Though Galileo was now, to a certain degree, liberated from the power of man, yet the afflicting dispensations of Providence began to fall thickly around him. No sooner had he returned to Arcetri, than his favourite daughter, Maria, was seized with a dangerous illness, which soon terminated in her death. He was himself attacked with hernia, palpitation of the heart, loss of appetite, and the most oppressive melancholy; and though he solicited permission to repair to Florence for medical assistance, yet this deed of mercy was denied him. In 1638, however, the pope permitted him to pay a visit to Florence, and his friend, Father Castelli, was allowed to visit him in the company of an officer of the Inquisition. But this indulgence was soon withdrawn, and at the end of a few months he was remanded to Arcetri. The sight of his right eye had begun to fail in 1636, from an opacity of the cornea. In 1637 his left eye was attacked with the same complaint; so that in a few months he was affected with total and incurable blindness. Before this calamity had supervened, he had noticed the curious phenomenon of the moon’s libration, in consequence of which, parts of her visible disk that are exposed to view at one time are withdrawn at another. He succeeded in explaining two of the causes of this curious phenomenon, viz. the different distances of the observer from the line joining the centre of the earth and the moon, which produces the diurnal libration, and the unequal motion of the moon in her orbit, which produces the libration in longitude. It was left, however, to Hevelius to discover the libration in latitude, which arises from the inclination of her axis being a little less than a right angle to the ecliptic; and to Lagrange to discover the spheroidal libration, or that which arises from the action of the earth upon the lunar spheroid. The sorrows with which Galileo was now beset, seemed to have disarmed the severity of the Inquisition. He was freely permitted to enjoy the society of his friends, who now thronged around him to express their respect and their sympathy. The Grand-duke of Tuscany was his frequent visiter, and Gassendi, Deodati, and our countryman Milton went to Italy for the purpose of visiting him. He entertained his friends with the warmest hospitality, and though simple and abstemious in his diet, yet he was fond of good wine, and seems even in his last days to have paid particular attention to the excellence of his cellar. Although Galileo had nearly lost his hearing as well as his sight, yet his intellectual faculties were unimpaired; and while his mind was occupied in considering the force of percussion, he was seized with fever and palpitation of the heart, which, after two months’ illness, terminated his life on the 8th of January, 1642.