my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to
do. Why are you not here? What shouts of laughter we should have at
this glorious folly! And to hear the professor of philosophy at
Pisa labouring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if
with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the
sky."

A young German _protege_ of Kepler, Martin Horkey, was travelling in
Italy, and meeting Galileo at Bologna was favoured with a view through
his telescope. But supposing that Kepler must necessarily be jealous of
such great discoveries, and thinking to please him, he writes, "I cannot
tell what to think about these observations. They are stupendous, they
are wonderful, but whether they are true or false I cannot tell." He
concludes, "I will never concede his four new planets to that Italian
from Padua though I die for it." So he published a pamphlet asserting
that reflected rays and optical illusions were the sole cause of the
appearance, and that the only use of the imaginary planets was to
gratify Galileo's thirst for gold and notoriety.

When after this performance he paid a visit to his old instructor
Kepler, he got a reception which astonished him. However, he pleaded so
hard to be forgiven that Kepler restored him to partial favour, on this
condition, that he was to look again at the satellites, and this time to
see them and own that they were there.

By degrees the enemies of Galileo were compelled to confess to the truth
of the discovery, and the next step was to outdo him. Scheiner counted
five, Rheiter nine, and others went as high as twelve. Some of these
were imaginary, some were fixed stars, and four satellites only are
known to this day.[10]

Here, close to the summit of his greatness, we must leave him for a
time. A few steps more and he will be on the brow of the hill; a short
piece of table-land, and then the descent begins.

LECTURE V

GALILEO AND THE INQUISITION

One sinister event occurred while Galileo was at Padua, some time before
the era we have now arrived at, before the invention of the
telescope--two years indeed after he had first gone to Padua; an event
not directly concerning Galileo, but which I must mention because it
must have shadowed his life both at the time and long afterwards. It was
the execution of Giordano Bruno for heresy. This eminent philosopher had
travelled largely, had lived some time in England, had acquired new and
heterod