Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-09-04
An Old Fn.x RehmIked.

AT the dedication of the Dudley Observable
ry, at Albany, on Thursday last, ali Grafton
was delivered by MIR. Edward Everett, in
which occurs the following passage -
Such is Florence. But among all its fas-
cinations addressed to the sense, the IL emory
and the heart, there was none to which l
more frequently gave a meditative hour dur
ing years residence, than to the spot where
GallIleo Gaile sleeps beneath the marble floor
of Santa Crocei no building on which gazed
with greater reverence, than l did upon the
modest mansion at Arcetri, villa a once and
prison, in which that venerable sage, by COM
mand of the Inquisition passed the sad clos
ing years of his life. That was the house,
where, says Milton, (another of those Of
whom the world was not worthy,) L found
and visited the famous Calico, grown old-a
prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking on as.
tronomy, otherwise than the Dominican
and Franciscan licensers thought Great
Heavens what a tribunal what culprit,
what crime Let us thank God, my friends,
that we live in the nineteenth century. OF
all the wonders of ancient and modern art
statues and paintings, and jewels and manu-
scripts-the admiration and the delight of
ages-there was nothing which beheld with
more afectionate awe than that poor rough
tube, few feet in length-the work of his
own hands-that very soptic glass through
which the Tuscan Artist viewed the moon,
At evening, from the top Of Fesole,
Or in Val1arno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains, in her spotty globe,'
that poor little spy glass (tor it is scarcely
more) through which the human eye first dis
tinctly beheld the surface of the moon-hrst
discovered the phases of Venus, the satellites
of Jupiter, and the seeming handles of Saturn
fret tod tba L.. q 81
heavens-first pierced the clouds Of visual err
ror, which, from the creation of the world,
involV ed the system of the Universe
Mr.. Eyerett's nerves are shocked while con-
. templating the barbarous age that doomed
Calico to Imprisonment for asserting a great
truth, and he piously lifts up his eyes and
hands, and exclaims " Let us thank God,
my friends, that live in the nineteenth
century" Yet small thanks need be given to
God for such a nineteenth century as this
same Mr.Everett has been laboring to make.
lie it was that in Congress, in March, 1926,
declared American slavery to be an institution
sanctioned by the laws of morality and rel-
gion, al blessed in the sight of the Infinite
an institution which, sooner than any other,
che would buckle on his knapsack and shoul-
der his musket" to maintain and he it is
who is new doing his best to keep in power
the party who design to spread over a vast
territory yet free the blessings of this divine
ly-sanctioned institution: to bring the yet
free North under the influence of benign
code Of laws, annihilating the liberty of the
press, the rostrum, the pulpit, and the post
office, imprisoning women for teaching little
children to read, and hanging men for ex-
pressing tie sentiments of Washington and
Franklin aud Jefferson Oh, enlightened
nineteenth century, illumined by rays from
minds of the Edward Everett order much
cause have you to plume yourself in COMPARE
son of your doing with those of former times
N. Y. Tribune.