Page:The sidereal messenger of Galileo Galilei.pdf/26

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THE SIDEREAL MESSENGER.

accomplish the courses of their orbits with marvellous velocity, while all the while with one accord they complete all together mighty revolutions every ten years round the centre of the universe, that is, round the Sun.

But the Maker of the Stars himself seemed to direct me by clear reasons to assign these new planets to the famous name of your highness in preference to all others. For just as these stars, like children worthy of their sire, never leave the side of Jupiter by any appreciable distance, so who does not know that clemency, kindness of heart, gentleness of manners, splendour of royal blood, nobleness in public functions, wide extent of influence and power over others, all of which have fixed their common abode and seat in your highness,—who, I say, does not know that all these qualities, according to the providence of God, from whom all good things do come, emanate from the benign star of Jupiter? Jupiter, Jupiter, I maintain, at the instant of the birth of your highness having at length emerged from the turbid mists of the horizon, and being in possession of the middle quarter of the heavens, and illuminating the eastern angle, from his own royal house, from that exalted throne, looked out upon your most happy birth, and poured forth into a most pure atmosphere all the