approach to it, before its complete development, seventy-five years afterwards, (1553-1628) by Harvey in his work "De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis." But, as the suppression and supposed destruction of the book -at once the cause and instrument of the author's death, for it served to kindle the flames to which he was condemned for its heterodoxy-make it most probable that the Venetian had no knowledge of his predecessor's incidental view, rather than professed exposition of the great discovery, he may be absolved from the reproach of unfounded assumption or plagiarism. Just so in the controversy on the invention of fluxions, though, as Fontenelle acknowledged, the original discovery was due to Newton, yet, as it subsequently beamed on the genius of Leibnitz without previous communication, it has been judged the fruit of equal and independent, but not simultaneous, sagacity in both. Fra-Fulgenzio (Vita del Padre Paolo, p. 64, ed. Venez. 1677,) says, that Sarpi reflected that the blood from its specific gravity could not remain suspended and motionless in the veins, "senza che vi fasse angine che la retinesse, è chiusure, ch' aprendosi é riserrandosi, gli dassero il flusso è l'equilibrio necessario alla vita." I shall now transcribe the words of Servetus, premising that occasional expressions are found in the writers of antiquity, which would seem to denote some dark and distant glimpses of the truth; but nothing in the remotest degree approaching the light thrown on it in the following passage, which I extract from De Bure's "Bibliographie Instructive," tom. i., p. 421.

"Vitalis spiritus in sinistro cordis ventriculo suam originem habet, juvantibus maxime pulmonibus ad ipsius perfectionem....

Generatur ex factâ in pulmone commixtione inspirati äeris cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quem dexter ventriculus sinistro communicat. Fit autem communicatio hæc, non per parietem cordis medium, ut vulgò creditur, sed magno artificio a dextro cordis ventriculo, longo per pulmones ductu agitatur sanguis subtilis; à pulmonibus præparatur, flavus efficitur, et à venâ arteriosâ in arteriam venosam transfunditur. Deinde in ipsâ arteriâ venosâ, inspirato äeri miscetur, et exspiratione à fuligine expurgatur, atque ita tandem a sinistro cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolen attrahitur:-Quod ita per pulmones fiat communicatio et præparatio, docet conjunctio varia, et communicatio venæ arteriosæ cum arteriâ venosâ in pulmonibus. Confirmat hoc magnitudo insignis venæ arteriosæ, quæ nec talis nec tanta facta esset, nec tantam à corde ipso vim purissimi sanguinis in pulmones emitteret, ob solum eorum nutrimentum ; nec cor pulmonibus hâc ratione serviret, cum præsertim antea in embrione solerent pulmones ipsi aliunde nutriri, ob membranulas illas, seu valvulas cordis usque ad horum nativitatem; ut docet GALENUS, &c. Itaque ille spiritus a sinistro cordis ventriculo arterias totius corporis deinde transfunditur," &c.

Upon which the writer of an able article on the subject, in Rees' Cyclopædia, remarks, that it incontestably proves that Servetus knew the minor circulation. He laid the foundation of a building which had baffled all the efforts of antiquity, as beautifully expressed by Perrault, in his controversy with Boileau, on the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns :

"L'Antiquité

Ignorait jusqu' aux routes certaines,

Du Méandre vivant qui coule dans nos veines."

He indicated the route through which the blood passes from the right to the left ventricle; and it only remained to be shown that all the blood takes this passage, and that it returns again to the heart from the arteries through the veins. As for the claim of Fra-Paolo, this writer considers it so destitute of foun

dation as scarcely to be entitled to notice. At all events it is demonstrably posterior to that of Servetus, which it is my object to establish. Some further advances, intermediately between the incipient light of Servetus and the conclusive work of Harvey, were made by Realdus Columbus, Arantius, Casalpinus, and the great anatomist Aquapendente, (or Fabricius.) This last-named physiologist's pretensions have been specially insisted on by his disciples; but Fulgenzio stoutly contends that his views were derived from the communications of Sarpi, (" del padre.")

Chauffepié's Dictionary, as Gibbon has observed, gives the best life we possess of Servetus; but he erroneously supposes, as I have elsewhere observed, that the passage on the circulation of the blood was in the work "De Trinitatis Erroribus" (Hagenoæ, 1531,) instead of the "Christianismi Restitutio." The purpose of Chauffepié, a Protestant minister, in that article is to vindicate the act of Calvin, by proving that the persecution of heretics was the universal and obligatory doctrine of the age, from the misapplication of the Gospel precept, in St. Luke, (xiv., 23,) “compel them to come in," and that, to the reformers not less than to the catholics, they appeared objects of abomination-"des monstres à étouffer," as La Chapelle, another zealous Calvinist, expresses it. Even Servetus, when under trial, in his petition to the Council of Geneva, acknowledged the principle, and only denied the degree of punishment, which he limited to exile,-" laquelle punition a esté de tout temps observée contre les hérétiques." In fact, however, otherwise variant in creed, every sect viewed intolerance as a principle, and persecution as a duty.

Calvin's defence of his conduct is intituled "Defensio Orthodoxæ Fidei de Sacrâ Trinitate contra prodigiosos errores M. Serveti," &c. (Olivæ, 1554, 8vo.) and, with the addition on the title in the French edition, of "Où il est monstré qu'il est licite de punir les hérétiques, et qu' à bon droit ce meschant homme a esté exécuté." (Genève, 1554.)

In 1535 and 1541, Servetus revised and published at Lyons two editions of a Latin translation of Ptolemy's Geography. In the former he says that he had seen the King (Francis I.) touch several persons for the evil,-" Vidi ipse regem plurimos hoc langore correptos tangentem; an fuerint sanati non vidi;" but in the latter edition he is more courtly, and differently expresses the result, "plerosque sanatos passim audio." An article on Palestine in this work, rather at variance with the scriptural representation of the Holy Land, constituted one of the charges against him. He asserted that it was a literal copy of an anterior edition, printed at Basil in 1525, when he was a mere boy, (probably not above fourteen years old;) and the volume, now in my possession, places the fact beyond contradiction; but as he could not directly produce the book, his defence availed him not.

J. R.

SHAKSPERE.

Cork, July 10, 1838.

MR. URBAN. The line in Hamlet, (Act iii., Sc. 2,)

"Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief;"

has always sounded strangely, and almost un-English, to my ears. Indeed, the expression mallecho or malicho, which Mr. Henley, in his commentary on the passage, (Steevens' Shakspere, 1793, vol. xv., page 188,) erroneously remarks, should be malheco, the proper word being malhecho, is wholly foreign-a Spanish compound, sufficiently indicative of its meaning and origin, (corresponding to the Latin flagitium, in the Spanish dictionaries,) and, I believe, not discoverable in any other English author. But the accompanying adjective, miching, was of old and frequent use. Its sense too is of easy intelligence, and has been amply defined by the commentators and lexicographers; while its etymology has been in general overlooked or abandoned; at least I only know of one attempt, which I cannot hesitate to pronounce a failure.

I therefore claim your indulgence in proposing one more likely, I should hope, to meet acceptance.

In Johnson's Dictionary the word appears without an etymon; and in Todd's edition, it is stated to be