have wrongly
crowned as a martyr--Galileo Galilei. Tradition represents him as
languishing, laden with chains, in the more or less mythical prisons of
the Inquisition; history tells very plainly that his first confinement
consisted in being the honoured guest of the Tuscan Ambassador in the
latter's splendid residence in Rome, and that his last imprisonment was
a relegation to the beautiful castle of the Piccolomini near Siena, than
which the heart of man could hardly desire a more lovely home. History
affirms beyond doubt, moreover, that Galileo was the personal friend of
that learned and not illiberal Barberini, Pope Urban the Eighth, under
whose long reign the Copernican system was put on trial, who believed in
that system as Galileo did, who read his books and talked with him; and
who, when the stupid technicalities of the ecclesiastic courts declared
the laws of the universe to be nonsense, gave his voice against the
decision, though he could not officially annul it without scandal. 'It
was not my intention,' said the Pope in the presence of witnesses, 'to
condemn Galileo. If the matter had depended upon me, the decree of the
Index which condemned his doctrines should never have been pronounced.'

That Galileo's life was saddened by the result of the absurd trial, and
that he was nominally a prisoner for a long time, is not to be denied.
But that he suffered the indignities and torments recorded in legend is
no more true than that Belisarius begged his bread at the Porta
Pinciana. He lived in comfort and in honour with the Ambassador in the
Villa Medici, and many a time from those lofty windows, unchanged since
before his day, he must have watched the earth turning with him from the
sun at evening, and meditated upon the emptiness of the ancient phrase
that makes the sun 'set' when the day is done--thinking of the world,
perhaps, as turning upon its other side, with tired eyes, and ready for
rest and darkness and refreshment, after long toil and heat.

* * * * *

One may stand under those old trees before the Villa Medici, beside the
ancient fountain facing Saint Peter's distant dome, and dream the great
review of history, and call up a vast, changing picture at one's feet
between the heights and the yellow river. First, the broad corn-field of
the Tarquin Kings, rich and ripe under the evening breeze of summer that
runs along swiftly, bending the golden surface in soft moving waves