Galileo's first essay in science was a paper on the hydrostatic balance, which fell into the hands of

Guido Ubaldi. That learned Pisan was so much taken with the originality of thought and patience in investigation it displayed, that he conceived a strong friendship for its young author, and had him ap-pointed Lecturer of Mathematics at Pisa. In this position, by the daring and ironical nature of Ms attacks on the mechanical doctrines of Aristotle, he raised the suspicions and kindled the wrath of a strong party in the University. He removed from it in 1592, on being appointed by the Republic of Venice to the Professorship of Mathematics at Padua, which he held for eighteen years, with a popularity so unbounded, that his audience had frequently to adjourn to the open air, the crowds who flocked to listen to him being far too great to be accommodated in the lecture-room.

In 1609 occurred his great invention, or re-invention, of the telescope, of which his brilliant astronomical discoveries were the consequence. The received account is, that while at Venice in that year, a report was brought to the city of an instrument having been constructed in Holland, and presented to Count Maurice, which made distant objects appear near. Setting himself to work with his wonted ardour and ingenuity, Galileo, by applying two spectacle-glasses of a particular kind to a leaden tube, was soon in possession of an instru-ment which magnified three times. In the course of a few days he presented several such telescopes to the Venetian Senate, with a paper setting forth the mighty importance of them to science. It was now that "the Tuscan artist" viewed "from top of Fesole" what mortal eye had never before beheld. A French biographer has thus expressed the wonderful sights which greeted him:—

"The surface of the moon, like another earth, ridged by high mountains and furrowed by deep valleys; Venus, as well as it, presenting phases demonstrative of a spherical form; Jupiter surrounded by four satellites, which accompanied him in his orbit; the milky way; the nebulae; finally, the whole heaven strewed over with an infinite multitude of stars, too small to be discerned by the naked eye."

Galileo's discoveries excited great admiration. Men crowded to see him use this miraculous instrument; and the Senate acknowledged the service he had performed by conferring on him his professorship for life; but, by liberal promises, he was induced to return to his native state, and took up his residence at Florence, as mathematician to the Grand Duke. From this date astronomy became his chief, almost his sole, study But dark days were in store for him. He was brought before the Inquisition, charged with what was held the crime of maintaining and teaching the doctrine of the mobility of the earth, and the immobility of the sun. In February 1616, a Congregation of Cardinals having considered the charges, decreed that he be enjoined to abandon the obnoxious doctrines, and pledge himself, under penalty of imprisonment, not to propagate them in any way for the future. Next day the great astronomer did not hesitate to renounce his opinions, to abandon the doctrine of the earth's motion, and promise neither to teach nor defend it in time to come. The Congregation, having disposed of its promulgator, next proceeded to deal with the doc trine itself, which was forthwith pronounced to be false, and contrary to the Holy Scriptures.

Returning to Florence, Galileo resumed his astronomical labours, and for sixteen years was engaged with a work to prove the motion of the earth and the constitution of the heavens. Having rendered the truth as attractive as the exercise of his powerful genius and exquisite taste could make it, he obtained permission to publish, by something very like a dexterous manoeuvre. The sad result is too well known. The book itself was condemned by the Inquisition, and its author, at the age of sixty-nine, compelled, notwithstanding his weak state of health, to undertake a journey to Rome. On arrival, he was put under arrest, and forced to swear on his knees to a series of propositions affirmative of the fixedness of the earth, and the motion of the sun round it every twenty-four hours; and abjuring, denouncing, and detesting the error and heresy of the doctrines which he had laboured with so much zeal to establish, and vindicated by arguments which his opponents found themselves unable to refute.

Persecution had now done its work. That high and haughty spirit which, in the cause of truth, had long defied all dangers, was at last broken. Without being relieved from the grasp of the Inquisition, he was, after remaining four days in its dungeon, permitted to reside in the palace of the Tuscan ambassador, whence he went to Sienna. After passing six months there, he returned to his own villa at Arcetri, called the Gem, where he spent the remainder of his life, and there was visited by Milton. Almost immediately after his arrival ho lost his daughter, who was the sole comfort and stay of his declining years. During his last days at Arcetri, which he styled his prison, he composed his "Dialogues on Motion," and made his latest astronomical discovery, the diurnal libration of the moon. This took place in 1636, soon after which he lost the sight of an eye, and subsequently became totally blind. He expired on the 8th of January, 1643, in the seventy-eighth year of his age; and his bones were laid "in Santa Croce's holy precincts," among the ashes that make them holier

The recantation of which Galileo was, against the dictates of his conscience and judgment, guilty, is undoubtedly a deep blot on the brilliancy of his fame; but the circumstances under which it was made, though they cannot excuse, are calculated to palliate his departure from truth and honour. It is necessary, even when admiring his genius, to look steadily through the lustre which it has cast around it, and note this great transgression. Perhaps, however, his subsequent sufferings may, in some measure, be taken as an atonement. At all events, the finger of scorn is pointed by posterity at the memory of his persecutors, while his name shines with radiant, though not stainless, brightness in the foremost rank of those who have accomplished great things for their species, widened the sphere of human knowledge, and overthrown the prejudices that had long enthralled the minds, and narrowed the visions, of men.