History is all but silent in regard to the woman of our great anatomist’s choice. We only know that she was the daughter of a physician of the day, Dr. Lancelot Browne, and that Harvey’s union with her proved childless. He himself mentions his wife incidentally as having a remarkable pet parrot, which must also, if we may infer so much from the pains he takes in specifying its various habits and accomplishments, have been a particular favorite of his own.[8] In 1604, Harvey joined the College of Physicians, his name appearing on the roll of candidates for the fellowship in that year; and three years afterwards, 1607, the term of his probation having passed, he was duly admitted to the distinction to which he aspired. We do not now lose sight of Harvey for any length of time: for a number of years, in the beginning of his career, he was probably occupied, like young physicians of the present day, among the poor in circumstance and afflicted in body, taking vast pains without prospect of pecuniary reward, but actuated by the ennobling sense of lightening the sum of human misery, and carried away, uncaring personal respects, by that ardent love of his profession which distinguishes every true votary of the art medical. Harvey, however, had not only zeal, talents, and accomplishments; he had, what was no less needful to success: powerful friends, united brothers, with the will and the ability to help him forward in the career he had chosen. In the beginning of 1609, he made suit for the reversion of the office of physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, then held by Dr. Wilkinson, and backing his suit by such powerful missives as the king’s letters recommendatory to the governors of the house, and farther, producing testimonials of competency from Dr. Adkinson, President of the College of Physicians, and others, his petition was granted, and he was regularly chosen physician in futuro of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Dr. Wilkinson having died in the course of the year, Harvey was first appointed to discharge the physician’s duties ad interim, and by and by he was formally elected to the vacant office, 14th October, 1609. In his new position Harvey must have found ample scope for acquiring tact and readiness in the practical details of his profession; though St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in his day appears to have borne a nearer resemblance to the dispensary of these times than to the hospital as we now understand the term. Harvey was now in his thirty-second year, and, brought before the public at so suitable an age, in an office of such responsibility, he must soon have risen into eminence as a physician and come into practice. Harvey, indeed, appears subsequently to have been physician to many of the most distinguished men of his age, among others to the Lord Chancellor Bacon, to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, &c.