ed the singular property of
causing distant objects to appear nearer the observer. This Dutchman was
Hans or John Lippershey, who, as has been clearly proved by the late
Professor Moll of Utrecht,[8] was in the possession of a telescope made
by himself so early as 2d October 1608. A few days afterwards, the truth
of this report was confirmed by a letter which Galileo received from
James Badorere at Paris, and he immediately applied himself to the
consideration of the subject. On the first night after his return to
Padua, he found, in the doctrines of refraction, the principle which he
sought. He placed at the ends of a leaden tube two spectacle glasses,
both of which were plain on one side, while one of them had its other
side convex, and the other its second side concave, and having applied
his eye to the concave glass, he saw objects pretty large and pretty
near him. This little instrument, which magnified only three times, he
carried in triumph to Venice, where it excited the most intense
interest. Crowds of the principal citizens flocked to his house to see
the magical toy; and after nearly a month had been spent in gratifying
this epidemical curiosity, Galileo was led to understand from Leonardo
Deodati, the Doge of Venice, that the senate would be highly gratified
by obtaining possession of so extraordinary an instrument. Galileo
instantly complied with the wishes of his patrons, who acknowledged the
present by a mandate conferring upon him for life his professorship at
Padua, and generously raising his salary from 520 to 1000 florins.[9]

[8] On the First Invention of Telescopes.--_Journ. R. Instit._,
1831., vol i., p. 496.

[9] Viviani _Vita del' Galileo_, p. 69.

Although we cannot doubt the veracity of Galileo, when he affirms that
he had never seen any of the Dutch telescopes, yet it is expressly
stated by Fuccarius, that one of these instruments had at this time been
brought to Florence; and Sirturus assures us that a Frenchman, calling
himself a partner of the Dutch inventor, came to Milan in May 1609, and
offered a telescope to the Count de Fuentes. In a letter from Lorenzo
Pignoria to Paolo Gualdo, dated from Padua, on the 31st of August 1609,
it is expressly said, that, at the re-election of the professors,
Galileo had contrived to obtain 1000 florins for life, which was alleged
to be on account of an eye-glass like the one which was sent from
Flanders to the Cardinal Borghese.

In a m