The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler

ns made in England by Harriot-Claims of Fabricius and Scheiner to the discovery of the Solar Spots-Galileo's Letters to Velser on the c

which had been made to deprive him of the honour of some of his discoveries, combined, probably, with a desire to repeat his observations with better telescopes, led him

f his first enigma. Kepler and others tried in vain to decipher it; but in consequence of t

anetam tergemi

at the most remote

ar, but three together, nearly touching one another. He described them as having no relative motion, and

yet he soon communicated to the world another discovery of no slight interest.

ras ?mulatur

the phases

aw her in the form of a crescent, resembling exactly the moon at the same elongation. He continued to observe her night after night, during the whole time that she

as received with that distinction which was due to his great talents and his extended reputation. Princes, Cardinals, and Prelates hastened to do him honour; and eve

them to his friends in many of their most interesting variations. From their change of position on the sun's disc, Galileo at first inferred, either that the sun revolved about an axis, or that other planets, like Venus and Mercury, revolved so near the sun as to appear like black spots when they were opposite to his disc. Upon continuing his observations, however, he saw reason to abandon this hasty op

on, of Oxford,[17] it appeared that Thomas Harriot had observed the solar spots on the 8th of December 1610; but his manuscripts, in Lord Egremont's possession,[18] incontestably prove that his regular observations on the spots did not commence till December 1, 1611, although he had seen the spots at the date above mentioned, and that they were continued till the 18th of January 1613. The observations which he has recorded are 199 in number, and the accounts of them are accompanied with rough drawings representing the number, position, and magnitude of the spots.[19] In the observation of Harriot, made on the 8th December 1610, befo

[21] in which he has recorded his observation, bears the date of the 13th of June 1611; and it is obvious, from the work itself, that he had seen the spots about th

ng clouds happened, at the time, to weaken the intensity of his light, so that he was able to show the spots to his pupils. These observations were not published till January 1612; and they appeared in the form of three letters, addressed to Mark Velser, one of the magistrates of

the language of mutual respect and esteem, it put an end to the friendship which had existed between the two astronomers. In these letters Galileo showed that the spots often dispersed like vapours or clouds; that they sometimes had a duration of only one or two days, and at other times of thirty or forty days; that they contracted in their breadth when they approached the sun's limb, without any diminution of their

h it still remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the sun? Have they suddenly vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his own children? or was the appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which the glasses have for so long a time mocked me, and so many others who have often observed with me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of the new observations, and recognised their impossibilities. I cannot resolve what to

eminent individual had ever been the warmest friend of Galileo, and seems to have delighted in drawing round him the scientific genius of the age. He was a member of the celebrated Lync?an Society, founded by Prince Fr

Medici. This work contains many ingenious experiments, and much acute reasoning in support of the true principles of hydrostatics; and it is now chiefly remarkable as a specimen of the sagacity and intellectual power of its author. Like all his other works, it encountered the most violent opposition; and Galileo was more than once summoned into the field to repel the aggressions of his ignorant and presumptuous opponents. The first attack upon it was made by Ptolemy Nozzolini