Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1857-06-04
The Memory of Calico,

as we are to dedicate o temple to instrumental
Astronomy we may we'll pause for moment.
There is much, in every way, in the city Of
Florence to excite the curiosity, to kindle the
Imagination and to crafty the taste. Shell
tered on the north by the vine-clad hills Of FL
esoe, whose Cyclepean walls carry back the
antiquary to ages before the Roman, before
the Etruscan power, the fowery city (Fioren-
za) covers the sunny banks Of the Arno with
its stately palaces Dark ard frowning piles
OF medieval structure majestic dome the
prototype Of St. Peters basilicas which en-
shrine the ashes of some of the mightiest of
the dead the stone where Dante stood to
+ gaze on the campanile the house of Michael
Angelo, still occupied by descendant Of his
fneage aud name, his hammer, his chiscl, his
dividers, his manuscript poems, all as if he had
left them but yesterday airy bridges, which
seem not so much to rest on the earth as to
hover over the waters they span the oveliest
or ations of ancient art, rescued from the grave
, of ages again to enchant the world the breath
ing marbls of Michael Angelo, the glowing
canvas of Raphael aud Titan, museums filed
with medals and coins Of every age from Cyrus
| the younger, aud gems and andlets and vases
from the sepulchres Of Egyptian Phafaohs CO.
| eva with Joseph, and Etruscan Lucumons that
sway'd Italy before the Romans; libraries stored
with the choicest texts of ancient literature
gardens OF rose and orange and pomegranate and
myr:le-the very air you breathe unguid with
music ard perfume--such is Florence. But
among all its destinations addressed to the
sense, the memory and the heart, there was
none to which l more frequently gave medi-
tatlve hour during years residence, than to
the spot where Calico Galei sleeps beneath
the mai bic floor of Santa Croce no building
on which gazed with greater reverence, than
| | did upou the modest mansion at Arcetri, villa
at once and PRISON, in which that venerable
sage, by command of the lnquisltion, passed
the sad closing years of his life. The beloved
daughter ON whom he had depended TO smooth
his passage to the grave laid there before him ;
the eyes with which he had discovered worlds
before unknown, quenched in blindness
Anime quegli occhi sc son fatti oscuri,
| Che wider plu de 'u,ti tempt antchi,
f luce fur del secoli fuuri.
That was the house, where" says Milton,
! (auother of these OF whom the world was not
worthy q found and visited the famous Ga
lleo, grown old--a prisoner to the 1nqusition,
! for thinking on astronomy, otherwise than as
the Dominican aid Franciscan licensers
thought" prose works, vol |, p 3l3.)
Great heavens what tribunal ! what a cul-
prit 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
manusctipts--the admiration and the delight of
ages-~there was nothing which beheld with
more affectionate awe than that poor rough
tube; few feet in length--the work of his
own hands--that very "optic glass" through
which the Tuscan Artist" viewed the moon,
! AT evening from the top of Fesole
| Or in Valdarno, to descfy lands.
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe"
that poor little spy-glass (for it is scarcely
more through which the human eye first dis
tincty behed the surface of the moon-first dis
covered the phases of Venus, the satellites Of Ju
piter and the seeming handles of Saturn, first
pierced the clouds ofvsual error, which, from the
Creation, involved the system OF the Universe.
There are occasions in life in which great
mind lives years of rapt enjoyment in mo-
ment. l can fancy the emotions OF Calico,
when first raising the newly constructed tele-
scope to the heavens, he saw fulfilled the grand
prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet
| Venus crescent like the moon. 1t was such
another moment as that when the immortal
printers of Mentz and Strasburg, received the
first copy of the Bible into their hands, the
work of their divine Art like that when CO.
lumbus through the gray dawn of the 18th Of
October 1892, (Coperncus, at the age Of Is,
was then a student at Cracew,) behed the
shorts of San Salvador--like that when the
law of gravitation first revealed itself to the
intellect of Newton; like that when Franklin saw
by the stitching fbres Of the hempen cord OF his
kite, that he held the lightning IN his grasp--
Ike that when Lc7erfier received from Berlin
the tidings that the predicted planet was found
Yes, noble Calico, thou art right, E pur
81 muore cit does move" Bigots may
make thee recant it but it moves neverthe-
less. Yes, the earth moves, and the planets
move, and the mighty waters move, and the
great sweeping tides of air move, and the en-
pires of men move, and the world Of thought
moves ever onward and upward to higher facts
and holder theories. 'Fhe Inqusition may seal
thy lips, but they can no more stop the pro-
gress of Che great truth proponnded by Co
pernicus aid demonstrated by thee, than they
can stop the revolving earth.
| Close now, venerable sage, that sightless,
fearful eye it has seen what man never be-
! fore saw-it has seen eHn,rgh--hang up that
poor little. spy-glass--it has done its work.
Francscans and Dominicans deride thy discoy-
cries now, but the time will come when from
two hundred observatories in Europe aud
| America the glorious artillery of science
shall nightly assault the skies but they shall
gain no conqnests in those ehttering fields be-
fore which thine shall be forgotten. Rest In
,. ace, great Columbus Of the Heavens, ike
him scorned ard rcrscuted, in other ages, as
the votares Of science shall dedicate their state
~ tdidcrs to the cause OF knowledge aud truth
! thy name shall be mentioned with honor.