s to the story of his unhappy quarrels with his wife, there may be a
grain of truth in it likewise. Vesalius' religion must have sat very
lightly on him. The man who had robbed churchyards and gibbets from his
youth was not likely to be much afraid of apparitions and demons. He had
handled too many human bones to care much for those of saints. He was
probably, like his friends of Basle, Montpellier, and Paris, somewhat of
a heretic at heart, probably somewhat of a pagan. His lady, Anne van
Hamme, was probably a strict Catholic, as her father, being a councillor
and master of the exchequer at Brussels, was bound to be; and
freethinking in the husband, crossed by superstition in the wife, may
have caused in them that wretched vie a part, that want of any true
communion of soul, too common to this day in Catholic countries.

Be these things as they may--and the exact truth of them will now be
never known--Vesalius set out to Jerusalem in the spring of 1564. On his
way he visited his old friends at Venice to see about his book against
Fallopius. The Venetian republic received the great philosopher with
open arms. Fallopius was just dead; and the senate offered their guest
the vacant chair of anatomy. He accepted it: but went on to the East.

He never occupied that chair; wrecked upon the Isle of Zante, as he was
sailing back from Palestine, he died miserably of fever and want, as
thousands of pilgrims returning from the Holy Land had died before him. A
goldsmith recognised him; buried him in a chapel of the Virgin; and put
up over him a simple stone, which remained till late years; and may
remain, for aught I know, even now.

So perished, in the prime of life, "a martyr to his love of science," to
quote the words of M. Burggraeve of Ghent, his able biographer and
commentator, "the prodigious man, who created a science at an epoch when
everything was still an obstacle to his progress; a man whose whole life
was a long struggle of knowledge against ignorance, of truth against
lies."

Plaudite: Exeat: with Rondelet and Buchanan. And whensoever this poor
foolish world needs three such men, may God of his great mercy send them.

Footnotes

{15} 9, Adam Street, Adelphi, London.

{72} I quote from the translation of the late lamented Philip Stanhope
Worsley, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

{76} Odyssey, book vi. 127-315; vol. i. pp. 143-150 of Mr. Worsley's
translation.

{88} Since this essay w