534 ADDITIONS. 



rible roaring Lion. If we take his Calendar, we must needs go into 

 the church when he rings us in." Kepler however did not fail ta see, 

 and to say, that the Papal Reformation of the Calendar was a vast im 

 provement. 



Kepler, as court-astronomer, was of course required to provide such 

 observations of the heavens as were requisite for the calculations of the 

 Astrologers. That he considered Astrology to be valuable only as the 

 nurse of Astronomy, he did not hesitate to reveal. He wrote a work 

 with a title of which the following is the best translation which I can 

 give : " Tertius interveniens ; or, A Warning to certain Theoloyi. 

 Medici, Philosophy that while they reasonably reject star-gazing super- 

 stition, they do not throw away the kernel with the shell. 3 1610." In 

 this he says, " You over-clever Philosophers blame this Daughter of 

 Astronomy more than is reasonable. Do you not know that she must 

 maintain her mother with her charms ? How many men would be 

 able to make Astronomy their business, if men did not cherish the 

 hope to read the Future in the skies?" 



Were the Papal Edicts against the Oopernican System repealed? 



ADMIRAL SMYTH, in his Cycle of Celestial Objects, vol. i. p. Co, says 

 "At length, in 1818, the voice of truth was so prevailing that Pius 

 VII. repealed the edicts against the Copernican system, and thus, in 

 the emphatic words of Cardinal Toriozzi, ' wiped oft" this scandal from 

 the Church.* " 



A like story is referred to by Sir Francis Palgrave, in his entertain- 

 ing and instructive fiction, The Merchant and the friar. 



Having made inquiry of persons most likely to be well informed on 

 this subject, I have not been able to learn that there is any further 

 foundation for these statements than this: In 1818, on the revisal of 

 the Index Expurgatorius, Galileo's writings were, after some opposi- 

 tion, expunged from that Catalogue. 



Monsignor Marino Marini, an eminent Roman Prelate, had address- 

 ed to the Romano, Accademia di Archeologia, certain historico-critical 

 Memoirs, which he published in 1850, with the title Galileo e Vlnqm- 

 sizione. In these, he confirms the conclusion which, I think, almost 



3 The German passage involves a curious image, borrowed, I suppose, from 

 some odd story : " dass sie mit billiger Verwerfung des sternguckerischen Aber- 

 glaubcns das Kind nicht mit dem Bade ausschutten." " That they do not throw 

 away the child along with the dirty water of his bath." 



