great talents and extraordinary ac- Sarpi's dying ejaculation-Esto Per petua, allusive, it is supposed, to Venice, has not, as I observed on a former occasion, (Gent. Mag. for September 1837,) received the sanction of heaven; for "The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord," "Venice lost and won, or, in the classical strains of his coun- 66 palmy days of Venice, which her citizens vaunted as the special work of the Most High, "Opus Excelsi," and superior to Rome herself! "Si pelago Tybrim præfers, urbem aspice Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos." As for the second portion of my subject, "the consideration of FraPaolo's pretensions to the discovery of the circulation of the blood;" or, at least, those urged by his admirers, though more warmly by the English reviewer even than by the foreign biographer, it is of easy decision, because resolvable by clear and unambiguous evidence. It will be sufficient to shew that, in a work contemporaneous with Sarpi's birth-one, moreover, with which, though on different grounds, all Christendom resounded on its publication,-the fact appeared stated, if not in full and lucid, at least in intelligible, language. Fra-Paolo was born the 14th August 1552, and a few months after, early in 1553, issued from the press, the CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO of the ill-fated Servetus, in which a passage, that I shall presently recite, unequivocally indicates, in the opinion of those most competent to determine its construction, the circulation through the lungs ; thus evincing the earliest perception of the truth, or the nearest 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 pro Et querimur cito si nostræ data tempora bable that the Venetian had no know vitæ Diffugiunt! Urbes mors violenta rapit : ledge of his predecessor's incidental view, rather than professed exposition of the great discovery, he may be absolved from the reproach of unfounded What a contrast with the proud and assumption or plagiarism. Just so of suicide! So Bayle (article St. Cyran) states, grounded, it appears, on the Abbé's little volume, "Question Royale, &c. 1609, 12mo. ;" but Bayle had not seen the book, which the Abbé's partizans assert has been misrepresented, as also his "Apologie pour M. de la Roche-Posay," in which he seemingly sanctions the recourse to arms by ecclesiastics, en cas de nécessité (1615, 8vo.); a sentiment by no means in discrepance with our learned Servite's declarations on various occasions. St. Cyran's huge volume, Petrus Aurelius, so much prized formerly by his sectarians, is now equally irreadable by all. 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 perfectio nem. ... 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 arteriosa in arteriam venosam transfunditur. Deinde in ipsâ arteria venosa, inspirato ieri 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 arteria venosa in pulmonibus. Confirmat hoc magnitudo insignis venæ arteriosæ, quæ nec talis nec tanta facta esset, nec tantum 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's 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. 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 foundation 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, Cæsalpinus, 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"). But, though not unconscious of having already trespassed too far on your indulgence, the celebrity of the work of Servetus, to which it has been necessary on this occasion to refer, and the peculiar interest which concomitant circumstances have communicated to it, induce, and will, I trust, excuse, a few additional observations on it. There does not appear any certainty of the existence of more than one copy of the book, which, as I have said, was consumed with its author. "Femori auctoris alligatus fuit, et cum ipso combustus," asserts Meerman, (Origines Typographicæ, 1765,) and Mr. Pettigrew (Bibliotheca Sussexiana, p. 408,) confirms the fact. This copy had been surreptitiously preserved by Collardon, one of the judges of Servetus, and successively passed through the hands of Dr. Meade, M. de Boze, M. Gaignat, and the Duke de la Vallière, at whose sale, in 1783, it was purchased for the Royal Parisian Library, not at the price of 3810 livres, as represented by Mr. Pettigrew, (p. 292, 1st part,) but for 4120 livres rician became a divine command-a condition of salvation to the followers of Christ. 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 later 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 Ancient Bell Turrets of the Churches of St. Peter and St. Nicholas, BY the favour of Mr. Walker we are enabled to embellish our pages with views of two singular turrets attached to the above churches, and which form part of the embellishments of his able illustration of the mansion of the Longs at South Wraxhall, reviewed in the present Magazine, page 166. Mr. Walker's description of the turrets is as follows: "It will be seen that that of St. Nicholas is, in point of style, much older than that of St. Peter's, which latter comes under the denomination of Perpendicular English; while the former, from the string course under the spire, downwards, is decidedly Norman. The one seems to have been copied from the other; and, most probably, the original design was executed on the old church of St. Peter's, which must have been pulled down, and has thus been perpetuated. Whether this was the primitive form of the bell turret in Saxon times, would be a curious inquiry, and not without inte. rest. In pl. xxxii. of the Benedictionale of St. Ethelwold, engraved in vol. xxiv. of the Archæologia, is the representation of a bell turret, containing several bells; and the form of the open part, in which the bells are hung, is by no means unlike these; and at Binsey, near Oxford, is a similar one, part of which,' Ingram says, may be older than the Norman Conquest.' There are two other churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Biddeston which have bell turrets built upon the same plan: viz. Corston and Leigh Delamere. There is also one at Acton-Turville, on the borders of Gloucestershire, between Badminton and Cor. sham, and one at Boxwell, in the same county. "The attention of the author was called to these churches by C. W. Loscombe, Esq. an ingenious antiquary, who considers that they were of Saxon origin; he says, Finding churches with these peculiar characteristics so widely scattered over the country, all of them exhibiting ornaments of the earliest period, and differing so much in general from those we know to be Norman buildings, the inference I draw is, that they must be referred to the fashion of a time, and not of a locality, and that this must be the Saxon." Page 19. In the design of these bell turrets the ingenuity with which the architects of our ancient edifices encountered every difficulty is fully display ed. turret of the smallest description, over To raise a steeple, or even a an acutely-pointed gable, is, to say the least, a task requiring the exercise of considerable ingenuity: it has been a matter of great perplexity to modern architects, as many of the new churches plainly evince. But, curious as the workmanship and design of the turrets is, we cannot go so far as to attribute to either of them an antiquity so high as the Saxon period. It is difficult to say what was the form of the bell-turrets of that period, or indeed of Norman structures where a tower was not used. It may be even questionable whether the smaller churches had any turrets: the bell may have been suspended on a beam in the interior, and the window which is invariably seen high up in the gable, have been constructed to allow of the egress of the sound. We do not recollect an instance of an original Norman bell turret. The well-preserved Norman church at Nateley Scures, engraved in Gent. Mag. Oct. 1836, p. 363, has a modern bell-turret of wood, and so has the equally perfect Norman church of Wiston, in Suffolk. Little Tey, in Essex, has a turret of a similar description. Copford, in Essex, has an old wooden tower on the apex of the roof, with a dwarf spire; and the ruined church of Maplescombe, in Kent, in common with most of the smaller Norman examples, has a window in the upper part of the gable, the presence of which seems to forbid the construction of a turret on the apex. The highly enriched Norman church of Barfreston, in the same county, has no bell turret of any description. In structures of pointed and also of Norman architecture of early date, a belfry is very common, consisting of one, two, or even three open arches, covered with a gable, and raised either on the wall of the west end of the nave, or that which divides the nave and chancel; such of these turrets as have come under our observation are of pointed architecture, and their simplicity seems to indicate an earlier period than the more elaborate turrets of Biddeston. As before observed, the designs shew the ingenuity with which the ancient architects accommodated different forms to each other, either in plan or section. The architect appears to have wished to add to his church a small spire, and as his funds only allowed that it should be raised on the wall of his church, and not founded on the earth, he set about the execution of his object The in the most ingenious manner. plan of his structure was of greater breadth than the superincumbent wall, which circumstance led to the necessity of corbelling the back and front of the plan to make it unite with his walls. This he effects not only with great ingenuity, but with an economy of material, by forming the elevation in two portions, the lower being cruciform in plan and so carried up until the point of the gable is cleared, when the octagon form is commenced and carried on to the summit of the elevation; the result has been the creation of a very picturesque design, as will appear by the perspective views above given. The measured drawings of Mr. Walker clearly establish the ingenuity and science for which so much credit is due to the ancient architects. The It does not appear to us that there is any great difference in the age of the turrets; St. Nicholas's may be anterior by a few years to the other, but we cannot assign either to the Norman period. torus worked in the angle of a pier is a feature equally of early pointed architecture as of the Norman style; it would therefore appear that no necessity exists for referring the turret of St. Peter's Church to an earlier period than those portions of the existing structure, which Mr. Walker says, shew "the early English arch and ornament." The spire may have partaken of the repairs and alterations to which the rest of the church has been subjected. In a design for a church, by Mr. Walker, now exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the belfry has been judiciously composed from these turrets; the adoption of a form at once novel and graceful, reflects great credit on the taste and judgment of the architect. THE ANGLO-SAXON CONTROVERSY. Mr. URBAN, Temple, June 16. ON opening your last number, I found myself fairly embarked in "the Anglo-Saxon Controversy." It was with reluctance I approached the consideration of a question which had already given rise to so much angry feeling; but I could not well avoid it: E. I. C. and I hoped that a temperate discussion of the points at issue would be tolerated in a stranger, if accompanied with the courtesy which I felt to be due no less to myself, than to the gentlemen with whom I differed in opinion. In this hope, however reasonable, I have been disappointed. * See Review, "Guest's History of English Rhythms." June, p. 625. |