them much magnified. With this instrument, he saw heavenly
bodies that had never been seen before; he beheld that Jupiter had
satellites which moved in orbits, and that Venus revolved, showing
different sides at different times, thus proving that which Copernicus
declared was true, but which, for lack of apparatus, he could not prove.

Galileo Galilei was getting to be more than a professor of
mathematics--he was becoming a power in the world.

The lever of his mighty mind was indeed finding a fulcrum.

* * * * *

The year Sixteen Hundred Nine is forever fixed in history, through the
fact that in that year Galileo invented the telescope.

Every good thing is an evolution. "Specilla," or helps to read, had been
made, and sold privately and mysteriously, as early as the year Fourteen
Hundred. These first magnifying-glasses were associated with magic, or
wonder-working; the words "magnify" and "magic" having a common source
and a similar meaning. Magicians wore big square glasses, and by their
aid, some of them claimed to see things at a great distance; and also to
perceive things stolen, hidden or lost. Occasionally, the magician would
persuade his customer to try on the glasses, and then even common men
could see for themselves that there was something in the
scheme--goodness me! The use of spectacles was at first confined
entirely to these wonder-workers--or men who magnified things forever.
During the Fifteenth Century, public readers and occasionally priests
wore spectacles. To read was a miracle to most people, and a book was a
mysterious and sacred thing--or else a diabolical thing. The populace
would watch the man put on his "specillum," and the idea was everywhere
abroad that the magic glasses gave an ability to read; and that anybody
who was inspired by angels, or devils, who could get hold of spectacles,
could at once read from a book.

We hear of one magician who, about the year Fifteen Hundred, made a box
with a glass cover that magnified the contents. This great man would
catch a flea and show it to the people. Then he would place the flea in
the box and show it to them, and they would see that it had grown
enormously in an instant. The man could make it big or little, by just
taking off and putting on the cover of the box!

This individual worked wonders for a consideration, but Fate overtook
him and he was smothered under a feather bed for having too much wizard
in his