26 GALILEO GALILEI. 



logues on Motion," and sent it to Leyden for publi- 

 cation. The next year he made his last discovery, 

 known as the moon's librations. 



The house at Arcetri had become dark and 

 lonely. The wife of Michelangelo, her three 

 daughters and a son, had all died of the plague. 

 It was doubly dark, for Galileo had become hope- 

 lessly blind, " so that this heaven, this earth, this 

 universe, which I by my marvellous discoveries 

 and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred 

 thousand times beyond the belief of the wise men 

 of bygone ages, henceforward for me is shrunk 

 into such a small space as is filled by my own 

 bodily sensations." 



His last work was a short treatise on the second- 

 ary light of the moon. " I am obliged now," he 

 said, sadly, "to have recourse to other hands and 

 other pens than mine since my sad loss of sight. 

 This, of course, occasions great loss of time, par- 

 ticularly now that my memory is impaired by 

 advanced age ; so that in placing my thoughts on 

 paper, many and many a time I am forced to have 

 the foregoing sentences read to me before I can 

 tell what ought to follow ; else I should repeat the 

 same thing over and over." 



He had planned other work, but death came on 

 the evening of January 8, 1642, eight years after 

 Celeste left him. His beloved pupils, Torricelli 

 and Viviani, and his son Vincenzo, stood by his 

 bedside. 

 . He desired to be buried in the family vault of 



