen, he was sent to the university of Cambridge, where he studied five years. He then travelled through France and Germany, and fixed himself for some time at Padua, where he graduated in 1602. Here the most celebrated teacher of anatomy was Fabricius de Aquapendente, the discoverer of the valves in the veins, which discovery must be considered to have laid the foundation of Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood. Harvey was only admitted as a candidate of the London College of Physicians in 1604, and elected a Fellow in 1607. Nothing was known of his discovery until 1616, not 1618, as Mr. Nimmo states, and only then through the medium of his lectures delivered as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the college. I know that MSS. are referred to in every biographical sketch of Harvey, in which it is said an account of his discovery is to be found; and a MS. of notes of his lectures in 1616 has been reported to be in the British Museum. I have made particular search for it, and Sir Frederick Madden has been so kind as to render me his assistance; but it is not to be found. The only volume at all like that referred to is one in the Sloane Collection, No. 486, entitled, "Observationes Anatomicæ," and dated 1627; but the notes are upon the muscles and nerves, not upon the blood vessels; and having gone through the whole of the MS., I can affirm that there is not a single passage in it which relates to the doctrine of the circulation. This MS. has the authority of Sir Hans Sloane for being Harvey's, and the writing corresponds with that of Harvey, as seen in a Liber Computorum, in which Harvey's signature is attached to a Bursar's account, passed in 1645, in Merton College, Oxford, and also with a portion of his writing at the Royal College of Physicians: "Money dew out the Exchequer for my pension, 21 April, 1642." All Harvey's MSS. were destroyed, either by the pillage of his apartments at Whitehall, or by the great fire of London. The most correct notions with regard to the circulation of the blood, prior to the time of Harvey, are to be found in the "Christianismi Restitutio" of Servetus, who even speaks of the double elaborated blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates with the left, cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quem dexter ventriculus cordis sinistro communicat," and he goes on to state that this communication is not made through the middle partition of the heart as was commonly believed; but that the subtle blood was agitated or moved in a highly artificial manner, from the right ventricle of the heart, in a long duct through the lungs-that it was prepared and made bright by the lungs, and transfused by the arterial vein to the venal artery-that it was then mixed with the inspired air in the venal artery, and cleansed from grossness |