On entering the Hall, we turned to the right, and saw the Library, consisting of two rooms communicating with each other, with galleries running round them. “The College,” said my master, “was built and used for public meetings, in the year 1674, but this Library was not finished till eight or ten years after[43]. Unfortunately we have lost our able Librarian, George Edwards, who died two years ago, at the age of eighty. But here,” said Dr. Pitcairn, “is his work on Birds, which he began about seven years after he was chosen Library Keeper, to which office he was elected in 1733, through the influence of Sir Hans Sloane, who continued through life his great patron. Edwards was an extraordinary man; when young he had been intended for trade, but having an opportunity to travel, he much improved himself; and when, on his return from abroad, he was lucky enough to obtain the leisure which his office here afforded him, he devoted himself to the study of natural history, and became by great assiduity a distinguished ornithologist. During thirty-six years he was Librarian to the College, and in that period was chosen Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and by the first of these learned bodies was rewarded with the Copley medal; of which he was deservedly so proud, as to have caused it to be engraved in the title-page of the first volume of his work. Were he in my place, he would exhibit to you the treasures of our Library, which, though imperfect as a collection of medical books (for it consists chiefly of donations), is rich in rare classics, curious manuscripts, and in very scarce and valuable Treatises on Civil Law.”
On returning to the Hall, we ascended a broad staircase, the sides of which were hung with pictures, and on the first landing-place stopped, to read the long inscription to the memory of Harvey. “This,” said my master, “was voted by the College, in 1659, the year after the death of this illustrious man. You see it is on copper, which proves that it is a copy of the original epitaph, for that was on marble[44]. During his lifetime a statue, ornamented with a cap and gown, on the pedestal of which was another inscription, had been erected in the Hall of the College, in Amen Corner; but this honorary tablet which we are now looking at was placed in the Museum which bore his own name.” And this difference of position is alluded to in the inscription itself, for after enumerating the virtues, the discoveries, and more especially the various claims Harvey has to the eternal gratitude of the College, it concludes--