the ignorant zeal of the assembly of cardinals has met 
with universal condemnation, what must we think of 
the conduct of a ph er, who, for the sake of a 
few years of freedom, could solemnly abjure and re- 
-nounce opinions which he implicitly believed, and which 
-he had himself established by years of incessant labour? 
He who has the boldness to maintain opinions in oppo- 
sition to the 1g apse of the age in which he 
lives, should have the fortitude to bear the conse- 
uences to which they may ex him. The fame of 
Sinweing and defending truth, is in no small degree 
tarnished by the meanness of afterwards abjuring it; 
and yet the history of persecution affords more than one 
ond science having exposed herself to this worst 
of indignities. 
Had Galileo maintained with firmness the truth of 
his. doctrines, he might even have succeeded in disarm- 
ing the bigotry of his enemies ; and if he failed in this, 
he would have at least secured the approbation of 
future ages. The truth of the Copernican system 
was at that time admitted by numerous distinguished 
.and pious individuals, and: there were many mem- 
_bers even of the Catholic church who found no dif- 
.culty in reconciling it with the apparently opposite 
. e of scripture. It is a curious fact, which 
has not been noticed in any of the lives of Galileo 
which we have seen, that, during the first persecu- 
tion of Galileo in 1615, or rather before it, an illustri- 
ous Neapolitan nobleman, Vincenzio Caraffa, had re- 
quested the opinion of — tio wit: gab a learn- 
_ed Carmelite, respecting the Pythagorean and Coperni- 
— doctrine of the mobility of the earth. In his letter 
‘upon this subject, he reconciles the various passages of 
scripture with the new system, which he considers as 
well founded. He notices, with praise, the opinions 
of Galileo and Kepler; and he dedicates. his _epistle to 
the chief of the order of the Carmelites. This learned 
epistle was dated at Naples on the 6th January 1615, 
and was printed by ission at Florence on the 11th 
September 1630, three years before the second perse- 
cution of Galileo. 
When we consider, therefore, that the new system 
had been promulgated more than a century before the 
. time of Galileo, by Copernicus, who was himself a Ro- 
.man Catholic clergyman ; that the book which contain- 
ed it was dedicated to the Pope himself; that the Co- 
_pernican doctrines were embraced by Roman Catholic 
Fishops and cardinals ; and that they were maintained 
with impunity in Italy by some pious Catholics, at the 
-very time when Galileo defended them ; we can scarce- 
ly hesitate to believe, that Galileo had been a habitual 
and marked enemy of the Catholic faith, and that the 
‘inquisition had seized the opportunity of punishing 
-him for his astronomical opinions, when they were irri- 
tated only at his irreligious sentiments. * nore 
__ Through the influence of some distinguished indivi- 
duals at Rome, Pope Urban VIII. softened the rigour 
_of the sentence, and confined him for a while to the 
- palace of the Garden de Medici at Rome. On account 
of his state of health, Galileo was allowed to leave 
Rome ; and as the ue then raged at Florence, he 
“was sent to the archiepiscopal palace at Sienna, the resi- 
dence of the Archbishop Piccolomini, where he continued 
the prosecution of his studies, and demonstrated the 
~~ 
ars 
ae 
A ee GO SABO 
— 
a 
GALILEO. 
75 
itions respecting the resistance of solids. After 
poets about five months at Sienna, when the plague 
at Florence had disa ed, he was allowed to retire 
to his villa at Bellosguardo, and afterwards to that at 
Arcetri, in the neighbourhood of Flerence, where he 
spent the remainder of his life. 
In-this tranquil spot, he observed the phenomena of 
the moon’s libration, he continued his observations on 
the motions of Jupiter’s satellites, and he proposed a 
new method of finding the longitude at sea, by obser- 
ving on different meridians the frequent eclipses of these 
secondary planets. This important subject had occu- 
pied his attention before the year 1615, and the se- 
cretary of state to, Cosmo Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
had communicated the invention to the Tuscan Am- 
bassador at Madrid, for the information of Philip king of 
Spain; + but no attempt seems to. have been made by 
the Spanish government to adopt it in their nayy. 
‘Galileo; however, persuaded of its practicability, offer- 
ed the use of his discovery to the States General of 
Holland, through Grotius ambassador to the Queen of 
Sweden, at. Paris. The negociation with the States 
.of Holland was carried on by M. Diodatus, a cele- 
brated French lawyer. The States General eagerly 
embraced the proposal, and returned a polite letter in 
answer to Galileo’s offer, accompanied with a golden 
chain as a testimony of their gratitude. Four of the 
most distinguished Dutch navigators, astronomers, and 
geographers, were appointed as a committee to exa« 
mine both the theory of the new method, and the pro- 
posal. which Galileo had made of a method of dimi- 
nishing the agitation of a ship, for the purpose of ob- 
serving the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, Martin Hor- 
-tensius, a mathematician at Amsterdam, and William 
Bleau, a geographer, and both members of the comimit« 
tee, were appointed commissioners to visit Galileo, and 
receive instructions from him respecting the theory 
and practice of his discovery. When they arrived at 
Arcetri, they had the mortification to find that Galileo 
had recently been deprived of his sight. He commu- 
nicated to them, however, his views respecting the de- 
termination of the longitude, and occupied his hours of 
study in computing tables of the motions of the satel- 
lites of Jupiter.. We are not distinctly informed what 
was the result of this interview ; but astronomical in- 
struments were then in an imperfect state, and Galileo’s 
_method, though admirable in itself, could be of no 
practical use, till the eclipses of the satellites could be 
computed from accurate Tables of their motions, 
In the year 1636, when the Count de Noailles, the 
French ambassador at Rome, was returning to Paris, 
he paid a visit to Galileo at Arcetri, with whom he had 
formerly corresponded. Galileo presented him with a 
manuscript copy of his great work, entitled, Discursus 
et Demonstrationes Mathematice circa duas novas Scien- 
lias pertinentes ad Mechanicam et Motum Localem. The 
Count de Noailles shewed this work to several of the 
philosophers at Paris, and actually sent it to be printed 
by the Elzivirs at Leyden. Galileo was just preparing 
to send manuscript copies of the work into Germany, 
Flanders, England, Spain, and perhaps into some parts 
of Italy, {| when he received a letter from the Elzivirs, 
stating that the Count de Noailles had put the MS. into 
their hands, and requesting him to transmit a dedica- 
* See our Life of Copernicus, where we have stated some additional reasons for this opinion. 
- ©. + This correspondence is published in the Opere dé Galileo, vol. ii. p. 435. 
t Galileo mentions this fact in the dedication of this.work to the Count of Noailles. His hesitation about sending MS. copies 
into Ltaly is curious; ** et forsan,” says he, “ in loca qtidam Italia.” 
Galileo. 
—_— 
