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with an ironical preface, Ad prudentem lectorem, referring to a certain edict promulgated from Rome, which "some people seemed to think proceeded on a partial view of the argument. The object of the present dialogue was therefore to collect all the arguments in support of the Copernican theory, and to proclaim that they were known at Rome before the promul gation of that sentence; and at the same time to show that from that climate proceeded not only doctrines for the health of the soul, but subtile and sublime inventions for the delight of the understanding."

which the right use of our senses and with common-sense reflections, doubts, reason ought to be a sufficient guide to and suggestions; and the third reprous. His expressions on these subjects are ducing the arguments of the Peripatetics worth quoting in some detail. "I am in- and judging of every thing by the authorclined to believe," he says, "that the in-ity of Aristotle. The work is published tention of the sacred Scriptures is to give mankind the information necessary for their salvation, and which, surpassing all human knowledge, can by no other means be accredited than by the mouth of the Holy Spirit. But I do not hold it necessary to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, with speech, and with intellect, intended that we should neglect the use of them, nor seek by their means for knowledge which they are sufficient to procure us; especially in a science like astronomy, of which so little notice is taken in the Scriptures, that none of the planets, except the sun and moon, and once or twice only, Venus, under the name of Lucifer, are so much as named there. This, therefore, being granted, I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought not to begin at the authority of texts of Scripture, but at sensible experiments and necessary demonstrations, for from the divine Word sacred Scripture and nature did both alike proceed; and I conceive that, concerning natural effects, that which either sensible experience sets before our eyes, or necessary demonstrations prove unto us, ought not upon any account to be called in question, much less condemned, upon the testimony of Scripture texts, which may, under their words, crouch senses seemingly contrary thereto."

On the 25th of February, 1615, however, proceedings were instituted in the Inquisition, and with the following result. The doctrine that the earth is not immovable.and in the center of the universe was pronounced to be contrary to Scripture and heretical, and Galileo was interdicted from professing in future the condemned opinion.

Galileo returned to Florence in 1617, and, determined to silence if not to persuade his adversaries, employed himself for sixteen years in collecting into a body all the physical proofs of the motion of the earth and the constitution of the heavens. By a combination of ingenuity and address he received permission to publish the work so compiled. It is in the form of a dialogue between Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicius-the former supporting the scientific views, the second aiding,

The publication of this work raised a storm among the ecclesiastics at Rome. The Pope himself appears to have felt warmly on the subject, and is said to have been persuaded that in the character of Simplicius, Galileo had ridiculed the arguments used in private conferences with himself. But however such personal feelings may have been raised up in the matter, they may easily be acquitted of any very material influence upon the result. Galileo was summoned to Rome on the 30th of September, 1633, and, vainly pleading infirmity, age, and ill-health, was obliged, an invalid at the age of sixtynine, to repair thither.

What passed in the Inquisition is only to be ascertained from the traditional accounts which have been popularly circulated, and from such portions of the rec ords of the Inquisition as have been laid before the public. It is to be regretted that these records have not been given to the public entire. After several vicissitudes, in the course of which they were carried to Paris in 1812-13, restored to the Pope in 1846, placed in the secret archives in 1848, and afterwards presented to the library of the Vatican, they have again been restored to the secret archives of the Holy See, and an incomplete account of them, (Galileo e Inquisitione, published in 1850,) by M. Marini, the keeper of the secret archives, is all that has been yet published. The sentence of the court, published on the 22d of June, 1633, commences by narrating the proceedings of the Inquisition in 1615, and the lenient treatment which Galileo then experienced, on condition of refraining in future from

MYSTERIES OF THE SERAGLIO.

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maintaining the heretical doctrines, name. I and prelates, the sentence just described ly, that the sun was in the center of the world and inmovable, and that the earth moved even with a diurnal rotation. It proceeds to specify the offenses which Galileo had committed in teaching heretical doctrines, in violating his former pledges, and in obtaining by improper means a license for the printing of his Dialogues. Galileo is then pronounced to have incurred all the censures and penalties which are enjoined against heresy ; but from all these consequences he is to be held absolved, provided that, with a sincere heart, and a faith unfeigned, he abjures and curses the heresies he has cherished, as well as every other heresy against the Catholic Church. But in order that his offense might not go altogether unpunished, and that he might bé more cautious in future, and be a warning to others to abstain from similar offenses, it was also decreed that his Dialogues should be prohibited by public edict; that he himself should be condemned to the prison of the Inquisition during its pleasure; and that, in the course of the next three years, he should recite once a week the seven penitential psalms.

On the 22d of June, 1633, Galileo, clothed in a penitential dress, was conducted to the convent of Minerva, and in the presence of the assembled cardinals

was read to him; and he was compelled upon his knees solemnly to abjure the doctrine of the earth's motion, and of the sun's stability. At the conclusion of the ceremony, in which he recited his abjuration, word for word, and then signed it, he was conveyed, in conformity with his sentence, to the prison of the Inquisition. That sentence was not, however, carried out with rigorous severity. After remaining only four days in the prison of the Inquisition, he was permitted to be lodged in the palace of the Archbishop Piccolomini, a friend of his own. ginning of December, 1633, the Pope In the begranted Galileo permission to reside openly in the country near Florence. But he remained under the surveillance of the Inquisition, and the treatment he had received made a deep impression on his mind. He still continued, however, his scientific labors, maturing his theories of the resistance of solids, and of the laws of accelerated motion. He also continued to work at his tables of Jupiter's satellites till loss of sight obliged him to cease. 9th of January, 1642, the same year in died at the age of seventy-eight, on the which his great successor, Sir Isaac Newton, was born.

He

THE Oriental nations have one great obstacle to contend with in their attempts to appropriate European civilization, in the position which polygamy imposes on their wives. We purposely allude to the consequences of the institution, and not to the institution itself, for we are perfectly well aware that polygamy only exists in rare instances. reader can suppose that having several Any married wives must be an extremely expensive affair, especially when the ladies, as is the case in Turkey, expect to be waited on from morn till night, and reckon pearls and diamonds as the first of their wants.

SERAGLIO.

But it is not the question whether no more than one thousand or fifteen hundred Turks in the whole Osmanli empire have a well-filled harem. The decisive thing is the contemptuous idea of wives which the Muhammadan institution of polygamy has produced. Not regarded as a companion of equal rank and helper, as the husband's favorite horse and favorbut placed on about the same low footing ite weapon, the wife is no moral factor of Muhammadan life. Various other things, to which we need not more particularly refer, produce the total result that the Turkish woman only too often has a most

prejudicial effect on the family and the education of the children. If the Turks were led to lead a happy family life, that reform which is still hanging on thorns and obstacles would be rapidly effected, because in that case they would have at tained a higher moral standard. But such a family life is impossible so long as that contempt for women endures from which polygamy originated.

a slave held out to them: this was an equivalent for kissing.

When we say that the number of females in the seraï amounts to five hundred, we reckon in the ladies of honor and the slaves appointed to wait on the six legitimate wives, the four favorites, and the ladies of honor: These slaves are girls whom the Sultan purchases, has carefully educated, and gives away in marSince Lady Montagu for the first time riage when they have attained a nubile entered the seraï of the Padishah at the age. According to their talent and inextremity of the Golden Horn, the thick clination they are instructed in singing, veil that lay over the Turkish harem sys- dancing, or acting. There are two music tem has been considerably raised. Several choirs in the seraï. One has the usual in European ladies have been able to study struments of a brass band, and wears the the marriage life of their Turkish sisters same uniform as the regimental bands, at their leisure, and have not been at all but with richer embroidery. This choir sparing in their communications. A re-composed exclusively of girls-forms markably pretty narrative of this description, valuable also from the fact that it describes the state of affairs in the last days of Abd-ul-Medjid, and the first days of his reigning highness Abd-ul-Aziz, is offered us by a talented and somewhat realistic French lady, Madame Olympia Audouard. The lady had the good fortune to be introduced into the harems of an ex-Turkish envoy at Naples and of a pasha, and to form some female acquaintances, through whom she obtained access to the imperial seraglio.

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the orchestra of the opera, and has also a female conductor; the second choir consists of girls who sing and accompany themselves on some instrument, or who play the pianoforte, harp, or violin. These musicians, when ordered to do so, wait on the Sultan's wives and favorites, and enliven them by acting, singing, and dancing. A large hall is set apart in the seraï for theatrical performances, ballet, and opera, arranged like our theaters, and fitted up with unexampled luxury. The performance usually consists of Italian operas or French ballets, and all the musicians, dancers, actors, and singers, are girls. Madame Audouard assures us that the young Turkish girls are first-rate in male parts. Of course no man, save the Sultan, is admitted to this theater. The audience consists of the ladies of the serai, the wives of Turkish noblemen, and European ladies.

The Sultan's six wives and four favor

Seraï means a large building, or castle. Sérail is the French way of writing it, and hence ought not to be used, or, at least, should not be pronounced in the French way. The seraï of the late Sultan Abdul-Medjid was Dolma Badje, a palace in the Western style, which borders on the old seraï, and communicates with it. It is surrounded by a splendid garden, in which the ladies of the harem can air themselves unseen. On one side this gar-ites have each a separate residence, conden is defended by a high wall, on the sisting of a bed-room, dining-room, and other by the Bosphorus. The Sultan does drawing-room. not live in the seraï, but has several magnificent reception-rooms there and a throne-room, in which he receives the homage of his ladies on New Year's day, during Bairam, and on other solemn occasions. It was formerly the custom for the ladies of the harem to kiss his feet, as they walked past according to their rank. Abd-ul-Medjid altered this custom, in so far that the ladies laid their hand on a scarf lying in the Sultan's lap, whose end

Each of them has her slaves, carriages, coachmen, (eunuchs,) and a full suite of servants. If she likes, she can shut herself entirely off from the other ladies, but this rarely occurs, save in exceptional cases of jealousy, and the ladies, on the contrary, like to pay each other visits, and send out invitations to dinners and soirées. At the present day, at any rate, there is no such thing as imprisonment in the seraï. When a Sultana or an Odalisque feels inclined and this happens very often-to take an excursion to the Sweet Waters, or make purchases at a bazaar, she simply orders her carriage,

drives off, and remains out as long as she likes. The favorites and maids of honor have also each a separate residence, their own servants, carriages, and horses. The female slaves, who have been instructed in an art, are formed into divisions, at the head of which stands a superintendent. Each has her own room. The pin-money of such a slave is five hundred piasters a month, or five pounds ten shillings of our money. The ordinary slaves, who represent our servant - girls, have bedrooms in common, each containing fiveand-twenty beds.

creditors brought her husband's houseproperty to the hammer, and he was forced to request his removal to the cheapest district of the empire. The magnanimous Sultan, however, did not long leave his preferred rival in banishment, but paid all his debts, and established him afresh in Constantinople. Whether Lady Ketiras became more economical after this, our deponent sayeth not.

A lady of honor, of the name of Naura, became entangled in an adventure of a similar nature. The object was a young As regards the fitting-up of all the Greek, one of those thorough scamps who rooms in the seraï, Madame Olympia says have learned nothing more, and do naught that, although she was acquainted with else, in the wide world than turn the French châteaux, she was utterly astound-heads of simple maidens. The acquainted at such luxury. The finest thing is the ance commenced with a flirtation, and baths, especially the Sultan's. The first soon attained a frightfully serious characroom is surrounded by divans, on which the Sultan seats himself in bathing-dress, and smokes sundry pipes, while preparing for the growing heat of the succeeding rooms. In the second hall all the divans are covered with gold embroidery, the walls lined with splendid Venetian mirrors, and the fairest and rarest flowers are lavishly scattered around. The bath itself is circular, and composed entirely of marble and glass. The dome is formed of the purest mountain crystal, and the water-taps are of massive gold. The Sultan never leaves this bath under three hours.

Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid was kindness it self to the ladies of his harem, but for all that they did not all feel happy. One of his wives, the lovely Ketiras, fell mortally in love with a general whom she had seen at the bazaars and in his kaïk on the Bosphorus. Her love did not have the tragic ending which harem adventures assume in romances. No band of Bostandjis broke into the general's house at night, and brought an executioner with them, who laid the lady's head at the feet of her lover; no mysterious bark pushed out in the dark into the Bosphorus, and discharged a sack from which, ere it sank in the waves, a voice gasped: "Soon united with thee eternally.' Ketiras received her discharge, when the Sultan learned the state of her heart, and became the general's wife in all honor. The fortunate man, however, had no great cause to rejoice at this union. Accustomed to the luxury of the seraï, the lady continued her lavish course, so that, in a very short time, the

ter. One morning a window in the seraï looking out on the Bosphorus was found open, and one of the maids of honor, of course Naura, was absent without leave. Her Greek took her to Syra, where the old piece of "love in a cottage" was performed with Greek variations. So long as a small inheritance, on which the lazy lover lived, lasted, matters went on decently, but so soon as the last drachma was gone, nothing was left of the love-fire but the dead cold ashes. Shortly after the Greek disappeared, and Naura, who, in the meanwhile, earned a crust hardly enough with a washer woman, heard, a few weeks after, that the unfaithful man had found, and hastily married, a rich widow at the Piræus. She was a sensible, brave girl, and instead of dying of a broken heart over the wash-tub, she got together money enough to carry her to Constantinople, and threw herself at the Sultan's feet. The attempt proved successful: she was pardoned, received her situation again, and has since lived right comfortably on her five hundred piasters a month; but she gets out of the way of every young Greek she sees.

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This kindness of Abd-ul-Medjid was sadly misused. The ladies of his harem permitted themselves expenses which went beyond all bounds even for Sultanas and Odalisques. Each of their apartments was crowded with those elegant and expensive articles which rejoice the feminine heart, in the shape of pearls and diamonds, bottles and baskets. The good Sultan forbade this enormous outlay at times, but then a universal conspiracy

The marriage of princesses, on whose expenses, as the Hatti-Humayoun of 1858 stated, no saving could be effected, de- When the presents have been delivered serves special notice. If one of the Sul- to the bridegroom, the bride proceeds on tan's daughters has attained the age at the next morning to his house, in order to which Turkish girls are generally married, look at the arrangements. Our authoress the father seeks a husband for her among was present when the Princess Fatime, the nobles at his court. If a young man the betrothed of Ali Ghalib Pasha, paid specially please her, he is given the rank such a visit. Accompanied by a numerof lieutenant-general, nothing lower being ous suite, the bride drove in a state carriever selected. The chosen man receives, age which had cost £4500, through the in addition, a magnificent, fully-furnished densely-crowded streets. She wore a skypalace and sixty thousand piasters a month blue silk dress, covered with a mass of pocket-money; and, in addition, his fath- pearls and diamonds, and her head was comer-in-law defrays all the housekeeping expletely veiled in a texture of gold thread. penses.