companied with a memoir on the immense importance of the instrument to science, and especially to astronomy. He afterwards greatly improved his invention; and brought it to such a state of perfection, that he was in a condition to commence, by means of it, the examination of the heavens. It was then that, to his unutterable astonishment, he saw, as a celebrated French astronomer has expressed it," what no mortal before that moment had seen the surface of the moon, like another earth, ridged by high mountains, and furrowed by deep vallies--Venus, as well as it, presenting phases demonstrative of a spherical form; Jupiter surrounded by four satellites, which accompanied him in his orbit; the milky-way; the nebulæ ; finally, the whole heaven sown over with an infinite multitude of stars, too small to be discerned by the naked eye."* Milton, who had seen Galileo, described, nearly half a century after the invention, some of the wonders thus laid open by the telescope: selle. "Life of Galileo, by Biot," in the Biographie Univer "The moon, whose orb, Through optic glass, the Tuscan artist views Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe." A few days were spent by Galileo in rapidly reviewing the successive wonders that presented themselves to him; and then he proceeded to announce his discoveries to the world by the publication of a paper, which he entitled the Nuncius Sidereus, or Herald of the Heavens, which he continued from time to time, as he found new objects to describe. From this period the examination of the heavens became the sole object of Galileo's thoughts, and the occupation of his life. He wrote, he talked of nothing else. Every mind which is yet a stranger to science, is, in some respects, in the same situation with that of Galileo, before he turned his telescope to the heavens; and such a mind has a world of wonders to learn, many of which are as extraordinary as those which then revealed themselves to the philosopher. It has, in fact, to behold all that he beheld; not certainly, like him, for the first time that any one of the human race had been admitted to that high privilege, but yet for the first time, too, in so far as itself alone is concerned. The consciousness of discovery was Galileo's alone; the novelty and sublimity of the sight remain the same for all by whom it has been yet unenjoyed. And so it is with every other sort of knowledge. Although it may have been in reality discovered for the first time a thousand years ago, it remains as new a pleasure as if it had only been found out yesterday, for him who has not yet acquired it. Such pleasures, in truth, are the only ones that admit of being indefinitely multiplied. The enjoyments of sense, to say nothing of their comparatively short endurance, their certainty to pall upon repetition, and the positively injurious and destroying tendency of many of them, are, from the nature of things, necessarily limited in point of number; for the senses themselves are but few, and no one of them has many varieties of enjoyment to communicate. What are even the highest pleasures brought us by the eye, or the ear, apart from that character which they derive from the moral or intellectual associations they awaken ? Momentary excitements for the child, but hardly the gratifications even of a moment to the man-as is abundantly evidenced by the case of many a one in whom the mere corporeal organ is as perfect as usual, but who, nevertheless, hardly receives from it any pleasure worth naming, owing to the uncultivated state of those mental faculties, which are truly the great creators and bestowers of human happiness. But when did we hear of any one who, having fairly commenced the pursuit of literature or science, ever became tired of it; or would not have gladly devoted his whole life to it, if he could? There may be other passions to which men will deliver themselves up, in the first instance, with greater precipitation and impetuosity; there is none, assuredly, which will engage them so long, or eventually absorb their whole thoughts so thoroughly, as the passion for knowledge. We have numberless instances of persons, in every rank of life, who, for the sake of gratifying it, have contended with, and overcome, such difficulties and impediments of all sorts as certainly would have worn out the strength of almost any other impulse with which we are acquainted. But this is an impulse which, we may venture to affirm, when once truly awakened, no discouragements that the most unfavourable circumstances have interposed have ever been able effectually to subdue. The late Professor HEYNE, of Gottingen, was one of the greatest classical scholars of his own or of any age, and during his latter days enjoyed a degree of distinction, both in his own country and throughout Europe, of which scarcely any contemporary name, in the same department of literature, could boast. Yet he had spent the first thirty-two or thirty-three years of his life, not only in obscurity, but in an almost incessant struggle with the most depressing poverty. He had been born, indeed, amidst the miseries of the lowest indigence, his father being a poor weaver, with a large family, for whom his best exertions were often unable to provide bread. In the "Memoirs of his own Life," Heyne says, “Want was the earliest companion of my childhood. I well remember the painful impressions made on my mind by witnessing the distress of my mother when without food for her children. How often have I seen her, on a Saturday evening, weeping and wringing her hands, as she returned home from an unsuccessful effort to sell the goods which the daily and nightly toil of my father had manufactured!" His parents sent him to a child's school in the suburbs of the small town of Chemnitz, in Saxony, where they lived; and he soon exhibited an uncommon desire of acquiring information. He made so rapid a progress in the humble branches of knowledge taught in the school, that, before he had completed his tenth year, he was paying a portion of his school fees by teaching a little girl, the daughter of a wealthy neighbour, to read and write. Having learned every thing comprised in the usual course of the school, he felt a strong desire to learn Latin. A son of the schoolmaster, who had studied at Leipsic, was willing to teach him at the rate of four-pence a week: but the difficulty of paying so large a fee seemed quite insurmountable. One day he was sent to his godfather, who was a baker in pretty good circumstances, for a loaf. As he went along, he pondered sorrowfully on this great object of his wishes, and entered the shop in tears. The good-tempered baker, on learning the cause of his grief, undertook to pay the required fee for him, at which, Heyne tells us, he was perfectly intoxicated with joy; and as he ran, all ragged and barefoot, through the streets, tossing the loaf in the air, it slipped from his hands and rolled into the gutter. This accident, and a sharp reprimand from his parents, who could ill afford such a loss, brought him to his senses. He continued his lessons for about two years, when his teacher acknowledged that he had taught him all he himself knew. At this time, his father was anxious that he should adopt some trade, but Heyne felt an invincible desire to pursue his literary education; and it was fortunate for the world that he was at this period of his life fur nished with the means of following the course of his inclination. He had another godfather, who was a clergyman in the neighbourhood; and this person, upon receiving the most flattering accounts of Heyne from his last master, agreed to be at the expense of sending him to the principal seminary of his native town of Chemnitz. His new patron, however, although a well-endowed churchman, doled out his bounty with most scrupulous parsimony; and Heyne, without the necessary books of his own, was often obliged to borrow those of his companions, and to copy them over for his own use. At last he obtained the situation of tutor to the son of one of the citizens; and this for a short time rendered his condition more comfortable. But the period was come when, if he was to proceed in the career he had chosen, it was necessary for him to enter the university; and he resolved to go to Leipsic. He arrived in that city accordingly with only two florins (about four shillings) in his pocket, and nothing more to depend upon except the small assistance he might receive from his godfather, who had promised to continue his bounty. He had to wait so long, however, for his expected supplies from this source, which came accompanied with much grudging and reproach when they did make their appearance, that, destitute both of money and books, he would even have been without bread too, had it not been for the compassion of the maid servant of the house where he lodged. What sustained his courage in these circumstances (we here use his own words) was neither ambition nor presumption, nor even the hope of one day taking his place among the learned. The stimulus that incessantly spurred him on was the feeling of the humiliation of his condition-the shame with which he shrunk from the thought of that degradation which the want of a good education would impose upon him-above all, the determined resolution of battling courageously with fortune. He was resolved to try, he said, whether, although she had thrown him among the dust, he should not be able to rise up by his own efforts. His ardour for study only grew the greater as his difficulties increased. For six months he only |