erred.

As philosopher and principal mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany,
Galileo now took up his residence at Florence, with a salary of 1000
florins. No official duties, excepting that of lecturing occasionally to
sovereign princes, were attached to this appointment; and it was
expressly stipulated that he should enjoy the most perfect leisure to
complete his treatises on the constitution of the universe, on
mechanics, and on local motion. The resignation of his professorship in
the university of Padua, which was the necessary consequence of his new
appointment, created much dissatisfaction: but though many of his former
friends refused at first to hold any communication with him, this
excitement gradually subsided; and the Venetian senate at last
appreciated the feelings, as well as the motives, which induced a
stranger to accept of promotion in his native land.

While Galileo was enjoying the reward and the fame of his great
discovery, a new species of enmity was roused against him. Simon Mayer,
an astronomer of no character, pretended that he had discovered the
satellites of Jupiter before Galileo, and that his first observation was
made on the 29th of December, 1609. Other astronomers announced the
discovery of new satellites: Scheiner reckoned five, Rheita nine, and
others found even so many as twelve: these satellites, however, were
found to be only fixed stars. The names of _Vladislavian_, _Agrippine_,
_Uranodavian_, and _Ferdinandotertian_, which were hastily given to
these common telescopic stars, soon disappeared from the page of
science, and even the splendid telescopes of modern times have not been
able to add another gem to the diadem of Jupiter.

A modern astronomer of no mean celebrity has, even in the present day,
endeavoured to rob Galileo of this staple article of his reputation.
From a careless examination of the papers of our celebrated countryman,
Thomas Harriot, which Baron Zach had made in 1784, at Petworth, the seat
of Lord Egremont, this astronomer has asserted[13] that Harriot first
observed the satellites of Jupiter on the 16th of January, 1610; and
continued his observations till the 25th of February, 1612. Baron Zach
adds the following extraordinary conclusion:--"Galileo pretends to have
discovered them on the 7th of January, 1610; so that it is not
improbable that Harriot was likewise the first discoverer of these
attendants of Jupiter." In a communication which I received from D