CHAPTER VI.

_Galileo loses his favourite Daughter--He falls into a state of melancholy and ill health--Is allowed to go to Florence for its recovery in 1638--But is prevented from leaving his House or receiving his Friends--His friend Castelli permitted to visit him in the presence of an Officer of the Inquisition--He composes his celebrated Dialogues on Local Motion--Discovers the Moon's Libration--Loses the sight of one Eye--The other Eye attacked by the same Disease--Is struck blind--Negociates with the Dutch Government respecting his Method of finding the Longitude--He is allowed free intercourse with his Friends--His Illness and Death in 1642--His Epitaph--His Social, Moral, and Scientific Character._

Although Galileo had now the happiness of rejoining his family under their paternal roof, yet, like all sublunary blessings, it was but of short duration. His favourite daughter Maria, who along with her sister had joined the convent of St Matthew in the neighbourhood of Arcetri, had looked forward to the arrival of her father with the most affectionate anticipations. She hoped that her filial devotion might form some compensation for the malignity of his enemies, and she eagerly assumed the labour of reciting weekly the seven penitentiary psalms which formed part of her father's sentence. These sacred duties, however, were destined to terminate almost at the moment they were begun. She was seized with a fatal illness in the same month in which she rejoined her parent, and before the month of April she was no more. This heavy blow, so suddenly struck, overwhelmed Galileo in the deepest agony. Owing to the decline of his health, and the recurrence of his old complaints, he was unable to oppose to this mental suffering the constitutional energy of his mind. The bulwarks of his heart broke down, and a flood of grief desolated his manly and powerful mind. He felt, as he expressed it, that he was incessantly called by his daughter--his pulse intermitted--his heart was agitated with unceasing palpitations--his appetite entirely left him, and he considered his dissolution so near at hand, that he would not permit his son Vicenzo to set out upon a journey which he had contemplated.

From this state of melancholy and indisposition, Galileo slowly, though partially, recovered, and, with the view of obtaining medical assistance, he requested leave to go to Florence. His enemies, however, refused this application, and he was given to understand that any additional importunities would be visited with a more vigilant surveillance. He remained, therefore, five years at Arcetri, from 1634 to 1638, without any remission of his confinement, and pursuing his studies under the influence of a continued and general indisposition.

There is no reason to think that Galileo or his friends renewed their application to the Church of Rome; but, in 1638, the Pope transmitted, through the Inquisitor Fariano, his permission that he might remove to Florence for the recovery of his health, on the condition that he should present himself at the office of the Inquisitor to learn the terms upon which this indulgence was granted. Galileo accepted of the kindness thus unexpectedly proffered. But the conditions upon which it was given were more severe than he expected. He was prohibited from leaving his house or admitting his friends; and so sternly was this system pursued, that he required a special order for attending mass during passion week.

The severity of this order was keenly felt by Galileo. While he remained at Arcetri, his seclusion from the world would have been an object of choice, if it had not been the decree of a tribunal; but to be debarred from the conversation of his friends in Florence--in that city where his genius had been idolised, and where his fame had become immortal, was an aggravation of punishment which he was unable to bear. With his accustomed kindness, the Grand Duke made a strong representation on the subject to his ambassador at the Court of Rome. He stated that, from his great age and infirmities, Galileo's career was near its close; that he possessed many valuable ideas, which the world might lose if they were not matured and conveyed to his friends; and that Galileo was anxious to make these communications to Father Castelli, who was then a stipendiary of the Court of Rome. The Grand Duke commanded his ambassador to see Castelli on the subject--to urge him to obtain leave from the Pope to spend a few months in Florence--and to supply him with money and every thing that was necessary for his journey. Influenced by this kind and liberal message, Castelli obtained an audience of the Pope, and requested leave to pay a visit to Florence. Urban instantly suspected the object of his journey; and, upon Castelli's acknowledging that he could not possibly refrain from seeing Galileo, he received permission to visit him in the company of an officer of the Inquisition. Castelli accordingly went to Florence, and, a few months afterwards, Galileo was ordered to return to Arcetri.

During Galileo's confinement at Sienna and Arcetri, between 1633 and 1638, his time was principally occupied in the composition of his "Dialogues on Local Motion," in which he treats of the strength and cohesion of solid bodies, of the laws of uniform and accelerated motions, of the motion of projectiles, and of the centre of gravity of solids. This remarkable work, which was considered by its author as the best of his productions, was printed by Louis Elzevir, at Amsterdam, and dedicated to the Count de Noailles, the French ambassador at Rome. Various attempts to have it printed in Germany had failed; and, in order to save himself from the malignity of his enemies, he was obliged to pretend that the edition published in Holland had been printed from a MS. entrusted to the French ambassador.

Although Galileo had for a long time abandoned his astronomical studies, yet his attention was directed, about the year 1636, to a curious appearance in the lunar disc, which is known by the name of the moon's libration. When we examine with a telescope the outline of the moon, we observe that certain parts of her disc, which are seen at one time, are invisible at another. This change or libration is of four different kinds, viz. the diurnal libration, the libration in longitude, the libration in latitude, and the spheroidal libration. Galileo discovered the first of these kinds of libration, and appears to have had some knowledge of the second; but the third was discovered by Hevelius, and the fourth by Lagrange.

This curious discovery was the result of the last telescopic observations of Galileo. Although his right eye had for some years lost its power, yet his general vision was sufficiently perfect to enable him to carry on his usual researches. In 1636, however, this affection of his eye became more serious; and, in 1637, his left eye was attacked with the same disease. His medical friends at first supposed that cataracts were formed in the crystalline lens, and anticipated a cure from the operation of couching. These hopes were fallacious. The disease turned out to be in the cornea, and every attempt to restore its transparency was fruitless. In a few months the white cloud covered the whole aperture of the pupil, and Galileo became totally blind. This sudden and unexpected calamity had almost overwhelmed Galileo and his friends. In writing to a correspondent he exclaims, "Alas! your dear friend and servant has become totally and irreparably blind. These heavens, this earth, this universe, which by wonderful observation I had enlarged a thousand times beyond the belief of past ages, are henceforth shrunk into the narrow space which I myself occupy. So it pleases God; it shall, therefore, please me also." His friend, Father Castelli, deplores the calamity in the same tone of pathetic sublimity:--"The noblest eye," says he, "which nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so privileged, and gifted with such rare powers, that it may truly be said to have seen more than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all that are to come."

Although Galileo had been thwarted in his attempt to introduce into the Spanish marine his new method of finding the longitude at sea, yet he never lost sight of an object to which he attached the highest importance. As the formation of correct tables of the motion of Jupiter's satellites was a necessary preliminary to its introduction, he had occupied himself for twenty-four years in observations for this purpose, and he had made considerable progress in this laborious task. After the publication of his "Dialogues on Motion," in 1636, he renewed his attempts to bring his method into actual use. For this purpose he addressed himself to Lorenzo Real, who had been the Dutch Governor-General in India, and offered the free use of his method to the States-General of Holland.[36] The Dutch government received this proposal with an anxious desire to have it carried into effect. At the instigation of Constantine Huygens, the father of the illustrious Huygens, and the secretary to the Prince of Orange, they appointed commissioners to communicate with Galileo; and while they transmitted him a gold chain as a mark of their esteem, they at the same time assured him, that if his plan should prove successful it should not pass unrewarded. The commissioners entered into an active correspondence with Galileo, and had even appointed one of their number to communicate personally with him in Italy. Lest this, however, should excite the jealousy of the court of Rome, Galileo objected to the arrangement, so that the negociation was carried on solely by correspondence.

[36] It is a curious fact that Morin had about this time proposed to determine the longitude by the moon's distance from a fixed star, and that the commissioners assembled in Paris to examine it requested Galileo's opinion of its value and practicability. Galileo's opinion was highly unfavourable. He saw clearly, and explained distinctly, the objection to Morin's method, arising from the imperfection of the lunar tables, and the inadequacy of astronomical instruments; but he seemed not to be conscious that the very same objections applied with even greater force to his own method, which has since been supplanted by that of the French savant. See Life of Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 94.

It was at this time that Galileo was struck with blindness. His friend and pupil, Renieri, undertook in this emergency to arrange and complete his observations and calculations; but before he had made much progress in the arduous task, each of the four commissioners died in succession, and it was with great difficulty that Constantine Huygens succeeded in renewing the scheme. It was again obstructed, however, by the death of Galileo; and when Renieri was about to publish, by the order of the Grand Duke, the "Ephemeris," and "Tables of the Jovian Planets," he was attacked with a mortal disease, and the manuscripts of Galileo, which he was on the eve of publishing, were never more heard of. By such a series of misfortunes were the plans of Galileo and of the States-General completely overthrown. It is some consolation, however, to know that neither science nor navigation suffered any severe loss. Notwithstanding the perfection of our present tables of Jupiter's satellites, and of the astronomical instruments by which their eclipses may be observed, the method of Galileo is still impracticable at sea.

In consequence of the strict seclusion to which Galileo had been subjected, he was in the practice of dating his letters from his prison at Arcetri; but after he had lost the use of his eyes, the Inquisition seems to have relaxed its severity, and to have allowed him the freest intercourse with his friends. The Grand Duke of Tuscany paid him frequent visits; and among the celebrated strangers who came from distant lands to see the ornament of Italy, were Gassendi, Deodati, and our illustrious countryman Milton. During the last three years of his life, his eminent pupil Viviani formed one of his family; and in October 1641, the celebrated Torricelli, another of his pupils, was admitted to the same distinction.

Though the powerful mind of Galileo still retained its vigour, yet his debilitated frame was exhausted with mental labour. He often complained that his head was too busy for his body; and the continuity of his studies was frequently broken with attacks of hypochondria, want of sleep, and acute rheumatic pains. Along with these calamities, he was afflicted with another still more severe--with deafness almost total; but though he was now excluded from all communication with the external world, yet his mind still grappled with the material universe, and while he was studying the force of percussion, and preparing for a continuation of his "Dialogues on Motion," he was attacked with fever and palpitation of the heart, which, after continuing two months, terminated fatally on the 8th of January 1642, in the 78th year of his age.

Having died in the character of a prisoner of the Inquisition, this odious tribunal disputed his right of making a will, and of being buried in consecrated ground. These objections, however, were withdrawn; but though a large sum was subscribed for erecting a monument to him in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, the Pope would not permit the design to be carried into execution. His sacred remains were, therefore, deposited in an obscure corner of the church, and remained for more than thirty years unmarked with any monumental tablet. The following epitaph, given without any remark in the Leyden edition of his Dialogues, is, we presume, the one which was inscribed on a tablet in the church of Santa Croce:--

GALILAEO GALILAEI Florentino, Philosopho et Geometrae vere lynceo, Naturae Oedipo, Mirabilium semper inventorum machinatori, Qui inconcessa adhuc mortalibus gloria Caelorum provincias auxit Et universo dedit incrementum: Non enim vitreos spherarum orbes Fragilesque stellas conflavit: Sed aeterna mundi corpore Mediceae beneficentiae dedicavit, Cujus inextincta gloriae cupiditas Ut oculos nationum Saeculorumque omnium Videre doceret, Proprios impendit oculos. Cum jam nil amplius haberet natura Quod ipse videret. Cujus inventa vix intra rerum limites comprehensa Firmamentum ipsum non solum continet, Sed etiam recipit. Qui relictis tot scientiarum monumentis Plura secum tulit, quam reliquit. Gravi enim Sed nondum affecta senectute, Novis contemplationibus Majorem gloriam affectans Inexplebilem sapientiae animam Immaturo nobis obitu Exhalavit Anno Domini MCXLII. AEtatis suae LXXVIII.

At his death, in 1703, Viviani purchased his property, with the charge of erecting a monument over Galileo's remains and his own. This design was not carried into effect till 1737, at the expense of the family of Nelli, when both their bodies were disinterred, and removed to the site of the splendid monument which now covers them. This monument contains the bust of Galileo, with figures of Geometry and Astronomy. It was designed by Giulio Foggini. Galileo's bust was executed by Giovanni Battista Foggini; the figure of Astronomy by Vincenzio Foggini, his son; and that of Geometry by Girolamo Ticciati.

Galileo's house at Arcetri still remains. In 1821 it belonged to one Signor Alimari, having been preserved in the state in which it was left by Galileo; it stands very near the convent of St Matthew, and about a mile to the S. E. of Florence. An inscription by Nelli, over the door of the house, still remains.

The character of Galileo, whether we view him as a member of the social circle, or as a man of science, presents many interesting and instructive points of contemplation. Unfortunate, and to a certain extent immoral, in his domestic relations, he did not derive from that hallowed source all the enjoyments which it generally yields; and it was owing to this cause, perhaps, that he was more fond of society than might have been expected from his studious habits. His habitual cheerfulness and gaiety, and his affability and frankness of manner, rendered him an universal favourite among his friends. Without any of the pedantry of exclusive talent, and without any of that ostentation which often marks the man of limited though profound acquirements, Galileo never conversed upon scientific or philosophical subjects except among those who were capable of understanding them. The extent of his general information, indeed, his great literary knowledge, but, above all, his retentive memory, stored with the legends and the poetry of ancient times, saved him from the necessity of drawing upon his own peculiar studies for the topics of his conversation.

Galileo was not less distinguished for his hospitality and benevolence; he was liberal to the poor, and generous in the aid which he administered to men of genius and talent, who often found a comfortable asylum under his roof. In his domestic economy he was frugal without being parsimonious. His hospitable board was ever ready for the reception of his friends; and, though he was himself abstemious in his diet, he seems to have been a lover of good wines, of which he received always the choicest varieties out of the Grand Duke's cellar. This peculiar taste, together with his attachment to a country life, rendered him fond of agricultural pursuits, and induced him to devote his leisure hours to the cultivation of his vineyards.

In his personal appearance Galileo was about the middle size, and of a square-built, but well-proportioned, frame. His complexion was fair, his eyes penetrating, and his hair of a reddish hue. His expression was cheerful and animated, and though his temper was easily ruffled, yet the excitement was transient, and the cause of it speedily forgotten.

One of the most prominent traits in the character of Galileo was his invincible love of truth, and his abhorrence of that spiritual despotism which had so long brooded over Europe. His views, however, were too liberal, and too far in advance of the age which he adorned; and however much we may admire the noble spirit which he evinced, and the personal sacrifices which he made, in his struggle for truth, we must yet lament the hotness of his zeal and the temerity of his onset. In his contest with the Church of Rome, he fell under her victorious banner; and though his cause was that of truth, and hers that of superstition, yet the sympathy of Europe was not roused by his misfortunes. Under the sagacious and peaceful sway of Copernicus, astronomy had effected a glorious triumph over the dogmas of the Church; but under the bold and uncompromising sceptre of Galileo all her conquests were irrecoverably lost.

The scientific character of Galileo, and his method of investigating truth, demand our warmest admiration. The number and ingenuity of his inventions, the brilliant discoveries which he made in the heavens, and the depth and beauty of his researches respecting the laws of motion, have gained him the admiration of every succeeding age, and have placed him next to Newton in the lists of original and inventive genius. To this high rank he was doubtless elevated by the inductive processes which he followed in all his inquiries. Under the sure guidance of observation and experiment, he advanced to general laws; and if Bacon had never lived, the student of nature Would have found, in the writings and labours of Galileo, not only the boasted principles of the inductive philosophy, but also their practical application to the highest efforts of invention and discovery.

LIFE OF TYCHO BRAHE.