I have observed that the most remote planet is triple.

In explaining more fully the nature of his observation, Galileo remarked

that Saturn was not a single star, but three together, nearly touching

one another: he described them as having no relative motion, and as

having the form of three o's, namely, oOo, the central one being larger

than those on each side of it.

Although Galileo had announced that nothing new appeared in the other

planets, yet he soon communicated to the world another discovery of no

slight interest. The enigmatical letters in which it was concealed,

formed the following sentence:--

"Cynthia figuras æmulatur mater Amorum."

Venus rivals the phases of the moon.

Hitherto, Galileo had observed Venus when her disc was largely

illuminated; but having directed his telescope to her when she was not

far removed from the sun, he saw her in the form of a crescent,

resembling exactly the moon at the same elongation from the sun. He

continued to observe her night after night, during the whole time that

she could be seen in the course of her revolution round the sun, and he

found that she exhibited the very same phases which resulted from her

motion round that luminary.

Galileo had long contemplated a visit to the metropolis of Italy, and he

accordingly carried his intentions into effect in the early part of the

year 1611. Here he was received with that distinction which was due to

his great talents and his extended reputation. Princes, cardinals, and

prelates hastened to do him honour; and even those who discredited his

discoveries, and dreaded their results, vied with the true friends of

science in their anxiety to see the first wonder of the age.

In order to show the new celestial phenomena to his friends at Rome,

Galileo took with him his best telescope; and as he had discovered the

spots on the sun's surface in the month of March, 1611, he had the

gratification of exhibiting this new wonder to his admiring disciples.

He accordingly erected his telescope in the Quirinal garden, belonging

to cardinal Bandini; and in April, 1611, he exhibited them to his

friends in many of their most interesting variations. From their change

of position on the sun's disc, Galileo at first inferred, either that

the sun revolved about an axis; or that other planets, like Venus and

Mercury, revolved so near the sun as to appear like black spots when

they were opposite to his disc. Upon continuing his observations,

however, he saw reason to abandon this last opinion. He found, that the

spots must be in contact with the surface of the sun; that their figures

were irregular; that they had different degrees of darkness; that one

spot would often divide itself into three or four; that three or four

spots would often unite themselves into one; and that all the spots

revolved regularly with the sun, which appeared to complete its

revolution in about twenty-eight days.

Previous to the invention of the telescope, spots had been more than

once seen on the sun's disc with the unassisted eye. But even if these

were of the same character as those which Galileo and others observed,

we cannot consider them as anticipations of their discovery by the

telescope. As the telescope was now in the possession of several

astronomers, Galileo began to have many rivals in discovery; and it is

now placed beyond the reach of doubt, that he was not the first

discoverer of the solar spots. From the communication which I received

from the late Dr. Robertson, of Oxford[13], it appears that Thomas

Harriot had discovered the solar spots on or before the 8th of December,

1610. His manuscripts, in lord Egremont's possession, incontestably

prove that his regular observations on the spots commenced on the 8th of

December, 1610,--at least three months before Galileo discovered them;

and that they were continued till the 18th of January, 1613. The

observations which he has recorded are 199 in number; and the accounts

of them are accompanied with rough drawings representing the number,

position, and magnitude of the spots.[14]

Another candidate for the honour of discovering the spots of the sun,

was John Fabricius, who undoubtedly saw them previous to June, 1611. The

dedication of the work[15] in which he has recorded his observation,

bears the date of the 13th of June, 1611; and it is obvious, from the

work itself, that he had seen the spots during the year 1610: but as

there is no proof that he saw them before the 8th of December, 1610, and

as it is probable that Harriot had seen them before that date, we are

compelled to assign the priority of the discovery to our distinguished

countryman.

The claim of Scheiner, professor of mathematics at Ingolstadt, is more

intimately connected with the history of Galileo. This learned

astronomer having, early in 1611, turned his telescope to the sun,

necessarily discovered the spots which at that time covered his disc.

Light flying clouds happened, at the time, to weaken the intensity of

his light, so that he was able to show the spots to his pupils. These

observations were not published till January, 1612; and they appeared in

the form of three letters, addressed to Mark Velser, one of the

magistrates of Augsburg, under the signature of _Apelles post Tabulam_.

Scheiner, who, many years afterwards, published an elaborate work on the

subject, adopted the same idea which had at first occurred to

Galileo,--that the spots were the dark sides of planets revolving round

and near the sun.[16]

On the publication of Scheiner's letters Velser transmitted a copy of

them to his friend Galileo, with the request that he would favour him

with his opinion of the new phenomena. After some delay, Galileo

addressed three letters to Velser, in which he combated the opinions of

Scheiner on the cause of the spots. These letters were dated the 4th of

May, 1612; but though the controversy was carried on in the language of

mutual respect and esteem, it put an end to the friendship which had

existed between the two astronomers. In these letters, Galileo showed

that the spots often dispersed like vapours or clouds; that they

sometimes had a duration of only one or two days, and at other times of

thirty or forty days; that they contracted in their breadth when they

approached the sun's limb, without any diminution of their length; that

they describe circles parallel to each other; that the monthly rotation

of the sun again brings the same spots into view; and that they are

seldom seen at a greater distance than 30° from the sun's equator.

Galileo, likewise, discovered on the sun's disc _faculœ_, or _luculi_,

as they were called, which differ in no respect from the common ones but

in their being brighter than the rest of the sun's surface.[17]

In the last of the letters which our author addressed to Velser, and

which was written in December, 1612, he recurs to his former discovery

of the elongated shape, or rather the triple structure, of Saturn. The

singular figure which he had observed in this planet had entirely

disappeared; and he evidently announces the fact to Velser, lest it

should be used by his enemies to discredit the accuracy of his

observations. "Looking on Saturn," says he, "within these few days, I

found it solitary, without the assistance of its accustomed stars, and,

in short, perfectly round and defined like Jupiter; and such it still

remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a metamorphosis? Are the

two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the sun? Have they suddenly

vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his own children? or was the

appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which the glasses have for so

long a time mocked me, and so many others who have often observed with

me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of

those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the

fallacies of the new observations, and recognised their impossibilities.

I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new, and so

unexpected; the shortness of the time, the unexampled occurrence, the

weakness of my intellect, and the terror of being mistaken, have greatly

confounded me." Although Galileo struggled to obtain a solution of this

mystery, yet he had not the good fortune of succeeding. He imagined that

the two smaller stars would reappear, in consequence of the supposed

revolution of the planet round its axis; but the discovery of the ring

of Saturn, and of the obliquity of its plane to the ecliptic, was

necessary to explain the phenomena which were so perplexing to our

author.

The ill health to which Galileo was occasionally subject, and the belief

that the air of Florence was prejudicial to his complaints, induced him

to spend much of his time at Selve, the villa of his friend Salviati.

This eminent individual had ever been the warmest friend of Galileo, and

seems to have delighted in drawing round him the scientific genius of

the age. He was a member of the celebrated Lyncæan Society, founded by

Prince Frederigo Cesi; and though he is not known as the author of any

important discovery, yet he has earned, by his liberality to science, a

glorious name, which will be indissolubly united with the immortal

destiny of Galileo.

The subject of floating bridges having been discussed at one of the

scientific parties which had assembled at the house of Salviati, a

difference of opinion arose respecting the influence of the shape of

bodies on their disposition to float or to sink in a fluid. Contrary to

the general opinion, Galileo undertook to prove that it depended on

other causes: and he was thus led to compose his discourse on floating

bodies[18], which was published in 1612, and dedicated to Cosmo de'

Medici. This work contains many ingenious experiments, and much acute

reasoning in support of the true principles of hydrostatics; and it is

now chiefly remarkable as a specimen of the sagacity and intellectual

power of its author. Like all his other works, it encountered the most

violent opposition; and Galileo was more than once summoned into the

field to repel the aggressions of his ignorant and presumptuous

opponents. The first attack upon it was made by Ptolemy Nozzolini, in a

letter to Marzemedici, archbishop of Florence[19]; and to this Galileo

replied in a letter addressed to his antagonist.[20] A more elaborate

examination of it was published by Lodovico delle Colombe, and another

by M. Vincenzo di Grazia. To these attacks, a minute and overwhelming

answer was printed in the name of Benedetti Castelli, the friend and

pupil of Galileo; but it was discovered, some years after Galileo's

death, that he was himself the author of this work.[21]

The current of Galileo's life had hitherto flowed in a smooth and

unobstructed channel. He had now attained the highest objects of earthly

ambition. His discoveries had placed him at the head of the great men of

his age; he possessed a professional income far beyond his wants, and

even beyond his anticipations; and, what is still dearer to a

philosopher, he enjoyed the most perfect leisure for carrying on and

completing his discoveries. The opposition which these discoveries

encountered, was to him more a subject for triumph than for sorrow.

Prejudice and ignorance were his only enemies; and if they succeeded for

a while in harassing his march, it was only to give him occasion for

fresh achievements. He who contends for truths which he has himself been

permitted to discover, may well sustain the conflict in which

presumption and error are destined to fall. The public tribunal may

neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to decide upon the issue;

but he can appeal to posterity, and reckon with confidence on "its sure

decree."

The ardour of Galileo's mind, the keenness of his temper, his clear

perception of truth, and his inextinguishable love of it, combined to

exasperate and prolong the hostility of his enemies. When argument

failed to enlighten their judgment, and reason to remove their

prejudices, he wielded against them his powerful weapons of ridicule and

sarcasm; and in this unrelenting warfare, he seems to have forgotten

that Providence had withheld from his enemies those very gifts which he

had so liberally received. He who is allowed to take the start of his

species, and to penetrate the veil which conceals from common minds the

mysteries of nature, must not expect that the world will be patiently

dragged at the chariot wheels of his philosophy. Mind has its inertia,

as well as matter; and its progress to truth can only be insured by the

gradual and patient removal of the obstructions which surround it.

The boldness--may we not say the recklessness?--with which Galileo

insisted upon making proselytes of his enemies, produced the very

opposite effect. Errors thus assailed, entrenched themselves in general

feelings, and were embalmed in the virulence of the passions. The

various classes of his opponents marshalled themselves for their mutual

defence. The Aristotelian professors, the temporising Jesuits, the

political churchmen, and that timid but respectable body who at all

times dread innovation, whether it be in religion or in science, entered

into an alliance against the philosophical tyrant who threatened them

with the penalties of knowledge.

The party of Galileo, though weak in numbers, was not without power and

influence. He had trained around him a devoted band, who idolised his

genius and supported his views. His pupils had been appointed to several

of the principal professorships in Italy. The enemies of religion were

on this occasion united with the Christian philosopher; and there were,

even in these days, many princes and nobles who had felt the

inconvenience of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and who secretly abetted

Galileo in his crusade against established errors.

Although these two parties had been long dreading each other's power,

and reconnoitring each other's position, yet we cannot exactly determine

which of them hoisted the first signal for war. The church party,

particularly its high dignitaries, were certainly disposed to rest on

the defensive. Flanked on one side by the logic of the schools, and on

the other by the popular interpretation of Scripture, and backed by the

strong arm of the civil power, they were not disposed to interfere with

the prosecution of science, however much they may have dreaded its

influence. The philosophers, on the contrary, united the zeal of

innovators with the firmness of purpose which truth alone can inspire.

Victorious in every contest, they were flushed with success, and they

panted for a struggle in which they knew they must triumph.

In this state of warlike preparation Galileo addressed a letter, in

1613, to his friend and pupil, the abbé Castelli, the object of which

was to prove that the Scriptures were not intended to teach us science

and philosophy. Hence he inferred, that the language employed in the

sacred volume in reference to such subjects should be interpreted only

in its common acceptation; and that it was in reality as difficult to

reconcile the Ptolemaic as the Copernican system to the expressions

which occur in the Bible.

A demonstration was about this time made by the opposite party, in the

person of Caccini, a Dominican friar, who made a personal attack upon

Galileo from the pulpit. This violent ecclesiastic ridiculed the

astronomer and his followers, by addressing them in the sacred language

of Scripture; "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here looking up into

heaven?" But this species of warfare was disapproved of even by the

church; and Luigi Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, not only

apologised to Galileo, who had transmitted to him a formal complaint

against Caccini, but expressed the acuteness of his own feelings on

being implicated in the "brutal conduct of thirty or forty thousand

monks."

From the character of Caccini, and the part which he afterwards played

in the persecution of Galileo, we can scarcely avoid the opinion that

his attack from the pulpit was intended as a snare for the unwary

philosopher. It roused Galileo from his wonted caution; and stimulated,

no doubt, by the nature of the answer which he received from Maraffi, he

published a longer letter of seventy pages, defending and illustrating

his former views respecting the influence of scriptural language on the

two contending systems. As if to give the impress of royal authority to

this new appeal, he addressed it to Christian, grand-duchess of Tuscany,

the mother of Cosmo; and in this form it seems to have excited a new

interest, as if it had expressed the opinion of the grand-ducal family.

These external circumstances gave additional weight to the powerful and

unanswerable reasoning which this letter contains; and it was scarcely

possible that any man, possessed of a sound mind, and willing to learn

the truth, should refuse his assent to the judicious views of our

author. He expresses his belief that the Scriptures were given to

instruct mankind respecting their salvation, and that the faculties of

our minds were given us for the purpose of investigating the phenomena

of nature. He considers Scripture and nature as proceeding from the same

divine author, and, therefore, incapable of speaking a different

language; and he points out the absurdity of supposing that professors

of astronomy will shut their eyes to the phenomena which they discover

in the heavens, or will refuse to believe those deductions of reason

which appeal to their judgment with all the power of demonstration. He

supports these views by quotations from the ancient fathers; and he

refers to the dedication of Copernicus's own work to the Roman pontiff,

Paul III., as a proof that the pope himself did not regard the new

system of the world as hostile to the sacred writings. Copernicus, on

the contrary, tells his holiness, that the reason of inscribing to him

his new system was, that the authority of the pontiff might put to

silence the calumnies of some individuals, who attacked it by arguments

drawn from passages of Scripture twisted for their own purpose.

It was in vain to meet such arguments by any other weapons than those of

the civil power. His enemies saw that they must either crush the

dangerous innovation, or allow it the fullest scope; and they determined

upon an appeal to the inquisition. Lorini, a monk of the Dominican

order, had already denounced to this body Galileo's letter to Castelli;

and Caccini, bribed by the mastership of the convent of St. Mary of

Minerva, was invited to settle at Rome for the purpose of embodying the

evidence against Galileo.

Though these plans had been carried on in secret, yet Galileo's

suspicions were excited; and he obtained leave from Cosmo to go to Rome

about the end of 1615.[22] Here he was lodged in the palace of the grand

duke's ambassador, and kept up a constant correspondence with the family

of his patron at Florence; but, in the midst of this external splendour,

he was summoned before the inquisition to answer for the heretical

doctrines which he had published. He was charged with maintaining the

motion of the earth, and the stability of the sun, with teaching this

doctrine to his pupils, with corresponding on the subject with several

German mathematicians, and with having published it, and attempted to

reconcile it to Scripture, in his letters to Mark Velser in 1612. The

inquisition assembled to consider these charges on the 25th of February,

1615; and it was decreed that Galileo should be enjoined by cardinal

Bellarmine to renounce the obnoxious doctrines, and to pledge himself

that he would neither teach, defend, nor publish them in future. In the

event of his refusing to acquiesce in this sentence, it was decreed that

he should be thrown into prison. Galileo did not hesitate to yield to

this injunction. On the day following, the 26th of February, he appeared

before cardinal Bellarmine, to renounce his heretical opinions; and,

having declared that he abandoned the doctrine of the earth's motion,

and would neither defend nor teach it, in his conversation or in his

writings, he was dismissed the court.

Having thus disposed of Galileo, the inquisition conceived the design of

condemning the whole system of Copernicus as heretical. Galileo, with

more hardihood than prudence, remained at Rome for the purpose of giving

his assistance in frustrating this plan; but there is reason to think

that he injured by his presence the very cause which he meant to

support. The inquisition had determined to put down the new opinions;

and they now inserted among the prohibited books Galileo's letters to

Castelli and the grand duchess, Kepler's epitome of the Copernican

theory, and Copernicus's own work on the revolutions of the heavenly

bodies.

Notwithstanding these proceedings, Galileo had an audience of the pope,

Paul V., in March, 1616. He was received very graciously, and spent

nearly an hour with his holiness. When they were about to part, the pope

assured Galileo, that the congregation were not disposed to receive upon

light grounds any calumnies which might be propagated by his enemies,

and that, as long as he occupied the papal chair, he might consider

himself as safe.

These assurances were no doubt founded on the belief that Galileo would

adhere to his pledges; but so bold and inconsiderate was he in the

expression of his opinions, that even in Rome he was continually engaged

in controversial discussions. The following very interesting account of

these disputes is given by Querenghi, in a letter to the cardinal

D'Este:--

"Your eminence would be delighted with Galileo if you heard him holding

forth, as he often does, in the midst of fifteen or twenty, all

violently attacking him, sometimes in one house, sometimes in another.

But he is armed after such fashion that he laughs all of them to

scorn,--and even if the novelty of his opinions prevents entire

persuasion, at least he convicts of emptiness most of the arguments with

which his adversaries endeavour to overwhelm him. He was particularly

admirable on Monday last in the house of signor Frederico Ghisilieri;

and what especially pleased me was, that before replying to the contrary

arguments, he amplified and enforced them with new grounds of great

plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries in a more ridiculous

plight, when he afterwards overturned them all."

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites suggested to Galileo a new method

of finding the longitude at sea. Philip III. had encouraged astronomers

to direct their attention to this problem, by offering a reward for its

solution; and in those days, when new discoveries in science were

sometimes rejected as injurious to mankind, it was no common event to

see a powerful sovereign courting the assistance of astronomers in

promoting the commercial interests of his empire. Galileo seems to have

regarded the solution of this problem as an object worthy of his

ambition; and he no doubt anticipated the triumph which he would obtain

over his enemies, if the Medicean stars, which they had treated with

such contempt, could be made subservient to the great interests of

mankind. During his residence at Rome in 1615 and 1616, Galileo had

communicated his views on this subject to the comte di Lemos, the

viceroy of Naples, who had presided over the council of the Spanish

Indies. This nobleman advised him to apply to the Spanish minister, the

duke of Lerma; and, through the influence of the grand duke Cosmo, his

ambassador at the court of Madrid was engaged to manage the affair. The

anxiety of Galileo on this subject was singularly great. He assured the

Tuscan ambassador that, in order to accomplish this object, "he was

ready to leave all his comforts, his country, his friends, and his

family, to cross over into Spain, and to stay as long as he might be

wanted at Seville or at Lisbon, or wherever it might be convenient to

communicate a knowledge of his method." The enthusiasm of Galileo seems

to have increased the lethargy of the Spanish court; and though the

negotiations were occasionally revived for ten or twelve years, yet no

steps were taken to bring them to a close. This strange procrastination

has been generally ascribed to jealousy or indifference on the part of

Spain; but Nelli, one of Galileo's biographers, declares, on the

authority of Florentine records, that Cosmo had privately requested from

the government the privilege of sending annually t to the Spanish Indies

two Leghorn merchantmen free of duty, as a compensation for the loss of

Galileo!

The failure of this negotiation must have been a source of extreme

mortification to the high spirit and sanguine temperament of Galileo. He

had calculated, however, too securely on his means of putting the new

method to a successful trial. The great imperfection of the time-keepers

of that day, and the want of proper telescopes, would have baffled him

in all his efforts, and he would have been subject to a more serious

mortification from the failure and rejection of his plan, than that

which he actually experienced from the avarice of his patron, or the

indifference of Spain. Even in the present day, no telescope has been

invented which is capable of observing at sea the eclipses of Jupiter's

satellites; and though this method of finding the longitude has great

advantages on shore, yet it has been completely abandoned at sea, and

superseded by easier and more correct methods.

In the year 1618, when no fewer than three comets visited our system,

and attracted the attention of all the astronomers of Europe, Galileo

was unfortunately confined to his bed by a severe illness; but, though

he was unable to make a single observation upon these remarkable bodies,

he contrived to involve himself in the controversies which they

occasioned. Marco Guiducci, an astronomer of Florence, and a friend of

Galileo's, had delivered a discourse on comets before the Florentine

Academy, which was published in 1619.[23] The heads of this discourse

were supposed to have been communicated to him by Galileo, and this

seems to have been universally admitted during the controversy to which

it gave rise. The opinion maintained in this treatise, that comets are

nothing but meteors which occasionally appear in our atmosphere, like

halos and rainbows, savours so little of the sagacity of Galileo that we

should be disposed to question its paternity. His inability to partake

in the general interest which these three comets excited, and to employ

his powerful telescope in observing their phenomena and their movements,

might have had some slight share in the formation of an opinion which

deprived them of their importance as celestial bodies. But, however this

may have been, the treatise of Guiducci afforded a favourable point of

attack to Galileo's enemies, and the dangerous task was entrusted to

Oratio Grassi, a learned Jesuit, who, in a work entitled _The

Astronomical and Philosophical Balance_, criticised the discourse on

comets, under the feigned name of Lotario Sarsi.

Galileo replied to this attack in a volume entitled _Il Saggiatore_, or

_The Assayer_, which, owing to the state of his health, was not

published till the autumn of 1623.[24] This work was written in the form

of a letter to Virginio Cæsarini, a member of the Lyncæan Academy, and

master of the chamber to Urban VIII.[25], who had just ascended the

pontifical throne. It has been long celebrated among literary men for

the beauty of its language, though it is doubtless one of the least

important of Galileo's writings.

The succession of the cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne,

under the name of Urban VIII., was hailed by Galileo and his friends as

an event favourable to the promotion of science. Urban had not only been

the personal friend of Galileo and of prince Cesi, the founder of the

Lyncæan Academy, but had been intimately connected with that able and

liberal association; and it was, therefore, deemed prudent to secure his

favour and attachment. If Paul III. had, nearly a century before,

patronised Copernicus, and accepted of the dedication of his great work,

it was not unreasonable to expect that, in more enlightened times,

another pontiff might exhibit the same liberality to science.

The plan of securing to Galileo the patronage of Urban VIII. seems to

have been devised by prince Cesi. Although Galileo had not been able for

some years to travel, excepting in a fitter, yet he was urged by the

prince to perform a journey to Rome, for the express purpose of

congratulating his friend upon his elevation to the papal chair. This

request was made in October, 1623; and, though Galileo's health was not

such as to authorise him to undergo so much fatigue, yet he felt the

importance of the advice; and, after visiting Cesi at Acqua Sparta, he

arrived at Rome in the spring of 1624. The reception which he here

experienced far exceeded his most sanguine expectations. During the two

months which he spent in the capital he was permitted to have no fewer

than six long and gratifying audiences of the pope. The kindness of his

holiness was of the most marked description. He not only loaded Galileo

with presents[26], and promised him a pension for his son Vincenzo, but

he wrote a letter to Ferdinand, who had just succeeded Cosmo as grand

duke of Tuscany, recommending Galileo to his particular patronage. "For

we find in him," says he, "not only literary distinction, but the love of

piety; and he is strong in those qualities by which pontifical good-will

is easily obtained. And now, when he has been brought to this city to

congratulate us on our elevation, we have very lovingly embraced him;

nor can we suffer him to return to the country whither your liberality

recalls him, without an ample provision of pontifical love. And that you

may know how dear he is to us, we have willed to give him this

honourable testimonial of virtue and piety. And we further signify, that

every benefit which you shall confer upon him, imitating or even

surpassing your father's liberality, will conduce to our gratification."

Not content with thus securing the friendship of the pope, Galileo

endeavoured to bespeak the good-will of the cardinals towards the

Copernican system. He had, accordingly, many interviews with several of

these dignitaries; and he was assured, by cardinal Hohenzoller, that in

a representation which he had made to the pope on the subject of

Copernicus, he stated to his holiness, "that as all the heretics

considered that system as undoubted, it would be necessary to be very

circumspect in coming to any resolution on the subject." To this remark

his holiness replied,--"that the church had not condemned this system;

and that it should not be condemned as heretical, but only as rash;" and

he added, "that there was no fear of any person undertaking to prove

that it must necessarily be true."

The recent appointment of the abbé Castelli, the friend and pupil of

Galileo, to be mathematician to the pope, was an event of a most

gratifying nature; and when we recollect that it was to Castelli that he

addressed the famous letter which was pronounced heretical by the

inquisition, we must regard it also as an event indicative of à new and

favourable feeling towards the friends of science. The opinions of

Urban, indeed, had suffered no change. He was one of the few cardinals

who had opposed the inquisitorial decree of 1616, and his subsequent

demeanour was in every respect conformable to the liberality of his

early views. The sincerity of his conduct was still further evinced by

the grant of a pension of one hundred crowns to Galileo, a few years

after his visit to Rome; but there is reason to think that this

allowance was not regularly paid.

The death of Cosmo, whose liberality had given him both affluence and

leisure, threatened Galileo with pecuniary difficulties. He had been

involved in a "great load of debt," owing to the circumstances of his

brother's family; and, in order to relieve himself, he had requested

Castelli to dispose of the pension of his son Vincenzo: but he was now

alarmed at the prospect of losing his salary as an extraordinary

professor at Pisa. The great youth of Ferdinand, who was scarcely of

age, induced Galileo's enemies, in 1629, to raise doubts respecting the

payment of a salary to a professor who neither resided nor lectured in

the university; but the question was decided in his favour, and we have

no doubt that the decision was facilitated by the friendly

recommendation of the pope, to which we have already referred.

Although Galileo had made a narrow escape from the grasp of the

inquisition, yet he was never sufficiently sensible of the lenity which

he experienced. When he left Rome in 1616, under the solemn pledge of

never again teaching the obnoxious doctrine, it was with an hostility

against the church, suppressed but deeply cherished; and his resolution

to propagate the heresy seems to have been coeval with the vow by which

he renounced it. In the year 1618, when he communicated his theory of

the tides to the archduke Leopold, he alludes in the most sarcastic

manner to the conduct of the church. The same hostile tone, more or

less, pervaded all his writings, and, while he laboured to sharpen the

edge of his satire, he endeavoured to guard himself against its effects,

by an affectation of the humblest deference to the decisions of

theology. Had Galileo stood alone, his devotion to science might have

withdrawn him from so hopeless a contest; but he was spurred on by the

violence of a party. The Lyncæan Academy never scrupled to summon him

from his researches. They placed him in the forlorn hope of their

combat, and he at last fell a victim to the rashness of his adventure.

But, whatever allowance we may make for the ardour of Galileo's temper,

and the peculiarity of his position; and however we may justify and even

approve of his past conduct, his visit to Urban VIII., in 1624, placed

him in a new relation to the church, which demanded on his part a new

and corresponding demeanour. The noble and generous reception which he

met with from Urban, and the liberal declaration of cardinal Hohenzoller

on the subject of the Copernican system, should have been regarded as

expressions of regret for the past, and offers of conciliation for the

future. Thus honoured by the head of the church, and befriended by its

dignitaries, Galileo must have felt himself secure against the indignity

of its lesser functionaries, and in the possession of the fullest

licence to prosecute his researches and publish his discoveries,

provided he avoided that dogma of the church which, even in the present

day, it has not ventured to renounce. But Galileo was bound to the

Romish hierarchy by even stronger ties. His son and himself were

pensioners of the church, and, having accepted of its alms, they owed to

it, at least, a decent and respectful allegiance. The pension thus given

by Urban was not a remuneration which sovereigns sometimes award to the

services of their subjects. Galileo was a foreigner at Rome. The

sovereign of the papal state owed him no obligation; and hence we must

regard the pension of Galileo as a donation from the Roman pontiff to

science itself, and as a declaration to the Christian world, that

religion was not jealous of philosophy, and that the church of Rome was

willing to respect and foster even the genius of its enemies.

Galileo viewed all these circumstances in a different light. He resolved

to compose a work in which the Copernican system should be demonstrated;

but he had not the courage to do this in a direct and open manner. He

adopted the plan of discussing the subject in a dialogue between three

speakers, in the hope of eluding by this artifice the censure of the

church. This work was completed in 1630, but, owing to some difficulties

in obtaining a licence to print it, it was not published till 1632.

In obtaining this licence, Galileo exhibited considerable address, and

his memory has not escaped from the imputation of having acted unfairly,

and of having involved his personal friends in the consequences of his

imprudence.

The situation of master of the palace was, fortunately for Galileo's

designs, filled by Nicolo Riccardi, a friend and pupil of his own. This

officer was a sort of censor of new publications, and when he was

applied to on the subject of printing his work, Galileo soon found that

attempts had previously been made to thwart his views. He instantly set

off for Rome, and had an interview with his friend, who was in every

respect anxious to oblige him. Riccardi examined the manuscript, pointed

out some incautious expressions which he considered it necessary to

erase, and returned it with his written approbation, on the

understanding that the alterations he suggested would be made. Dreading

to remain in Rome during the unhealthy season, which was fast

approaching, Galileo returned to Florence, with the intention of

completing the index and dedication, and of sending the MS. to Rome, to

be printed under the care of prince Cesi. The death of that

distinguished individual, in August 1630, frustrated Galileo's plan, and

he applied for leave to have the book printed in Florence. Riccardi was

at first desirous to examine the MS. again, but after inspecting only

the beginning and the end of it, he gave Galileo leave to print it

wherever he chose, providing it bore the licence of the

inquisitor-general of Florence, and one or two other persons whom he

named. Having overcome all these difficulties, Galileo's work was

published in 1632, under the title of "The System of the World of

Galileo Galilei, &c., in which, in four dialogues concerning the two

principal systems of the World,--the Ptolemaic and the Copernican,--he

discusses, indeterminately and firmly, the arguments proposed on both

sides." It is dedicated to Ferdinand, grand duke of Tuscany, and is

prefaced by an "Address to the prudent reader," which is itself

characterised by the utmost imprudence. He refers to the decree of the

inquisition in the most insulting and ironical language. He attributes

it to passion and to ignorance, not by direct assertion, but by

insinuations ascribed to others; and he announces his intention to

defend the Copernican system, as a pure mathematical hypothesis, and not

as an opinion, having an advantage over that of the stability of the

earth absolutely. The dialogue is conducted by three persons, Salviati,

Sagredo, and Simplicio. Salviati, who is the true philosopher in the

dialogue, was the real name of a nobleman whom we have already had

occasion to mention. Sagredo, the name of another noble friend of

Galileo's, performs a secondary part under Salviati. He proposes doubts,

suggests difficulties, and enlivens the gravity of the dialogue with his

wit and pleasantry. Simplicio is a resolute follower of Ptolemy and

Aristotle, and with a proper degree of candour and modesty, he brings

forward all the common arguments in favour of the Ptolemaic system.

Between the wit of Sagredo, and the powerful philosophy of Salviati, the

peripatetic sage is baffled in every discussion; and there can be no

doubt that Galileo aimed a more fatal blow at the Ptolemaic system by

this mode of discussing it, than if he had endeavoured to overturn it by

direct arguments.

The influence of this work on the public mind was such as might have

been anticipated. The obnoxious doctrines which it upheld were eagerly

received, and widely disseminated; and the church of Rome became

sensible of the shock which was thus given to its intellectual

supremacy. Pope Urban VIII., attached though he had been to Galileo,

never once hesitated respecting the line of conduct which he felt

himself bound to pursue. His mind was, nevertheless, agitated with

conflicting sentiments. He entertained a sincere affection for science

and literature, and yet he was placed in the position of their enemy. He

had been the personal friend of Galileo, and yet his duty compelled him

to become his accuser. Embarrassing as these feelings were, other

considerations contributed to soothe him. He had, in his capacity of a

cardinal, opposed the first persecution of Galileo. He had, since his

elevation to the pontificate, traced an open path for the march of

Galileo's discoveries; and he had finally endeavoured to bind the

recusant philosopher by the chains of kindness and gratitude. All these

means, however, had proved abortive, and he was now called upon to

support the doctrine which he had subscribed, and administer the law of

which he was the guardian.

It has been supposed, without any satisfactory evidence, that Urban may

have been influenced by less creditable motives. Salviati and Sagredo

being well-known personages, it was inferred, that Simplicio must also

have a representative. The enemies of Galileo are said to have convinced

his holiness that Simplicio was intended as a portraiture of himself;

and this opinion received some probability from the fact, that the

peripatetic disputant had employed many of the arguments which Urban had

himself used in his discussions with Galileo. The latest biographer of

Galileo[27] regards this motive as necessary to account for "the

otherwise inexplicable change which took place in the conduct of Urban

to his old friend;"--but we cannot admit for a moment the truth, of this

supposition. The church had been placed in hostility to a powerful and

liberal party, which was adverse to its interests. The dogmas of the

Catholic faith had been brought into direct collision with the

deductions of science. The leader of the philosophic band had broken the

most solemn armistice with the inquisition: he had renounced the ties of

gratitude which bound him to the pontiff; and Urban was thus compelled

to intrench himself in a position to which he had been driven by his

opponents.

The design of summoning Galileo before the inquisition, seems to have

been formed almost immediately after the publication of his book; for

even in August, 1632, the preliminary proceedings had reached the ears

of the grand duke Ferdinand. The Tuscan ambassador at Rome was speedily

acquainted with the dissatisfaction which his sovereign felt at these

proceedings; and he was instructed to forward to Florence a written

statement of the charges against Galileo, in order to enable him to

prepare for his defence. Although this request was denied, Ferdinand

again interposed; and transmitted a letter to his ambassador,

recommending the admission of Campanella and Castelli into the

congregation of ecclesiastics by which Galileo was to be judged.

Circumstances, however, rendered it prudent to withhold this letter.

Castelli was sent away from Rome, and Scipio Chiaramonte, a bigotted

ecclesiastic, was summoned from Pisa to complete the number of the

judges.

It appears from a despatch of the Tuscan minister, that Ferdinand was

enraged at the transaction; and he instructed his ambassador, Niccolini,

to make the strongest representations to the pope. Niccolini had several

interviews with his holiness; but all his expostulations were fruitless.

He found Urban highly incensed against Galileo; and his holiness begged

Niccolini to advise the archduke not to interfere any farther, as he

would not "get through it with honour." On the 15th of September the

pope caused it to be intimated to Niccolini, as a mark of his especial

esteem for the grand duke, that he was obliged to refer the work to the

inquisition; but both the prince and his ambassador were declared liable

to the usual censures if they divulged the secret.

From the measures which this tribunal had formerly pursued, it was not

difficult to foresee the result of their present deliberations. They

summoned Galileo to appear before them at Rome, to answer in person the

charges under which he lay. The Tuscan ambassador expostulated warmly

with the court of Rome on the inhumanity of this proceeding. He urged

his advanced age, his infirm health, the discomforts of the journey, and

the miseries of the quarantine[28], as motives for reconsidering their

decision: but the pope was inexorable; and though it was agreed to relax

the quarantine as much as possible in his favour, yet it was declared

indispensable that he should appear in person before the inquisition.

Worn out with age and infirmities, and exhausted with the fatigues of

his journey, Galileo arrived at Rome on the 14th of February, 1633. The

Tuscan ambassador announced his arrival in an official form to the

commissary of the holy office, and Galileo awaited in calm dignity the

approach of his trial. Among those who proffered their advice in this

distressing emergency, we must enumerate the cardinal Barberino, the

pope's nephew, who, though he may have felt the necessity of an

interference on the part of the church, was yet desirous that it should

be effected with the least injury to Galileo and to science. He

accordingly visited Galileo, and advised him to remain as much at home

as possible, to keep aloof from general society, and to see only his

most intimate friends. The same advice was given from different

quarters; and Galileo felt its propriety, and remained in strict

seclusion in the palace of the Tuscan ambassador.

During the whole of the trial which now commenced, Galileo was treated

with the most marked indulgence. Abhorring, as we must do, the

principles and practice of this odious tribunal, and reprobating its

interference with the cautious deductions of science, we must yet admit

that, on this occasion, its deliberations were not dictated by passion,

nor its power directed by vengeance. Though placed at their

judgment-seat as a heretic, Galileo stood there with the recognised

attributes of a sage; and though an offender against the laws of which

they were the guardian, yet the highest respect was yielded to his

genius, and the kindest commiseration to his infirmities.

In the beginning of April, when his examination in person was to

commence, it became necessary that he should be removed to the holy

office; but instead of committing him, as was the practice, to solitary

confinement, he was provided with apartments in the house of the fiscal

of the inquisition. His table was provided by the Tuscan ambassador, and

his servant was allowed to attend him at his pleasure, and to sleep in

an adjoining apartment. Even this nominal confinement, however,

Galileo's high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the disease to

which he was constitutionally subject contributed to fret and irritate

him, and he became impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as

from his bondage. Cardinal Barberino seems to have received notice of

the state of Galileo's feelings; and with a magnanimity which posterity

will ever honour, he liberated Galileo on his own responsibility; and in

ten days after his first examination, and on the last day of April, he

was restored to the hospitable roof of the Tuscan ambassador.

Though this favour was granted on the condition of his remaining in

strict seclusion, Galileo recovered his health, and to a certain degree

his usual hilarity, amid the kind attentions of Niccolini and his

family; and when the want of exercise had begun to produce symptoms of

indisposition, Niccolini obtained for him leave to go into the public

gardens in a half-closed carriage.

After the inquisition had examined Galileo personally, they allowed him

a reasonable time for preparing his defence. He felt the difficulty of

adducing any thing like a plausible justification of his conduct; and he

resorted to an ingenious, though a shallow artifice, which was regarded

by the court as an aggravation of the crime. After his first appearance

before the inquisition in 1616, he was publicly and falsely charged by

his enemies with having then abjured his opinions; and he was taunted as

a criminal who had been actually punished for his offences. As a

refutation of these calumnies. Cardinal Bellarmine had given him a

certificate in his own handwriting, declaring that he neither abjured

his opinions, nor suffered punishment for them; and that the doctrine of

the earth's motion, and the sun's stability, was only denounced to him

as contrary to scripture, and as one which could not be defended. To

this certificate the cardinal did not add, because he was not called

upon to do it, that Galileo was enjoined not _to teach in any manner_

the doctrine thus denounced; and Galileo ingeniously avails himself of

this supposed omission, to account for his having, in the lapse of

fourteen or sixteen years, forgotten the injunction. He assigned the

same excuse for his having omitted to mention this injunction to

Riccardi, and to the inquisitor-general at Florence, when he obtained

the licence to print his dialogues. The court held the production of

this certificate to be at once a proof and an aggravation of his

offence; because the certificate itself declared that the obnoxious

doctrines had been pronounced contrary to the Holy Scriptures.

Having duly weighed the confessions and excuses of their prisoner, and

considered the general merits of the case, the inquisition came to an

agreement upon the sentence which they were to pronounce, and appointed

the 22d of June as the day on which it was to be delivered. Two days

previous to this, Galileo was summoned to appear at the holy office; and

on the morning of the 21st, he obeyed the summons. On the 22d of June he

was clothed in a penitential dress, and conducted to the convent of

Minerva, where the inquisition was assembled to give judgment. A long

and elaborate sentence was pronounced, detailing the former proceedings

of the inquisition, and specifying the offences which he had committed

in teaching heretical doctrines, in violating his former pledges, and in

obtaining by improper means a licence for the printing of his Dialogues.

After an invocation of the name of our Saviour, and of the Holy Virgin,

Galileo is declared to have brought himself under strong suspicions of

heresy, and to have incurred all the censures and penalties which are

enjoined against delinquents of this kind; but from all these

consequences he is to be held absolved, provided that with a sincere

heart, and a faith unfeigned, he abjures and curses the heresies he has

cherished, as well as every other heresy against the Catholic church. In

order that his offence might not go altogether unpunished, that he might

be more cautious in future, and be a warning to others to abstain from

similar delinquencies, it was also decreed that his Dialogues should be

prohibited by public edict; that he himself should be condemned to the

prison of the inquisition during their pleasure, and that during the

next three years he should recite once a week the seven penitential

psalms.

The ceremony of Galileo's abjuration was one of exciting interest, and

of awful formality. Clothed in the sackcloth of a repentant criminal,

the venerable sage fell upon his knees before the assembled cardinals;

and laying his hands upon the Holy Evangelists, he invoked the divine

aid in abjuring and detesting, and vowing never again to teach, the

doctrine of the earth's motion, and of the sun's stability. He pledged

himself that he would never again, either in words or in writing,

propagate such heresies; and he swore that he would fulfil and observe

the penances which had been inflicted upon him.[29] At the conclusion of

this ceremony, in which he recited his abjuration word for word, and

then signed it, he was conveyed, in conformity with his sentence, to the

prison of the inquisition.

The account which we have now given of the trial and the sentence of

Galileo, is pregnant with the deepest interest and instruction. Human

nature is here drawn in its darkest colouring; and in surveying the

melancholy picture, it is difficult to decide whether religion or

philosophy has been most degraded. While we witness the presumptuous

priest pronouncing infallible the decrees of his own erring judgment, we

see the high-minded philosopher abjuring the eternal and immutable

truths which he had himself the glory of establishing. In the ignorance

and prejudices of the age,--in a too literal interpretation of the

language of Scripture,--in a mistaken respect for the errors that had

become venerable from their antiquity,--and in the peculiar position

which Galileo had taken among the avowed enemies of the church, we may

find the elements of an apology, however poor it may he, for the conduct

of the inquisition. But what excuse can we devise for the humiliating

confession and abjuration of Galileo? Why did this master-spirit of the

age--this high-priest of the stars--this representative of science--this

hoary sage, whose career of glory was near its consummation,--why did he

reject the crown of martyrdom which he had himself coveted, and which,

plaited with immortal laurels, was about to descend upon his head? If,

in place of disavowing the laws of nature, and surrendering in his own

person the intellectual dignity of his species, he had boldly owned the

truth of his opinions, and confided his character to posterity, and his

cause to an all-ruling Providence, he would have strung up the

hair-suspended sabre, and disarmed for ever the hostility which

threatened to overwhelm him. The philosopher, however, was supported

only by philosophy; and in the love of truth he found a miserable

substitute for the hopes of the martyr. Galileo cowered under the fear

of man, and his submission was the salvation of the church. The sword of

the inquisition descended on his prostrate neck; and though its stroke

was not physical, yet it fell with a moral influence fatal to the

character of its victim, and to the dignity of science.

In studying with attention this portion of scientific history, the

reader will not fail to perceive that the church of Rome was driven into

a dilemma from which the submission and abjuration of Galileo could

alone extricate it. He who confesses a crime and denounces its atrocity,

not only sanctions but inflicts the punishment which is annexed to it.

If Galileo had declared his innocence, and avowed his sentiments; and if

he had appealed to the past conduct of the church itself, to the

acknowledged opinions of its dignitaries, and even to the acts of its

pontiffs, he would have at once confounded his accusers, and escaped

from their toils. After Copernicus, himself a catholic priest, had

_openly_ maintained the motion of the earth, and the stability of the

sun: after he had dedicated the work which advocated these opinions to

pope Paul III., on the express ground that the _authority of the

pontiff_ might silence the calumnies of those who attacked these

opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture: after the cardinal Schonherg

and the bishop of Culm had urged Copernicus to publish the new

doctrines; and after the bishop of Ermeland had erected a monument to

commemorate his great discoveries; how could the church of Rome have

appealed to its pontifical decrees as the ground of persecuting and

punishing Galileo? Even in later times, the same doctrines had been

propagated with entire toleration; nay, in the very year of Galileo's

first persecution, Paul Anthony Foscarinus, a learned Carmelite monk,

wrote a pamphlet, in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of

the earth, and endeavours to reconcile to this new doctrine the passages

of Scripture which had been employed to subvert it. This very singular

production was dated from the Carmelite convent at Naples; was dedicated

to the very reverend Sebastian Fantoni, general of the Carmelite order;

and, sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities, it was published at

Florence, three years before the second persecution of Galileo.

By these acts, tolerated for more than a century, the decrees of the

pontiffs against the doctrine of the earth's motion were virtually

repealed; and Galileo might have pleaded them with success in arrest of

judgment. Unfortunately, however, for himself and for science, he acted

otherwise. By admitting their authority, he revived in fresh force these

obsolete and obnoxious enactments; and, by yielding to their power, he

riveted for another century the almost broken chains of spiritual

despotism.

Pope Urban VII. did not fail to observe the full extent of his triumph;

and he exhibited the utmost sagacity in the means which he employed to

secure it. While he endeavoured to overawe the enemies of the church by

the formal promulgation of Galileo's sentence and abjuration, and by

punishing the officials who had assisted in obtaining the licence to

print his work, he treated Galileo with the utmost lenity, and yielded

to every request that was made to diminish, and almost to suspend, the

constraint under which he lay. The sentence of abjuration was ordered to

be publicly read at several universities. At Florence the ceremonial was

performed in the church of Santa Croce, and the friends and disciples of

Galileo were especially summoned to witness the public degradation of

their master. The inquisitor at Florence was ordered to be reprimanded

for his conduct; and Riccardi, the master of the sacred palace, and

Ciampoli, the secretary of pope Urban himself, were dismissed from their

situations.

Galileo had remained only four days in the prison of the inquisition,

when, on the application of Niccolini, the Tuscan ambassador, he was

allowed to reside with him in his palace. As Florence still suffered

under the contagious disease which we have already mentioned, it was

proposed that Sienna should be the place of Galileo's confinement, and

that his residence should be in one of the convents of that city.

Niccolini, however, recommended the palace of the archbishop Piccolomoni

as a more suitable residence; and though the archbishop was one of

Galileo's best friends, the pope agreed to the arrangement, and in the

beginning of July Galileo quitted Rome for Sienna.

After having spent nearly six months under the hospitable roof of his

friend, with no other restraint than that of being confined to the

limits of the palace, Galileo was permitted to return to his villa near

Florence under the same restrictions; and as the contagious disease had

disappeared in Tuscany, he was able in the month of December to re-enter

his own house at Arcetri, where he spent the remainder of his days.

Although Galileo had now the happiness of rejoining his family under

their paternal roof, yet, like all sublunary blessings, it was but of

short duration. His favourite daughter Maria, who along with her sister

had joined the convent of St. Matthew in the neighbourhood of Arcetri,

had looked forward to the arrival of her father with the most

affectionate anticipation: she hoped that her filial devotion might form

some compensation for the malignity of his enemies; and she eagerly

assumed the labour of reciting weekly the seven penitentiary psalms

which formed part of her father's sentence. These sacred duties,

however, were destined to terminate almost at the moment they were

begun. She was seized with a fatal illness in the same month in which

she rejoined her parent, and before the month of April she was no more.

This heavy blow, so suddenly struck, overwhelmed Galileo in the deepest

agony. Owing to the decline of his health, and the recurrence of his old

complaints, he was unable to oppose to this mental suffering the

constitutional energy of his mind. The bulwarks of his heart broke down,

and a flood of grief desolated his manly and powerful mind. He felt, as

he expressed it, that he was incessantly called by his daughter,--his

pulse intermitted,--his heart was agitated with unceasing

palpitations,--his appetite entirely left him, and he considered his

dissolution so near at hand, that he would not permit his son Vicenzo to

set out upon a journey which he had contemplated.

From this state of melancholy and indisposition, Galileo slowly, though

partially, recovered; and, with the view of obtaining medical

assistance, he requested leave to go to Florence. His enemies, however,

refused this application, and he was given to understand that any

additional importunities would be visited with a more vigilant

surveillance. He remained, therefore, five years at Arcetri, from 1634

to 1638, without any remission of his confinement, and pursuing his

studies under the influence of a continued and general indisposition.

There is no reason to think that Galileo or his friends renewed their

application to the church of Rome; but, in 1638, the pope transmitted,

through the inquisitor Fariano, his permission that he might remove to

Florence for the recovery of his health, on the condition that he should

present himself at the office of the inquisitor to learn the terms upon

which this indulgence was granted. Galileo accepted of the kindness thus

unexpectedly proffered; but the conditions upon which it was given were

more severe than he expected: he was prohibited from leaving his house,

or admitting his friends; and so sternly was this system pursued, that

he required a special order for attending mass during Passion week.

The severity of this order was keenly felt by Galileo. While he remained

at Arcetri, his seclusion from the world would have been an object of

choice, if it had not been the decree of a tribunal; but to be debarred

from the conversation of his friends in Florence,--in that city where

his genius had been idolised, and where his fame had become immortal,

was an aggravation of punishment which he was unable to bear. With his

accustomed kindness, the grand duke made a strong representation on the

subject to his ambassador at the court of Rome. He stated that, from his

great age and infirmities, Galileo's career was near its close; that he

possessed many valuable ideas, which the world might lose if they were

not matured and conveyed to his friends; and that Galileo was anxious to

make these communications to father Castelli, who was then a stipendiary

of the court of Rome. The grand duke commanded his ambassador to see

Castelli on the subject; to urge him to obtain leave from the pope to

spend a few months in Florence, and to supply him with money, and every

thing that was necessary for his journey. Influenced by this kind and

liberal message. Castelli obtained an audience of the pope, and

requested leave to pay a visit to Florence. Urban instantly suspected

the object of his journey; and, upon Castelli's acknowledging that he

could not possibly refrain from seeing Galileo, he received permission

to visit him in the company of an officer of the inquisition. Castelli

accordingly went to Florence; and, a few months afterwards, Galileo was

ordered to return to Arcetri.

During Galileo's confinement at Sienna and Arcetri, between 1633 and

1636, his time was principally occupied in the composition of his

"Dialogues on Local Motion." This remarkable work, which was considered

by its author as the best of his productions, was printed by Louis

Elzevir, at Amsterdam, and dedicated to the count de Noailles, the

French ambassador at Rome. Various attempts to have it printed in

Germany had failed; and, in order to save himself from the malignity of

his enemies, he was obliged to pretend that the edition published in

Holland had been printed from a MS. entrusted to the French ambassador.

Although Galileo had for a long time abandoned his astronomical studies,

yet his attention was directed, about the year 1636, to a curious

appearance in the lunar disc, which is known by the name of the moons

libration. When we examine with a telescope the outline of the moon, we

observe that certain parts of her disc, which are seen at one time, are

invisible at another. This change or libration is of four different

kinds; viz. the diurnal libration, the libration in longitude, the

libration in latitude, and the spheroidal libration. Galileo discovered

the first of these kinds of libration, and appears to have had some

knowledge of the second; but the third was discovered by Hevelius, and

the fourth by Lagrange.[30]

This curious discovery was the result of the last telescopic

observations of Galileo. Although his right eye had for some years lost

its power, yet his general vision was sufficiently perfect to enable him

to carry on his usual researches. In 1636, however, this affection of

his eye became more serious; and, in 1637, his left eye was attacked

with the same disease. His medical friends at first supposed that

cataracts were formed in the crystalline lens, and anticipated a cure

from the operation of couching. These hopes were fallacious. The disease

turned out to be in the cornea, and every attempt to restore its

transparency was fruitless. In a few months the white cloud covered the

whole aperture of the pupil, and Galileo became totally blind. This

sudden and unexpected calamity had almost overwhelmed Galileo and his

friends. In writing to a correspondent he exclaims, "Alas! your dear

friend and servant has become totally and irreparably blind. These

heavens, this earth, this universe, which by wonderful observation I had

enlarged a thousand times beyond the belief of past ages, are henceforth

shrunk into the narrow space which I myself occupy. So it pleases God;

it shall, therefore, please me also." His friend, father Castelli,

deplores the calamity in the same tone of pathetic sublimity:--"The

noblest eye," says he, "which nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so

privileged, and gifted with such rare powers, that it may truly be said

to have seen more than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have opened

the eyes of all that are to come."

Although Galileo had been thwarted in his attempt to introduce into the

Spanish marine his new method of finding the longitude at sea, yet he

never lost sight of an object to which he attached the highest

importance. As the formation of correct tables of the motion of

Jupiter's satellites was a necessary preliminary to its introduction, he

had occupied himself for twenty-four years in observations for this

purpose, and he had made considerable progress in this laborious task.

After the publication of his "Dialogues on Motion," in 1636, he renewed

his attempts to bring his method into actual use. For this purpose he

addressed himself to Lorenzo Real, who had been the Dutch

governor-general in India, and offered the free use of his method to the

states-general of Holland.[31] The Dutch government received this

proposal with an anxious desire to have it carried into effect. At the

instigation of Constantine Huygens, the father of the illustrious

Huygens, and the secretary to the prince of Orange, they appointed

commissioners to communicate with Galileo; and while they transmitted

him a gold chain as a mark of their esteem, they at the same time

assured him, that if his plan should prove successful it should not pass

unrewarded. The commissioners entered into an active correspondence with

Galileo, and had even appointed one of their number to communicate

personally with him in Italy. Lest this, however, should excite the

jealousy of the court of Rome, Galileo objected to the arrangement, so

that the negotiation was carried on solely by correspondence.

It was at this time that Galileo was struck with blindness. His friend

and pupil, Renieri, undertook, in this emergency, to arrange and

complete his observations and calculations; but before he had made much

progress in the arduous task, each of the four commissioners died in

succession, and it was with great difficulty that Constantine Huygens

succeeded in renewing the scheme. It was again obstructed, however, by

the death of Galileo; and when Renieri was about to publish, by the

order of the grand duke, the "Ephemeris," and "Tables of the Jovian

Planets," he was attacked with a mortal disease, and the manuscripts of

Galileo, which he was on the eve of publishing, were never more heard

of. By such a series of misfortunes were the plans of Galileo and of the

states-general completely overthrown. It is some consolation, however,

to know that neither science nor navigation suffered any severe loss.

Notwithstanding the perfection of our present tables of Jupiter's

satellites, and of the astronomical instruments by which their eclipses

may be observed, the method of Galileo is still impracticable at sea.

In consequence of the strict seclusion to which Galileo had been

subjected, he was in the practice of dating his letters from his prison

at Arcetri: but after he had lost the use of his eyes, the Inquisition

seems to have relaxed its severity, and to have allowed him the freest

intercourse with his friends. The grand duke of Tuscany paid him

frequent visits; and among the celebrated strangers who came from

distant lands to see the ornament of Italy, were Gassendi, Deodati, and

our illustrious countryman Milton. During the last three years of his

life, his eminent pupil Viviani formed one of his family; and in

October, 1611, the celebrated Torricelli, another of his pupils, was

admitted to the same distinction.

Though the powerful mind of Galileo still retained its vigour, yet his

debilitated frame was exhausted with mental labour. He often complained

that his head was too busy for his body; and the continuity of his

studies was frequently broken with attacks of hypochondria, want of

sleep, and acute rheumatic pains. Along with these calamities, he was

afflicted with another still more severe--with deafness almost total;

but though he was now excluded from all communication with the external

world, yet his mind still grappled with the material universe, and while

he was studying the force of percussion, and preparing for a

continuation of his "Dialogues on Motion," he was attacked with fever

and palpitation of the heart, which, after continuing two months,

terminated fatally on the 8th of January, 1642, in the 78th year of his

age.

Having died in the character of a prisoner of the Inquisition, this

odious tribunal disputed his right of making a will, and of being buried

in consecrated ground. These objections, however, were withdrawn; but

though a large sum was subscribed for erecting a monument to him in the

church of Santa Croce, in Florence, the pope would not permit the design

to be carried into execution. His sacred remains were, therefore,

deposited in an obscure corner of the church, and remained for more than

thirty years unmarked with any monumental tablet. The following epitaph,

given without any remark in the Leyden edition of his Dialogues, is, we

presume, the one which was inscribed on a tablet in the church of Santa

Croce:--

GALILÆO GALILÆI FIORENTINO,

Philosopho et Geometræ vere lynceo,

Natura Œdipo,

Mirabilium semper inventorum machinatori,

Qui inconcessa adhuc mortalibus gloria

Cælorum provincias auxit

Et universo dedit incrementum:

Non enim vitreos spherarum orbes

Fragilesque stellas conflavit:

Sed æterna mundi corpore

Mediceæ beneficentiae dedicavit,

Cujus inextincta gloriæ cupiditas

Ut oculos nationum

Sæculorumque omnium

Videre doceret,

Proprios impendit oculos.

Cum jam nil amplius haberet natura

Quod ipse videret.

Cujus inventa vix intra rerum limites comprehensa

Firmamentum ipsum non solum continet,

Sed etiam recipit.

Qui relictis tot scientiarum monumentis

Plura secum tulit, quam reliquit.

Gravi enim

Sed nondum affecta senectute,

Novis contemplationibus

Majorem gloriam affectans

Inexplebilem sapientiæ animam

Immaturo nobis obi tu

Exhalavit

Anno Domini

MCXLII.

Ætatis suæ

LXXVIII.

At his death, in 1703, Viviani purchased his property, with the charge

of erecting a monument over Galileo's remains and his own. This design

was not carried into effect till 1737, at the expense of the family of

Nelli, when both their bodies were disinterred, and removed to the site

of the splendid monument which now covers them. This monument contains

the bust of Galileo, with figures of Geometry and Astronomy. It was

designed by Giulio Foggini. Galileo's bust was executed by Giovanni

Battista Foggini; the figure of Astronomy by Vincenzio Foggini, his son;

and that of Geometry by Girolamo Ticciati.

Galileo's house at Arcetri still remains. In 1821 it belonged to one

Signor Alimari, having been preserved in the state in which it was left

by Galileo; it stands very near the convent of St. Matthew, and about a

mile to the S. E. of Florence. An inscription by Nelli, over the door of

the house, still remains.

The character of Galileo, whether we view him as a member of the social

circle, or as a man of science, presents many interesting and

instructive points of contemplation. Unfortunate, and to a certain

extent immoral, in his domestic relations, he did not derive from that

hallowed source all the enjoyments which it generally yields; and it was

owing to this cause, perhaps, that he was more fond of society than

might have been expected from his studious habits. His habitual

cheerfulness and gaiety, and his affability and frankness of manner,

rendered him an universal favourite among his friends. Without any of

the pedantry of exclusive talent, and without any of that ostentation

which often marks the man of limited though profound acquirements,

Galileo never conversed upon scientific or philosophical subjects except

among those who were capable of understanding them. The extent of his

general information, indeed, his great literary knowledge, but, above

all, his retentive memory, stored with the legends and the poetry of

ancient times, saved him from the necessity of drawing upon his own

peculiar studies for the topics of his conversation.

Galileo was not less distinguished for his hospitality and benevolence;

he was liberal to the poor, and generous in the aid which he

administered to men of genius and talent, who often found a comfortable

asylum under his roof. In his domestic economy he was frugal without

being parsimonious. His hospitable board was ever ready for the

reception of his friends; and, though he was himself abstemious in his

diet, he seems to have been a lover of good wines, of which he received

always the choicest varieties out of the grand duke's cellar. This

peculiar taste, together with his attachment to a country life, rendered

him fond of agricultural pursuits, and induced him to devote his leisure

hours to the cultivation of his vineyards.

In his personal appearance Galileo was about the middle size, and of a

square-built, but well-proportioned, frame. His complexion was fair, his

eyes penetrating, and his hair of a reddish hue. His expression was

cheerful and animated, and though his temper was easily ruffled, yet the

excitement was transient, and the cause of it speedily forgotten.

One of the most prominent traits in the character of Galileo was his

invincible love of truth, and his abhorrence of that spiritual despotism

which had so long brooded over Europe. His views, however, were too

liberal, and too far in advance of the age which he adorned; and however

much we may admire the noble spirit which he evinced, and the personal

sacrifices which he made, in his struggle for truth, we must yet lament

the hotness of his zeal and the temerity of his onset. In his contest

with the church of Rome, he fell under her victorious banner; and though

his cause was that of truth, and hers that of superstition, yet the

sympathy of Europe was not roused by his misfortunes. Under the

sagacious and peaceful sway of Copernicus, astronomy had effected a

glorious triumph over the dogmas of the church; but under the bold and

uncompromising sceptre of Galileo all her conquests were irrecoverably

lost.

The scientific character of Galileo, and his method of investigating

truth, demand our warmest admiration. The number and ingenuity of his

inventions; the brilliant discoveries which he made in the heavens, and

the depth and beauty of his researches respecting the laws of motion,

have gained him the admiration of every succeeding age, and have placed

him next to Newton in the lists of original and inventive genius. To

this high rank he was doubtless elevated by the inductive processes

which he followed in all his inquiries. Under the sure guidance of

observation and experiment, he advanced to general laws; and if Bacon

had never lived, the student of nature would have found, in the writings

and labours of Galileo, not only the boasted principles of the inductive

philosophy, but also their practical application to the highest efforts

of invention and discovery.

[Footnote 1: Childe Harold, canto IV. stanza LIV.]

[Footnote 2: Life of Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 1.]

[Footnote 3: De Insidentibus in Fluido.]

[Footnote 4: Opere di Galileo. Milano, 1810, vol. IV. p. 248.]

[Footnote 5: Life of Galileo, in Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 9.]

[Footnote 6: Systema Cosmicum, Dial. II. p. 121.]

[Footnote 7: The authenticity of this work has been doubted. It was

printed at Rome, in 1656, from a MS. in the library of Somasohi, at

Venice. See Opere di Galileo, tom. VII. p. 427.]

[Footnote 8: Incredibili animi jucunditate.--_Sid._]

[Footnote 9: Nescio quo fato ductus.]

[Footnote 10: Berlin Ephemeris, 1788.]

[Footnote 11: Edin. Phil. Journ. vol. VI. p. 313.]

[Footnote 12: Life and Correspondence of Dr. Bradley. Oxford, 1832, p.

523.]

[Footnote 13: See page 22.]

[Footnote 14: Edin. Phil. Journ. 1822, vol. VI. p. 317.]

[Footnote 15: Joh. Fabricii Phrysii de Maculis in Sole observatis, et

apparente earum cum Sole conversione, Narratio. Wittemb. 1611.]

[Footnote 16: It does not appear from the history of solar observations,

at what time, and by whom, coloured glasses were first introduced for

permitting the eye to look at the sun with impunity. Fabricius was

obviously quite ignorant of the use of coloured glasses. He observed the

sun when he was in the horizon, and when his brilliancy was impaired by

the interposition of thin clouds and floating vapours; and he advises

those who may repeat his observations, to admit at first to the eye a

small portion of the sun's light, till it is gradually accustomed to its

full splendour. When the sun's altitude became considerable, Fabricius

gave up his observations; which he often continued so long, that he was

scarcely able, for two days together, to see objects with their usual

distinctness.

Scheiner, in his "Apelles post Tabulanti," describes four different ways

of viewing the spots: one of which is by the _interposition of blue or

green glasses._ His first method was to observe the sun near the

horizon; the second was to view him through a transparent cloud; the

third was to look at him through his telescope with a blue or a green

glass of a proper thickness, and plane on both sides, or to use a thin

blue glass when the sun was covered with a thin vapour or cloud; and the

fourth method was to begin and observe the sun at his margin, till the

eye gradually reached the middle of his disc.]

[Footnote 17: See Istoria e Demostrazioni, intorna alle macchie solari.

_Roma_, 1613. See Opere di Galileo, vol. V. p. 131-293.]

[Footnote 18: Discorso intorno alle cose che stanno in sa l'acqua, o che

in quella si muovono. Opere di Galileo, vol. II. pp. 165-311.]

[Footnote 19: Opere di Galileo, vol. II. pp. 355-367.]

[Footnote 20: Ibid. 367-390.]

[Footnote 21: These three treatises occupy the whole of the third volume

of the Opere di Galileo.]

[Footnote 22: It is said that Galileo was cited to appear at Rome on

this occasion; and the opinion is not without foundation.]

[Footnote 23: Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. VI. pp. 117-191.]

[Footnote 24: Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. VI. pp. 191-571.]

[Footnote 25: This work is said to have been dedicated to Urban VIII.

himself (Lib. U. Knowledge, Life of Galileo, chap, VII.), but there is

no dedication prefixed to the edition we have referred to; and it is,

besides, unusual to dedicate a volume to any person when that volume has

the form of a letter to another.]

[Footnote 26: A fine painting in gold, and a silver medal, and "a good

quantity of agnus dei."]

[Footnote 27: Library of Useful Knowledge, Life of Galileo, chap. VIII.]

[Footnote 28: The communication between Florence and Rome was at this

time interrupted by a contagious disease which had broken out in

Tuscany.]

[Footnote 29: It has been said, but upon what authority we cannot find,

that when Galileo rose from his knees, he stamped on the ground, and

said in a whisper to one of his friends, "_E pur si muove._" "It does

move, though."--Life of Galileo, Lib. Use. Knowledge, part II. p. 63.]

[Footnote 30: These phenomena are explained in the volume on

"Astronomy."]

[Footnote 31: It is a curious fact, that Morin had about this time

proposed to determine the longitude by the moon's distance from a fixed

star, and that the commissioners assembled in Paris to examine it,

requested Galileo's opinion of its value and practicability. Galileo's

opinion was highly unfavourable. He saw clearly, and explained

distinctly, the objection to Morin's method, arising from the

imperfection of the lunar tables, and the inadequacy of astronomical

instruments; but he seemed not to be conscious that the very same

objections applied, with even greater force, to his own method, which

has since been supplanted by that of the French savant. See life of

Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 94.]