50 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
verse, and who in his own old age also suffered as the astronomer 
did, and to which he alludes so pathetically in these lines : 
“« Thee I revisit safe, 
And feel thy sovran vital lamp ; but thou 
Revisit’st not these eyes that roll in vain 
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn, 
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs 
Or dim suffusion veiled. 
“¢ Nor sometimes forget 
Those other two equalled with me in fate, 
So were I equalled with them in renown. 
Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, 
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old, 
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move 
Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird 
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid, 
Tunes her nocturnal note.” 
Milton has not given us any account of this remarkable visit, 
yet it was one which made a lasting impression on his mind, and 
was never afterwards forgotten by him. That was a remarkable 
meeting of two remarkable men—a great Italian of the same land as 
Virgil, who wrote the greatest Latin epic, and the Cambridge 
scholar, who was yet to write the greatest English epic. Ulysses, 
that wild rover over land and sea, said: “I am a part of all that I 
have met;” and so with Milton. This meeting with Galileo touched 
his nature. ‘There is a veritable communion of Saints on this earth 
outside the Apostles’ creed—a communion of men devoted to truth, 
and holy because so devoted. ‘They were Apostles of truth, these 
men. One revealed to us the physical heavens, and solved for us 
the riddle of the universe ; the other lifted us in contemplation to 
the great Creator’s throne, and we heard the symphonies of Crea- 
tion and learned that though “death came into the world and all 
are woe,” yet one greater man was foreshadowed “to regain the bliss- 
ful seat.” ‘Great men,” says Carlyle, “are the inspired speaking 
and acting Texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a 
chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named 
History.” Galileo was indeed an inspired Text, read to mankind 
from the manuscripts of God. Milton was, too, an inspired Text 
