The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-05-24
A Philosophers fpefsat.

"The trial and imprisonment Of Calico
form the final sCene In tbs death OF the
Italian intellect. Tho most e.ninent
genius Of his country, IL net Of fais age,
almost the founder Of modem eeienee,
the peer and contemporary of Ehake.
speare, Bacon, Milton, the successor Of
Michael Angelo, had Galileo obtained an
atterance in Italy for scientific truth, the
spe'| that rested upon her might hayo
been broken. There might have bloomed
once more literature touched by tho
free spirit Of Dante. o political progress
that would have reflected the Puritanic
revolutions Of the North. But with Ga
lileo fell the independence of Italian
thought. His abjuration is the saddest
picture in modern intellectual hntory.
Conscious of the truth, he was condemed
TO re.ource it and repeat O falsehood.
The Newton, the Herschel Of his age, he
was forced 70 abjure the favorite studies
OF his life, and pause forever In that path
Of scientific discovery which had already
made Italy famous. Ali the world wit
messed his fall, and he whose eye had first
pierced the mysterious vault above, who
of all his race had first brought back
tidings Of new suns aud planets in its
sublime abyss, yielded to the terrors of
torture, the fear of death; and sacrificed
the integrity of his soul to the menaces
of the Church. With malignant JOY tho
Iesnits saw the last great italian perish
within their tolls, and were perhaps salts
fed with the humiliation of Calico"
"When, at the close Of his splendid
career, covered with renown, yet shut up
: his villa at Arcetri, the prisoner of the
Inquisition, watched by envious eyes,
threatened, should he murmur or rebel,
with the most dreadful punishment of
the church, Galileo sick and worn with
age and sorrow, lamented in letters to his
friends that he had ever ventured upon
those fatal studies which had served only
to bring upon him persecution and shame,
q fair-haired, blue eyed poet from the
cloudy North, who was just entering with
an equal ardor upon the search for truth,
visited the brightest skies of Florence,
saw with astonishment the imprisonment
of its greatest genius, and heard, perhaps,
from his own lips the unmerited sorrows
that had fallen upon his later years. It
was Milton iamenting for Galileo. In
the cultivated society Of Florence the
young English scholar must often have
remembered the lonely prisoner who,
shut out froH, ali the pleasures of intel
iectual intercourse, was confined in the
distant villa. Milton Mt Florence wrote
verses, vas complimented in graceful
stanzas, and was not slow to return the
elegant adulation. Yet with all the
more intelligent Fiorentines he saw typi-
fled in the fate of Galileo the quick ex-
tinction of italian letters. In his defense
of the freedom Of the press, he relates to
tho English public how severe Inquisi-
ton had checked at Florence ali mental
progress, how the accomplished Floren-
tines lamented that they had not been
born in a land like England, where
learning was free, how nothing was now
written in Italy but 'hattery and fnstian.'
There he adds, 1T was that found and
visited the famous Galileo, grown old, q
prisoner to the Lnquisition' The specta-
Gle of the great philosopher, silenced,
terrified, contemned, never passed from
his mind. In his youth he had lamcnted
over him tenderly. In manhood, when q
mental tyranny like that which hung
over Italy seemed about to envelcp all
England, and prosecuting Church and
a despotic king had nearly subdued its
virtue, milton. instructed by the iate OF
Italian thought, led ON the defenders OF
freedom. And when, in his old age, blind
and forsaken like Calico, he poured
forth in sonorous strains, the treasures of
a life of study, one of his most splendid
SMILES, one Of his most touching allu-
sions, is when he paints the Tuscan artist
on the height Of Fiesole, and makes the
chief glory of science lend aid to the i'm
mortal grandeur of his soue." tss-.