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 and physics. He was indeed often obliged to employ the hand of another; but his mind worked on with undiminished vigour, even though he was no longer able to commit to paper himself the ideas that continually occupied him.

On 2nd September he received a visit from his sovereign, who came to console and encourage him in his pitiable situation. A few months later an unknown young man, of striking appearance from his handsome face and the unmistakable evidences which genius always exhibits, knocked at the door of the solitary villa at Arcetri: it was Milton, then twenty-nine years of age, who, travelling in Italy, sought out the old man of world-wide fame to testify his veneration.

In December of the same year Galileo became permanently quite blind, and informed Diodati of his calamity on 2nd January, 1638, in the following words:—

Up to the time when Galileo entirely lost his sight,