But we may be wrong after all in denying originality to these men, for we have no proof that either of them had any knowledge of the discoveries of his predecessors. It was not until the 18th of March 1816, that the first steam-vessel appeared in France, making her entrance into the seaport of Havre. She was the Eliza, which had left Newhaven in England on the previous day. GALILEO GALILEI. A. D. 1630. There are few celebrated men about whom more has been written than Galileo. The mere enumeration of the works of which he is the subject would fill many pages: nevertheless an important mistake relative to one of the principal events of his life has been so generally accepted and believed, that it may be said to have passed almost into a proverb, and many historians and scientific writers have carelessly adopted and propagated the error. Between the years 1570 and 1670 Italy had fallen into a state of torpor. The Italians, including even the magnates of the land, had lost all dignity and self-respect, and lay cringing and prostrate at the feet of papal authority. During this period of mental depression Galileo came into the world. Although endowed with a capacious and liberal mind, he was wanting in strength of character, the great failing of his countrymen and of the age in which he lived. Never was he known to exclaim “_E pur si muove!_” Never did he display the heroic firmness that is falsely attributed to him. Greatly in advance of his epoch in science, he still belonged to it in all its shortcomings and defects. He yielded, he hesitated, he drew back before opposition, and was sometimes induced to deny his own doctrines through timidity or in the hope of disarming his enemies, and of escaping from the storm and the whirlwind he had raised around him. The whole of his correspondence proves the weakness of his character. In Italy, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the most dangerous accusations that could be brought against any man were deism and infidelity. To doubt was punished with death. Galileo was so imprudent as to address a long letter to Castelli, in which he sought to reconcile the words of scripture with the rotation of the earth as discovered by Copernicus. Copernicus had proved the fact previous to Galileo, but he had used the wise precaution to give his opinion only as an hypothesis, and in his work on the motion of the heavenly bodies, dedicated to Pope Paul III., he avoided wounding any susceptibilities, taking especial care to separate theology from science. Galileo went even further in a second letter, in which he not only attempted to reconcile his principles of astronomy with scripture, but he endeavoured to make the words of scripture subservient to the axioms he laid down. Some powerful friends tried to bring him to a sense of his indiscretion. Cardinal Bellarmini sent him a written remonstrance, urging him to confine himself to mathematics and astronomy, and to avoid the field of theology.