Genre:

Regular Feature, Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Religion, Religious Authority, Astronomy, Observatories, Instruments, Meteorology, Astrology, Prognostication

    Written from the perspective of a slightly illiterate and confused female correspondent writing from Rome during the meeting of the Œcumenical Council. She tells Mr Punch that she is 'promised an introduction to Father Sickly [the astronomer Angelo Secchi], who is the Great Astonisher here, as Mr. Hind is at home. Father Sicky has a Conservatory ever so high up, and a magnificent stethescope for what my niece's husband calls Sky-entific matters. He has got a machine for stopping the earth's motion. Father Sicky (not a nice name) is spoke of here with much reference as the Great Astonisher, because of his star-telling denouncements'. Later she mistakenly insists that Galvin, 'the discoverer of galvanism and other eccentricities', participated in the Reformation, thus conflating Luigi Galvani and John Calvin.