GALILEO. 



second inventor of the telescope. He 

 novv turned, bis ins^vuu .ent towards the 

 heavens, and discovered unheard of won- 

 ders. He perceived the surface of the 

 moon not to be smooth, but rough, and 

 full of prominences and cavities. The 

 miiky way he found to be an assemblage 

 of. fixed stars, invisible to the naked eye. 

 Venus he found to vary in its phases 

 like the moon. The figure of Saturn he 

 observed to be oblong-, and imagined that 

 it consisted of three distinct parts, one 

 spUerical in the midst, and two lesser 

 ones on the sides, which afterwards ap- 

 peared to be only the ansae, or extreme 

 pt;rts of Saturn's ring. Jupiter he saw 

 surrounded with four moons, which, in 

 honour of the Duke de Medici, he called 

 fifedicean stars, and soon perceived that, 

 by means of their frequent eclipses, geo- 

 graphical longitudes might be found On 

 the sun's disk he perceived spots, from 

 the motion of which he inferred that the 

 sun revolved on its axis. 



It was while he was pursuing these dis- 

 coveries, that he was invited to Florence, 

 where, as we have seen, he had leisure 

 afforded him to devote himself to his 

 mathematical and philosophical studies, 

 without being obliged to attend to the 

 duties of his professorship. In a very 

 few years, however, his tranquillity was 

 disturbed by the ignorant and bigotted 

 clergy, on account of the zeal which he 

 discovered for illustrating and confirming 

 the truth of the Copernican system. That 

 system they maintained to be false and 

 heretical, as being contrary to the plain 

 and express language of the scriptures ; 

 and by their complaints against him to 

 the Inquisition at Rome, rendered it ne- 

 cessary for him, in the year 1615, to ap- 

 pear in that city to justify himself. Ac- 

 cording to letters written from Rome, 

 by the learned Anthony Quezenghi, Gu 

 lileo did not lose his courage on this oc- 

 casion, but, in numerous companies of 

 men of letters and others, defended the 

 Copernican doctrine with a force of argu- 

 ment, which persuaded many of its truth 

 and reasonableness, and silenced the ob- 

 jections of others, who would not be con- 

 vinced. When he attended the Inquisi- 

 tion, however, he was not suffered to 

 enter into any explanations, but was 

 directly accused of heresy for maintain- 

 ing the two propositions, that the sun is 

 the centre of the world, and immoveable 

 by a local motion, and that the earth is 

 not the centre of the world, nor im- 

 inoveable, but moves with a diurnal mo- 

 tion. These propositions he was order- 



ed by a decree of the Inquisitors to re- 

 nounce, and not. to defend them either 

 in conversation or writing, or even to in- 

 sinuate them into the minds of any per- 

 sons whomsoever. Most accounts con- 

 cur in stating, that, on this occasion, he 

 was committed to the prison of the Holy 

 Office, where he was con lined for about 

 five months ; but, according to other ac- 

 counts, he was treated with greater T.'ld- 

 ness, and only threatened with imprison- 

 ment if he proved refractory. Be that 

 as it may, he was not permitted to quit 

 Rome until he had promised to conf-jim. 

 himself to the decree of the Inquisition ; 

 and it is probable that his sentence would 

 have been more severe, had not the Grand 

 Duke of Tuscany warmly interested him- 

 self on his behalf, as well as seme per- 

 sons of high rank and influence at the pa- 

 pal court. 



Galileo now returned to his studies, in 

 which his astronomical observations, and 

 other happy discoveries, served to estab- 

 lish most completely and satisfactorily 

 the truth of his obnoxious opinions. From 

 time to time he laid before the public an 

 account of his discoveries, with such re- 

 marks and inferences as tended to point 

 out the natural conclusions to be drawn 

 from them. At length, in the year 1632, 

 he ventured to publish, at Florence, his 

 famous " Dialogues on the two greatest 

 systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and 

 Copernican ;" in which he produced the 

 strongest arguments in favour of both 

 - systems, without expressing a decided 

 opinion which of them was the true one, 

 but not without such insinuations in fa- 

 vour of the Copernican, as sufficiently in* 

 dicated its superior reasonableness, and 

 his own belief in it. These dialogues, 

 likewise, contain some keen strokes of 

 raillery against the Aristotelians, for their 

 bigotted and servile attachment to every 

 hypothesis of their muster. 



Scarcely had this work made its ap* 

 pearance, before the cry of heresy was 

 raised more loudly than ever against 

 Galileo, and he was again cited to ap- 

 pear before the tribunal of the Inquisi- 

 tion, in the year 1633. Though now 

 seventy years of age, he was obliged to 

 submit to the persecuting mandate, and 

 on his arrival at Rome was first commit- 

 ted prisoner to the apartments of the Fis- 

 cal of the Holy Office. Afterwards, 

 through the intercession of the Grand 

 Duke, he was permitted to reside in the 

 house of his embassador, while the pro- 

 cess was carrying on against him. After 

 his trial had lasted about two months, he 



