on Suidas' credit, that the Babylonians cooked eggs by swiftly whirling them in a sling, I will believe it; but I must needs say, that the cause of such an effect is very remote from that to which it is attributed, and to find the true cause I shall reason thus. If an effect does not follow with us which followed with others at another time, it is because, in our experiment, something is wanting which was the cause of the former success; and if only one thing is wanting to us, that one thing is the true cause. Now we have eggs, and slings, and strong men to whirl them, and yet they will not become cooked; nay, if they were hot at first, they more quickly become cold and since nothing is wanting to us but to be Babylonians, it follows that being Babylonians is the true cause why the eggs became hard, and not the friction of the air, which is what I wished to prove.-Is it possible that in travelling post, Sarsi has never noticed what freshness is occasioned on the face by the continual change of air? and if he has felt it, will he rather trust the relation by others, of what was done two thousand years ago at Babylon, than what he can at this moment verify in his own person? I at least will not be so wilfully wrong, and SO ungrateful to nature and to God, that having been gifted with sense and language, I should voluntarily set less value on such great endowments than on the fallacies of a fellow man, and blindly and blunderingly believe whatever I hear, and barter the freedom of my intellect for slavery to one as liable to error as myself."

Our final extract shall exhibit a sample of Galileo's metaphysics, in which may be observed the germ of a theory very closely allied to that which was afterwards developed by Locke and Berkeley. "I have now only to fulfil my promise of declaring my opinions on the proposition that motion is the cause of heat, and to explain in what manner it appears to me that it may be true. But I must first make some remarks on that which we call heat, since I strongly suspect that a notion of it prevails which is very remote from the truth; for it is believed that there is a true accident,affection, and quality, really inherent in the substance by which we feel ourselves heated. This much I have to say, that so soon as I conceive a material or corporeal substance, I simultaneously feel the necessity of conceiving that it

has its boundaries, and is of some shape or other; that, relatively to others, it is great or small; that it is in this or that place, in this or that time; that it is in motion, or at rest; that it touches, or does not touch another body; that it is unique, rare, or common; nor can I, by any act of the imagination, disjoin it from these qualities: but I do not find myself absolutely compelled to apprehend it as necessarily accompanied by such conditions, as that it must be white or red, bitter or sweet, sonorous or silent, smelling sweetly or disagreeably; and if the senses had not pointed out these qualities, it is probable that language and imagination alone could never have arrived at them. Because, I am inclined to think that these tastes, smells, colours, &c., with regard to the subject in which they appear to reside, are nothing more than mere names, and exist only in the sensitive body; insomuch that, when the living creature is removed, all these qualities are carried off and annihilated; although we have imposed particular names upon them, and different from those of the other first and real accidents, and would fain persuade ourselves that they are truly and in fact distinct. But I do not believe that there exists any thing in external bodies for exciting tastes, smells, and sounds, but size, shape, quantity, and motion, swift or slow; and if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, I am of opinion that shape, number, and motion would remain, but there would be an end of smells, tastes, and sounds, which, abstractedly from the living creature, I take to be mere words."

In the spring following the publication of the "Saggiatore," that is to say, about the time of Easter, in 1624, Galileo went a third time to Rome to compliment Urban on his elevation to the pontifical chair. He was obliged to make this journey in a litter; and it appears from his letters that for some years he had been seldom able to bear any other mode of conveyance. In such a state of health it seems unlikely that he would have quitted home on a mere visit of ceremony, which suspicion is strengthened by the beginning of a letter from him to Prince Cesi, dated in October, 1623, in which he says: I have received the very courteous and prudent advice of your excellency about the time and manner of my going to Rome, and shall act upon it; and I will visit you at Acqua Sparta, that I may be

completely informed of the actual state of things at Rome." However this may be, nothing could be more gratifying than his public reception there. His stay in Rome did not exceed two months, (from the beginning of April till June,) and during that time he was admitted to six long and satisfactory interviews with the Pope, and on his departure received the promise of a pension for his son Vincenzo, and was himself presented with "a fine painting, two medals, one of gold and the other of silver, and a good quantity of agnus dei." He had also much communication with several of the cardinals, one of whom, Cardinal Hohenzoller, told him that he had represented to the pope on the subject of Copernicus, that "all the heretics were of that opinion, and considered it as undoubted; and that it would be necessary to be very circumspect in coming to any resolution: to which his holiness replied, that the church had not condemned it, nor was it to be condemned as heretical, but only as rash; adding, that there was no fear of any one undertaking to prove that it must necessarily be true." Urban also addressed a letter to Ferdinand, who had succeeded his father Cosmo as Grand Duke of Tuscany, expressly for the purpose of recommending Galileo to him. "For We find in him not only literary distinction, but also the love of piety, and he is strong in those qualities by which pontifical good-will is easily obtained. And now, when he has been brought to this city to congratulate Us on Our elevation, We have very lovingly embraced him ;- -nor can We suffer him to return to the country whither your liberality recalls him without an ample provision of pontifical love. And that you may know how dear he is to Us, We have willed to give him this honourable testimonial of virtue and piety. And We further signify that every benefit which you shall confer upon him, imitating, or even surpassing your father's liberality, will conduce to Our gratification." Honoured with these unequivocal marks of approbation, Galileo returned to Florence.

His son Vincenzo is soon afterwards spoken of as being at Rome; and it is not improbable that Galileo sent him thither on the appointment of his friend and pupil, the Abbé Castelli, to be mathematician to the pope. Vincenzo had been legitimated by an edict of Cosmo in 1619, and, according to Nelli,

married, in 1624, Sestilia, the daughter of Carlo Bocchineri. There are no traces to be found of Vincenzo's mother after 1610, and perhaps she died about that time. Galileo's family by her consisted of Vincenzo and two daughters, Julia and Polissena, who both took the veil in the convent of Saint Matthew at Arcetri, under the names of Sister Arcangiola and Sister Maria Celeste. The latter is said to have possessed extraordinary talents. The date of Vincenzo's marriage, as given by Nelli, appears somewhat inconsistent with the correspondence between Galileo and Castelli, in which, so late as 1629, Galileo is apparently writing of his son as a student under Castelli's superintendence, and intimates the amount of pocket-money he can afford to allow him, which he fixes at three crowns a month; adding, that "he ought to be contented with as many crowns, as, at his age, I possessed groats." Castelli had given but an unfavourable account of Vincenzo's conduct, characterizing him as "dissolute, obstinate, and impudent;" in consequence of which behaviour, Galileo seems to have thought that the pension of sixty crowns, which had been granted by the pope, might be turned to better account than by employing it on his son's education; and accordingly in his reply he requested Castelli to dispose of it, observing that the proceeds would be useful in assisting him to discharge a great load of debt with which he found himself saddled on account of his brother's family. Besides this pension, another of one hundred crowns was in a few years granted by Urban to Galileo himself, but it appears to have been very irregularly paid, if at all.

About the same time Galileo found himself menaced either with the deprivation of his stipend as extraordinary professor at Pisa, or with the loss of that leisure which, on his removal to Florence, he had been so anxious to secure. In 1629, the question was agitated by the party opposed to him, whether it were in the power of the grand duke to assign a pension out of the funds of the University, arising out of ecclesiastical dues, to one who neither lectured nor resided there. This scruple had slept during nineteen years which had elapsed since Galileo's establishment in Florence, but probably those who now raised it reckoned upon finding in Ferdinand II., then scarcely

country proceed not only dogmas for the salvation of the soul, but also ingenious discoveries for the gratification of the understanding. With this object, I have taken up in the Dialogue the Copernican side of the question, treating it as a pure mathematical hypothesis; and endeavouring in every artificial manner to represent it as having the advantage, not over the opinion of the stability of the earth absolutely, but according to the manner in which that opinion is defended by some, who in deed profess to be Peripatetics, but retain only the name, and are contented without improvement to worship shadows, not philosophizing with their own reason, but only from the recollection of four principles imperfectly understood." -This very flimsy veil could scarcely blind any one as to Galileo's real views in composing this work, nor does it seem probable that he framed it with any expectation of appearing neutral in the discussion. It is more likely that he flattered himself that, under the new government at Rome, he was not likely to be molested on account of the personal prohibition which he had received in 1616, "not to believe or teach the motion of the earth in any manner," provided he kept himself within the letter of the limits of the more public and general order, that the Copernican system was not to be brought forward otherwise than as a mere mathematically convenient, but in fact unreal supposition. So long as this decree remained in force, a due regard to consistency would compel the Roman Inquisitors to notice an unequivocal violation of it; and this is probably what Urban had implied in the remark quoted by Hohenzoller to Galileo. There were not wanting circumstances which might compensate for the loss of Cosmo and of Federigo Cesi; Cosmo had been succeeded by his son, who, though he had not yet attained his father's energy, showed himself as friendly as possible to Galileo. Cardinal Bellarmine, who had been mainly instrumental in procuring the decree of 1616, was dead; Urban on the contrary, who had been among the few Cardinals who then opposed it as uncalled for and ill-advised, was now possessed of supreme power, and his recent affability seemed to prove that the increased difference in their stations had not caused him to forget their early and long-continued intimacy. It is probable that Galileo would not have found him

* Page 54.

self mistaken in this estimate of his position, but for an unlucky circumstance, of which his enemies immediately saw the importance, and which they were not slow in making available against him. The dialogue of Galileo's work is conducted between three personages ;-Salviati and Sagredo, who were two noblemen, friends of Galileo, and Simplicio, a name borrowed from a noted commentator upon Aristotle, who wrote in the sixth century. Salviati is the principal philosopher of the work; it is to him that the others apply for solutions of their doubts and difficulties, and on him the principal task falls of explaining the tenets of the Copernican theory. Sagredo is only a half convert, but an acute and ingenious one; to him are allotted the objections which seem to have some real difficulty in them, as well as lively illustrations and digressions, which might have been thought inconsistent with the gravity of Salviati's character. Simplicio, though candid and modest, is of course a confirmed Ptolemaist and Aristotelian, and is made to produce successively all the popular arguments of that school in support of his master's system. Placed between the wit and the philosopher, it may be guessed that his success is very indifferent, and in fact he is alternately ridiculed and confuted at every turn. As Galileo racked his memory and invention to leave unanswered no argument which was or could be advanced against Copernicus, it unfortunately happened, that he introduced some which Urban himself had urged upon him in their former controversies on this subject; and Galileo's opponents found means to make His Holiness believe that the character of Simplicio had been sketched in personal derision of him. We do not think it necessary to exonerate Galileo from this charge; the obvious folly of such an useless piece of ingratitude speaks sufficiently for itself. But self-love is easily irritated; and Urban, who aspired to a reputation for literature and science, was peculiarly sensitive on this point. His own expressions almost prove his belief that such had been Galileo's design, and it seems to explain the otherwise inexplicable change which took place in his conduct towards his old friend, on account of a book which he had himself undertaken to examine, and of which he had authorised the publication.

One of the earliest notices of what was approaching, is found in the dispatches,

dated August 24,1632, from Ferdinand's minister, Andrea Cioli, to Francesco Nicolini, the Tuscan ambassador at the court of Rome.

"I have orders to signify to Your Excellency that His Highness remains greatly astonished that a book, placed by the author himself in the hands of the supreme authority in Rome, read and read again there most attentively, and in which every thing, not only with the consent, but at the request of the author, was amended, altered, added, or removed at the will of his superiors, which was again subjected here to the same examination, agreeably to orders from Rome, and which finally was licensed both there and here, and here printed and published, should now become an object of suspicion at the end of two years, and the author and printer be prohibited from publishing any more." -In the sequel is intimated Ferdinand's desire that the charges, of whatever nature they might be, either against Galileo or his book, might be reduced to writing and forwarded to Florence, that he might prepare for his justification; but this reasonable demand was utterly disregarded. It appears to have been owing to the mean subserviency of Cioli to the court of Rome, that Ferdinand refrained from interfering more strenuously to protect Galileo. Cioli's words are: "The Grand Duke is so enraged with this business of Galileo, that I do not know what will be done. I know, at least, that His Holiness shall have no reason to complain of his ministers, or of their bad advice."

A letter from Galileo's Venetian friend Micanzio, dated about a month later, is in rather a bolder and less formal style: "The efforts of your enemies to get your book prohibited will occasion no loss either to your reputation, or to the intelligent part of the world. As to posterity, this is just one of the surest ways to hand the book down to them. But what a wretched set this must be to whom every good thing, and all that is founded in nature, necessarily appears hostile and odious! The world is not restricted to a single corner; you will see the book printed in more places and languages than one; and just for this reason, I wish they would prohibit all good books. My disgust arises from seeing myself deprived of what I most desire of this sort, I mean your other dialogues; and if, from this cause, I fail in having the

Galuzzi, Storia di Toscana. Firenze, 1822.

pleasure of seeing them, I shall devote to a hundred thousand devils these unnatural and godless hypocrites."

At the same time, Thomas Campanella, a monk, who had already distinguished himself by an apology for Galileo (published in 1622), wrote to him from Rome:-" I learn with the greatest disgust, that a congregation of angry theologians is forming to condemn your Dialogues, and that no single member of it has any knowledge of mathematics, or familiarity with abstruse speculations. I should advise you to procure a request from the Grand Duke that, among the Dominicans and Jesuits and Theatins, and secular priests whom they are putting on this congregation against your book, they should admit also Castelli and myself." It appears, from subsequent letters both from Campanella and Castelli, that the required letter was procured and sent to Rome, but it was not thought prudent to irritate the opposite party by a request which it was then clearly seen would have been made in vain. Not only were these friends of Galileo not admitted to the congregation, but, upon some pretext, Castelli was even sent away from Rome, as if Galileo's enemies desired to have as few enlightened witnesses as possible of their proceedings; and on the contrary, Scipio Chiaramonte, who had been long known for one of the staunchest and most bigoted defenders of the old system, and who, as Montucla says, seems to have spent a long life in nothing but retarding, as far as he was able, the progress of discovery, was summoned from Pisa to complete their number. From this period we have a tolerably continuous account of the proceedings against Galileo in the dispatches which Nicolini sent regularly to his court. It appears from them that Nicolini had several interviews with the Pope, whom he found highly incensed against Galileo, and in one of the earliest he received an intimation to advise the Duke "not to engage himself in this matter as he had done in the other business of Alidosi,* because he would not get through it with honour." Finding Urban in this humour, Nicolini thought it best to temporize, and to avoid the appearance of any thing like direct opposition. On the 15th of September, probably as soon as the first report on

* Alidosi was a Florentine nobleman, whose estate Urban wished to confiscate on a charge of heresy.Galuzzi.