The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Pisa, 1564. Died 1642. Aged 78.] One of the self-dedicated inquiring spirits, to whom to behold Truth is--to live:--a hierophant of Nature! Whilst Bacon in England was laying down, in form, and theoretically, the laws of experimental philosophy, Galileo in Italy, led by instinct or intuition, was putting them in force. If Bacon stands out as the legislator of our great modern students in physical science, Galileo is assuredly their most illustrious and animating exemplar. We think of the stern and strenuous observer as we do of the prophets, who stand up in the might of invincible truth, solitary against a world. In the very first sentence of the “Novum Organum” it is written that, “Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, knoweth, and can, so much as, in the fact or in thought, he may have observed, of the order of Nature.” Of all men Galileo was essentially the one who allowed Nature to speak for herself,--and waited patiently, piously, and thoughtfully for her utterances, never imposing upon her his own wilful and imperfect conceptions. His spirit was self-sustaining. Hundreds, or thousands, have in the later time risen, who from the cradle to the grave have watched Nature. But they are the officers of an organized army. He walked like Hercules, with his club and lion’s skin cloak, alone. Because his worship was pure, his punishment was great. Suffering for truth’s sake, he was imprisoned for years; yet his only crime had been, that he had faithfully recorded the revelations that came down to him directly from the skies. To Galileo we owe, amongst other obligations, the discovery of the laws of gravity, the invention of the pendulum, of the hydrostatic balance, of the thermometer. He constructed a telescope, and with it discovered the satellites and rings of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the spots on the sun. Noting down what he saw, he changed the whole system of astronomy, and led men on the right track of observation for all ages to come. Italy, with her many titles to our admiration, gratitude and respect, has no prouder claim than this:--She gave us Galileo. The face before us does not belie the soul. Upon it are stamped the rigid signs of robust and intrepid intellect. [From the marble, by Domenico Manera, which was placed in the Capitoline Museum at the cost of Canova. About a century after Galileo’s death, in the year 1737, leave was at last granted to erect a monument to his memory in Santa Croce, at Florence; it was placed opposite to that of Michelangelo, and the bones of the great philosopher were removed into it. In the Museum of the Florence Gallery is preserved the small telescope which he used. The bust, No. 185A, is a cast from that on his tomb.] 185A. GALILEO GALILEI. _Philosopher._ SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN.