For this purpose he chose
Vallombrosa, and there founded the famous convent so justly admired by
all who visit it.
Such stories lead one forward to the tombs of Michael Angelo and the
great Galileo, which last I looked on to-day with reverence, pity, and
wonder; to think that a change so surprising should be made in worldly
affairs since his time; that the man who no longer ago than the year
1636, was by the torments and terrors of the Inquisition obliged
formally to renounce, as heretical, accursed, and contrary to religion,
the revived doctrines of Copernicus, should now have a monument erected
to his memory, in the very city where he was born, whence he was cruelly
torn away to answer at Rome for the supposed offence; to which he
returned; and strange to tell, in which he lived on, by his own desire,
with the wife who, by her discovery of his sentiments, and information
given to the priests accordingly, had caused his ruin; and who, after
his death, in a fit of mad mistaken zeal, flung into the fire, in
company with her confessor, all the papers she could find in his study.
How wonderful are these events! and how sweet must the science of
astronomy have been to that poor man, who suffered all but actual
martyrdom in its cause! How odd too, that ever Galileo's son, by such a
mother as we have just described, should apply himself to the same
studies, and be the inventor of the simple pendulum so necessary to
every kind of clock-work!
Religious prejudices however, and their effects--and thanks be to God
their almost final conclusion too--may be found nearer home than
Galileo's tomb; while Milton has a monument in the same cathedral with
Dr.
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