THE
CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA.
CONDUCTED BY THE
REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL.D. F.R.S. L. & E.
M.R.I.A. F.R.A.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. &c. &c.
ASSISTED BY
EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN
OF ITALY, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW;
AND JOHN TAYLOR,
UPPER GOWER STREET.
1835.
CONTENTS
GALILEO
GUICCIARDINI
VITTORIA COLONNA
GUARINI
TASSO
CHIABRERA
TASSONI
MARINI
FILICAJA
METASTASIO
GOLDONI
ALFIERI
MONTI
UGO FOSCOLO
LIVES
OF
EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
GALILEO
1564-1642.
The history of the life and labours of Galileo is pregnant with apeculiar interest to the general reader, as well as to the philosopher.His brilliant discoveries, the man of science regards as his peculiarproperty; the means by which they were made, and the developement of hisintellectual character, belong to the logician and to the philosopher;but the triumphs and the reverses of his eventful life must be claimedfor our common nature, as a source of more than ordinary instruction.
The lengthened career which Providence assigned to Galileo was filled upthroughout its rugged outline with events even of dramatic interest. Butthough it was emblazoned with achievements of transcendent magnitude,yet his finest discoveries were the derision of his contemporaries, andwere even denounced as crimes which merited the vengeance of Heaven.Though he was the idol of his friends, and the favoured companion ofprinces, yet he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spentsome of his last hours within the walls of a prison; and though theAlmighty granted him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds{Pg 1}in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes which were allowed to witnesssuch wonders, were themselves doomed to be closed in darkness.
Such were the lights and shadows in which history delineates
But, however powerful be their contrasts, they are not unusual in theirproportions. The balance which has been struck between his days of goodand evil, is that which regulates the lot of man, whether we study it inthe despotic sway of the autocrat, in t