will cease to be played to crowded and delighted anti-Catholic audiences. A flood of historic daylight has been gradually let in behind the scenes, and our pensive public now begin plainly to discern the bungling framework, the coarse canvas, and the roughly-daubed paint, that, in a light shed by a blaze of religious bigotry, seemed the brilliancy of science and the beauty of truth.
The "persecution," the "torture," the "e pur si muove" the "shirt of penance," and all the other properties, scenery, dresses, and decorations, constituting the "mise en scène" of the wretched play that so long has had a sort of historic Black Crook run, are now about to be swept away with other old rubbish, and the curtain will fall never again to rise.
The Galileo controversy is of comparatively recent date in our literature. In the year 1838 a well-known article in the The Dublin Review gave the best statement of the case which, up to that period, had ever been presented to English readers. It was in this country generally attributed to Cardinal Wiseman, but was in fact written by the Rev. Peter Cooper. Republished in 1844 at Cincinnati, with a timely preface, it has been largely circulated among the Catholic reading public throughout the United States. Since the dates mentioned, however, there are many valuable accessions to our knowledge on this interesting subject; and, not to mention others, the publications of Marini, Alberi, and Biot have cleared up several important points heretofore in doubt, and placed some disputed facts in an entirely new light.
The occasion of The Dublin Review article was the appearance of Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, and Powell's History of Philosophy. Its republication in Cincinnati, accompanied by an American introduction, was provoked by some remarkable statements made concerning Galileo by John Quincy Adams, in a discourse delivered before the Astronomical Society of that city. In like manner, the controversy was lately brought to the surface in France by the production of M. Ponsard's five-act drama (Galilée) at the Théâtre Français. Before it is put upon the stage, the play is objected to by official censorship, on the ground of historical misrepresentation. M. Ponsard justifies, censure responds. M. Ponsard's friends, the Avenir National and a compact phalanx of ardent young feuilletonistes, spring to the rescue; pamphlets fly from the press as thick as autumn leaves, and the whole controversy is once again put in agitation.
Generally speaking, English and American boys emerge from their school or college reading with an idea, more or less vague, that the moment Galileo announced the doctrine of the earth's rotation he was seized upon by the Inquisition, cast into prison, tortured in various ways until all his bones were broken; that he pretended to recant, but, with broken bones aforesaid, stood up erect, stamped his foot, and-thundered out, "e pur si muove"—and yet, it moves. We believe this is no exaggeration of the main features of the version that in an undefined and misty form still holds possession of the public mind; and the distinguished Biot appears to recognize this fact in the title of his memoir (1858) on the subject. La Vérité sur Galilée— The truth at last—or, in other words, we have had enough of fiction.
And no wonder; for, up to within comparatively few years, the story has been systematically obscured by thick shades of fable and falsehood. Falsehood as gross as that of Montucla, that the astronomer's eyes were put out; or of Bernini, that he was imprisoned for five years. Falsehood as flippant as that of Moreri, (Grand Dictionnaire Biographique,) that Galileo was "kept in prison five or six years," prefacing his statement with "je sais bien." Fables as transparent as that of Pontecoulant, who says Galileo was a martyr, leaving you free to imagine the astronomer beheaded or burned, at your choice.
As liberal a quarterly as the Westminster says of Galileo: "For the remainder of his life he was subjected to the persecution of the Inquisition." Even the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that "at the end of a year the Grand Duke had the influence to procure his release from prison;" and Sir Benjamin Brodie informs us, in his Psychological Inquiries, that "the Inquisition of Rome subjected Galileo to the torture because he asserted that the earth moved round the sun, and not the sun round the earth." But for a specimen of the most daring intrepidity of statement on this topic, see an article by Libri in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1841; and for one out of a thousand silly rhetorical flourishes, see Introduction à l'Etude Philosophique de l'Histoire de l'Humanité, par Altmeyer, (p. 95,) "Galilée fut forcé par un clergé retrograde de demander pardon à Dieu d'avoir révelé aux hommes les éternelles et ravissantes harmonies par lesquelles il régit l'univers."
Summing up this peculiar phase of historical treatment, there is left from it a general impression that Galileo was persecuted, imprisoned, maltreated, and tortured, wholly and solely by reason of his scientific belief; that he pretended to abjure, but said "e pur si muove" and did not abjure.