Like so many Renaissance artists Palissy tried his skill in many lines. If his most remarkable work was his “rustic pieces,” as they are called, great dishes ornamented with fishes, reptiles, frogs, shells, and plants in relief, intended to be used as ornaments and not for service, scarcely less interesting were his statuettes, his stands for fountains, his “rustic figures” for gardens, his candlesticks, ewers and basins, saltcellars, ink-stands, and baskets. Large collections of his work are to be found in the Louvre, the Hôtel de Cluny, and at Sèvres. Many pieces have strayed into the hands of great private collectors of rare porcelain, and both England and Russia have many fine examples of his masterpieces. He had two assistants, either brothers or nephews, and they knew the secret of his process. They had worked with him, and they continued his art into the reign of Henry IV. One of their productions shows that king surrounded by his family. But these successors had not the artistic instinct or touch of the master. They had little originality, and speedily became servile copyists, so that Palissy ware for a time lost the high place it had held. But these successors did not hand on the secret, and when no more of the ware was forthcoming good judges of the potter’s art found it easy to distinguish between the work of Bernard and of his followers, and his own porcelain was again enthroned among the greatest productions of French art. Connoisseurs of to-day find it easy to know real Palissy ware. Such is the story of a great artist of the Renaissance in France, of a man born with the love of beauty, who found a new way of giving the world delight, and who overcame what seemed almost superhuman trials. III GALILEO AND THE TELESCOPE 1564-1642 Three days before the death of the great Italian Michael Angelo, in the year 1564, there was born in Pisa a boy who was given the name of Galileo Galilei, and who was destined to become one of the greatest philosophers and inventors the world has ever known. He came of a noble family of Florence, which had originally borne the name of Bonajuti, but had later changed it to that of Galilei, and he is usually known by his baptismal name of Galileo, according to the Italian custom of that age. His father was a merchant, engaged in business in Pisa, a man well versed in the Latin and Greek tongues, and well known for his knowledge of mathematics. He was anxious that each of his three sons should have a good education, and so he sent Galileo, his eldest boy, to the famous monastery of Vallombrosa, situated in a beautiful wooded valley not far from Florence. But the father did not intend his son to become a priest, and so, when he found his thoughts tending in that direction, he took him away from the monastery, planning to make him a merchant like himself.