tice of this odious tribunal, and reprobating its
interference with the cautious deductions of science, we must yet admit
that, on this occasion, its deliberations were not dictated by passion,
nor its power directed by vengeance. Though placed at their
judgment-seat as a heretic, Galileo stood there with the recognised
attributes of a sage; and though an offender against the laws of which
they were the guardian, yet the highest respect was yielded to his
genius, and the kindest commiseration to his infirmities.

In the beginning of April, when his examination in person was to
commence, it became necessary that he should be removed to the holy
office; but instead of committing him, as was the practice, to solitary
confinement, he was provided with apartments in the house of the fiscal
of the Inquisition. His table was provided by the Tuscan ambassador, and
his servant was allowed to attend him at his pleasure, and to sleep in
an adjoining apartment. Even this nominal confinement, however,
Galileo's high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the disease to
which he was constitutionally subject contributed to fret and irritate
him, and he became impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as
from his bondage. Cardinal Barberino seems to have received notice of
the state of Galileo's feelings, and, with a magnanimity which posterity
will ever honour, he liberated the philosopher on his own
responsibility; and in ten days after his first examination, and on the
last day of April, he was restored to the hospitable roof of the Tuscan
ambassador.

Though this favour was granted on the condition of his remaining in
strict seclusion, Galileo recovered his health, and to a certain degree
his usual hilarity, amid the kind attentions of Niccolini and his
family; and when the want of exercise had begun to produce symptoms of
indisposition, the Tuscan minister obtained for him leave to go into the
public gardens in a half-closed carriage.

After the Inquisition had examined Galileo personally, they allowed him
a reasonable time for preparing his defence. He felt the difficulty of
adducing any thing like a plausible justification of his conduct; and he
resorted to an ingenious, though a shallow artifice, which was regarded
by the court as an aggravation of the crime. After his first appearance
before the Inquisition in 1616, he was publicly and falsely charged by
his enemies with having then abjured his opinions; and he was