THE 
 
 f> MARTYRS OF SCIENCE; 
 
 THE LIVES 
 
 GALILEO, TYCHO BRAKE; -AND KEPLER. 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K.H., D.C.L., 
 
 PRINCIPAL OP THE UNITED COLLEGE OF ST. SALVATOR 
 AND ST. LEONARD, ST. ANDREWS, &C., &C. 
 
 N E W-Y R K : 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. 
 
 1 841. 
 
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 New-York, May, 1841. 
 
TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. FRANCIS LORD GRAY, 
 
 F.R.S., F.R.S.E. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 IN submitting this volume to the public under 
 your lordship's auspices, I avail myself of the 
 opportunity thus afforded me of expressing the 
 deep sense which I entertain of the friendship 
 and kindness with which your lordship has so 
 long honoured me. 
 
 Although in these days, when science consti- 
 tutes the power and wealth of nations, and en- 
 circles the domestic hearth with its most sub- 
 stantial comforts, there is no risk of its votaries 
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 A 
 
iv DEDICATION. 
 
 as well as one of its most legitimate rewards. 
 Next to the satisfaction of cultivating science, 
 and thus laying up the only earthly treasure 
 which we can carry along with us into a better 
 state, is that of having encouraged and assisted 
 others in the same beneficent labours. That 
 your lordship may long continue to enjoy these 
 sources of happiness is the earnest prayer of, 
 MY LORD, 
 
 Your lordship's 
 Most faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 ST. LEONARDS, ST. ANDREWS, ) 
 October 12, 1840. f 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LIFE OF GALILEO. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Peculiar Interest attached to his Life. His Birth. His early 
 Studies. His Passion for Mathematics. His Work on the 
 Hydrostatic Balance. Appointed Lecturer on Mathematics 
 at Pisa. His Antipathy to the Philosophy of Aristotle. 
 His Contentions with the Aristotelians. Chosen Professor 
 of Mathematics in Padua. Adopts the Copernican System, 
 but still teaches the Ptolemaic Doctrine. His alarming Ill- 
 ness. He observes the new Star in 1604. His magneti- 
 cal Experiments Page 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Cosmo, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, invites Galileo to Pisa. 
 Galileo visits Venice in 1609, where he first hears of the 
 Telescope. He invents and constructs one, which excites 
 a great Sensation. Discovers Mountains in the Moon, and 
 Forty Stars in the Pleiades. Discovers Jupiter's Satellites 
 in 1610. Effect of this Discovery on Kepler. Manner in 
 which these Discoveries were received. Galileo appointed 
 Mathematician to Cosmo. Mayer claims the Discovery of 
 the Satellites of Jupiter. Harriot observes them in England 
 in October, 1610 .29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Galileo announces his Discoveries in Enigmas. Discovers 
 the Crescent of Venus ; the Ring of Saturn ; the Spots on 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 the Sun. Similar Observations made in England by Har- 
 riot. Claims of Fabricius and Scheiner to the Discovery of 
 the Solar Spots. Galileo's Letters to Velser on the Claims 
 of Scheiner. His Residence at the Villa of Salviati. 
 Composes his Work on Floating Bodies, which involves 
 him in new Controversies .... Page 48 
 
 , CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Galileo treats his Opponents with Severity and Sarcasm. He 
 is aided by the Skeptics of the Day. The Church Party the 
 most powerful. Galileo commences the Attack, and is an- 
 swered by Caccini, a Dominican. Galileo's Letter to the 
 Grand-Duchess of Tuscany, in support of the Motion of 
 the Earth and the Stability of the Sun. Galileo visits 
 Rome. Is summoned before the Inquisition, and renounces 
 his Opinions as heretical. The Inquisition denounces the 
 Copernican System. Galileo has an Audience of tho 
 Pope, but still maintains his Opinions in private Society. 
 Proposes to find out the Longitude at Sea by means of Ju- 
 piter's Satellites. His Negotiation on this Subject with 
 the Court of Spain. Its Failure. He is unable to observe 
 the three Comets of 1618, but is involved in the Contro- 
 versy to which they gave rise 60 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Urban VIII., Galileo's Friend, raised to the Pontificate. 
 Galileo goes to Rome to offer his Congratulations. The 
 Pope loads Galileo with Presents, and promises a Pension 
 to his Son. Galileo in pecuniary Difficulties, owing to the 
 Death of his Patron, Cosmo. IGalileo again rashly attacks 
 the Church, notwithstanding the Pope's Kindness. He 
 composes his System of the World, to demonstrate the Co- 
 
CONTENTS. VII 
 
 pernican System. Artfully obtains a License to print it. 
 Nature of the Work. Its Influence on the Public Mind. 
 The Pope resolves on suppressing it. Galileo summon- 
 ed before the Inquisition. His Trial. His Defence. His 
 formal Abjuration of his Opinions. Observations on his 
 Conduct. The Pope shows great Indulgence to Galileo, 
 who is allowed to return to his own House at Arcetri as 
 the Place of his Confinement .... Page 74 J 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Galileo loses his favourite Daughter. He falls into a state of 
 Melancholy and ill Health. Is allowed to go to Florence 
 for its Recovery in 1638, but is prevented from leaving his 
 House or receiving his Friends. His Friend Castelli per- 
 mitted to visit him in the Presence of an Officer of the In- 
 quisition. He composes his celebrated Dialogues on Local 
 Motion. Discovers the Moon's Libration. Loses the Sight 
 of one Eye. The other Eye attacked by the same Disease. 
 Is struck Blind. Negotiates with the Dutch Government 
 respecting his Method of finding the Longitude. He is al- 
 lowed free Intercourse with his Friends. His Illness and 
 Death in 1642. His Epitaph. His Social, Moral, and Sci- 
 entific Character . . 100 
 
 LIFE OF TYCHO BRAKE. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Tycho's Birth, Family, and Education. An Eclipse of the 
 Sun turns his Attention to Astronomy. Studies Law at 
 Leipsic, but pursues Astronomy by Stealth. His Uncle's 
 Death. He returns to Copenhagen, and resumes his Ob- 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 serrations. Revisits Germany. Fights a Duel, and loses 
 his Nose. Visits Augsburg, and meets Hainzel, who as- 
 sists him in making a large Quadrant. Revisits Denmark, 
 and is warmly received by the King. He settles at his 
 Uncle's Castle of Herritzvold. His Observatory and Lab- 
 oratory. Discovers the new Star in Cassiopeia. Account 
 of this remarkable Body. Tycho's Marriage with a Peas- 
 ant-girl, which irritates bis Friends. His Lectures on As- 
 tronomy. He visits the Prince of Hesse. Attends the 
 Coronation of the Emperor Rudolph at Ratisbon. He re- 
 turns to Denmark ....... Page 117 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Frederic II. patronises Tycho, and resolves to establish him 
 in Denmark. Grants him the Island of Huen for Life, and 
 Builds the splendid Observatory of Uraniburg. Descrip- 
 tion of the Island and of the Observatory. Account of its 
 Astronomical Instruments. Tycho begins his Observa- 
 tions. His Pupils. Tycho is made Canon of Rothschild, 
 and receives a large Pension. His Hospitality to his Vis- 
 iters. Ingratitude of Witichius. Tycho sends an Assist- 
 ant to take the Latitude of Frauenburg and Konigsberg. 
 Is visited by Ulric, duke of Mecklenburg. Change in Ty- 
 cho's Fortunes . ..*.. . . .136 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Tycho's Labours do Honour to his Country. Death of Fred- 
 eric II. James VI. of Scotland visits Tycho at Uraniburg. 
 Christian IV. visits Tycho. The Duke of Brunswick's 
 Visit to Tycho. The Danish Nobility, jealous of his Fame, 
 conspire against him. He is compelled to quit Uraniburg, 
 and to abandon his Studies. Cruelty of the Minister Wal- 
 chendorp. Tycho quits Denmark with his Family and In- 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 struments. Is hospitably received by Count Rantzau, who 
 introduces him to the Emperor Rudolph. The Emperor 
 invites him to Prague. He gives him a Pension of 3000 
 Crowns, and the Castle of Benach as a Residence and an 
 Observatory. Kepler visits Tycho, who obtains for him the 
 Appointment of Mathematician to Rudolph . Page 149 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Tycho resumes his Astronomical Observations. Is attacked 
 with a painful Disease. His Sufferings and Death in 1601. 
 His Funeral. His Temper. His Turn for Satire and 
 Raillery. His Piety. Account of Astronomical Discover- 
 ies. His Love of Astrology and Alchymy. Observations 
 on the Character of the Alchymists. Tycho's Elixir: His 
 Fondness for the Marvellous. His Automata and Invisible 
 Bells. Account of the Idiot, called Lep, whom he kept as 
 a Prophet. History of Tycho's Instruments. His great 
 Brass Globe preserved at Copenhagen. Present State of 
 the Island of Huen 165 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN KEPLER. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Kepler's Birth in 1571. His Family and early Education. 
 The Distress and Poverty of his Family. He enters the 
 Monastic School of Maulbronn, and is admitted into the Uni- 
 versity of Tubingen, where he distinguishes himself and 
 takes his Degrees. He is appointed Professor of Astrono- 
 my and Greek in 1594. His first Speculations on the Or- 
 bits of the Planets. Account of their Progress and Fail- 
 ure, His " Cosmographical Mystery" published. He Mar- 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 ries a Widow in 1597. Religious Troubles at Gratz. He 
 retires from thence to Hungary. Visits Tycho at Prague 
 in 1600. Returns to Gratz, which he again quits for 
 Prague. He is taken 111 on the Road. Is appointed Ty- 
 cho's Assistant in 1601. Succeeds Tycho as Imperial 
 Mathematician. His Work on the new Star of 1604. 
 Singular Specimen of it Page 187 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Kepler's pecuniary Embarrassments. His Inquiries respect- 
 ing the Law of Refraction. His Supplement to Vitellio. 
 His Researches on Vision. His Treatise on Dioptrics. 
 His Commentaries on Mars. He discovers that the Or- 
 bit of Mars is an Ellipse, with the Sun in one Focus, and 
 extends the Discovery to all the other Planets. He estab- 
 lishes the two first Laws of Physical Astronomy. His 
 Family Distresses. Death of his Wife. He is appointed 
 Professor of Mathematics at Linz. His Method of choos- 
 ing a second Wife. Her Character, as given by himself. 
 Origin of his Treatise on Gauging. He goes to Ratis- 
 bon to give his Opinion to the Diet on the Change of Style. 
 He refuses the Mathematical Chair at Bologna . 201 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Kepler's continued Embarrassments. Death of Mathias. 
 Liberality of Ferdinand. Kepler's " Harmonies of the 
 World." The Epitome of the Copernican Astronomy. 
 It is prohibited by the Inquisition. Sir Henry Wotton, the 
 British Ambassador, invites Kepler to England. He de- 
 clines the Invitation. Neglect of Genius by the English 
 Government. Trial of Kepler's Mother. Her final Ac- 
 quittal, and Death at the Age of seventy-five. The^States 
 of Styria burn publicly Kepler's Calendar. He receives 
 
CONTENTS XI 
 
 his Arrears of Salary from Ferdinand. The Rudolphine 
 Tables published in 1628. He receives a gold Chain from 
 the Grand-duke of Tuscany. He is patronised by the Duke 
 of Friedland. He removes to Sagan, in Silesia. Is ap- 
 pointed Professor of Mathematics at Rostoch. Goes to 
 Ratisbon to receive his Arrears. His Death, Funeral, and 
 Epitaph. Monument erected to his Memory in 1803. 
 His Family. His posthumous Volume, entitled " The 
 Dream, or Lunar Astronomy" . . . Page 215 
 
 CHAPTERIV. 
 
 Number of Kepler's published Works. His numerous Man- 
 uscripts in 22 folio Volumes. Purchased by Hevelius, and 
 afterward by Hansch, who publishes Kepler's Life and 
 Correspondence at the Expense of Charles VI. The His- 
 tory of the rest of his Manuscripts, which are deposited in 
 the Library of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. 
 General Character of Kepler. His Candour in acknowl- 
 edging his Errors. His Moral and Religious Character. 
 His Astrological Writings arid Opinions considered. His 
 Character as an Astronomer and a Philosopher. The 
 Splendour of his Discoveries. Account of his Methods of 
 Investigating Truth . . .... .228 
 
LIFE OF GALILE O. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Peculiar interest attached to his Life. His Birth. His early 
 Studies. His Passion for Mathematics. His Work on the 
 Hydrostatic Balance. Appointed Lecturer on Mathematics 
 at Pisa. His Antipathy to the Philosophy of Aristotle. 
 His Contentions with the Aristotelians. Chosen Professor 
 of Mathematics in Padua. Adopts the Copernican System, 
 but still teaches the Ptolemaic Doctrine. His alarming Ill- 
 ness. He observes the new Star in 1604. His magneti- 
 cal Experiments. 
 
 THE history of the life and labours of Galileo 
 is pregnant with a peculiar interest to the general 
 reader as well as to the philosopher. His brilliant 
 discoveries the man of science regards as his pe- 
 culiar property ; the means by which they were 
 made, and the development of his intellectual char- 
 acter, belong to the logician and to the philoso- 
 pher ; but the triumphs and the reverses of his 
 eventful life must be claimed for our common na- 
 ture, as a source of more than ordinary instruction. 
 
 The lengthened career which Providence assign- 
 ed to Galileo was filled up throughout its rugged 
 B 
 
14 GALILEO. 
 
 outline with events even of dramatic interest. 
 But, though it was emblazoned with achievements 
 of transcendent magnitude, yet his noblest discov- 
 eries were the derision of his contemporaries, and 
 were even denounced as crimes which merited the 
 vengeance of Heaven. Though he was the idol of 
 his friends and tho favoured companion of princes, 
 yet he afterward became the victim of persecu- 
 tion, and spent some of his last hours within the 
 walls of a prison ; and though the Almighty grant- 
 ed him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown 
 worlds in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes 
 which were allowed to witness such wonders were 
 themselves doomed to be closed in darkness. 
 
 Such were the lights and shadows in which his- 
 tory delineates 
 
 " The starry Galileo with his woes."* 
 But, however powerful be their contrasts, they are 
 not unusual in their proportions. The balance 
 which has been struck between his days of good 
 and evil is that which regulates the lot of man, 
 whether we study it in the despotic sway of the 
 autocrat, in the peaceful inquiries of the philoso- 
 pher, or in the humbler toils of ordinary life. 
 
 Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa, on the 15th of 
 February, 1564, and was the eldest of a family of 
 three sons and three daughters. Under the name 
 * Chjlde Harold, canto iv., stanza liv. 
 
GALILEO. 15 
 
 of Bonajuti his noble ancestors had filled high offi- 
 ces at Florence, but about the middle of the 14th 
 century they seem to have abandoned this surname 
 for that of Galileo. Vincenzo Galilei, our au- 
 thor's father, was himself a philosopher of no 
 mean powers ; and though his talents seem to have 
 been exercised only in the composition of treatises 
 on the theory and practice of music, yet he ap- 
 pears to have anticipated even his son in a just es- 
 timate of the philosophy of the age, and in a dis- 
 tinct perception of the true method of investigating 
 truth.* 
 
 The early years of Galileo were, like those of 
 almost all great experimental philosophers, spent 
 in the construction of instruments and pieces of 
 machinery, which were calculated chiefly to amuse 
 himself and his schoolfellows. This employment 
 of his hands, however, did not interfere- with his 
 regular studies ; and though, from the straitened 
 circumstances of his father, he was educated under 
 considerable disadvantages, yet he acquired the el- 
 ements of classical literature, and was initiated 
 into all the learning of the times. Music, draw- 
 ing, and painting were the occupations of his lei- 
 sure hours ; and such was his proficiency in these 
 arts, that he was reckoned a skilful performer on 
 several musical instruments, especially the lute ; 
 
 * Life of Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 1. 
 
16 GALILEO. 
 
 and his knowledge of pictures was held in great 
 esteem by some of the best artists of his day. 
 
 Galileo seems to have been desirous of follow- 
 ing the profession of a painter : but his father had 
 observed decided indications of early genius ; and, 
 though by no means able to afford it, he resolved 
 to send him to the University to pursue the study 
 of medicine. He accordingly enrolled himself as 
 a scholar in arts at the University of Pisa on the 
 5th of November, 1581, and pursued his medical 
 studies under the celebrated botanist Andrew Coe- 
 salpinus, who filled the chair of medicine from 
 1567 to 1592. 
 
 In order to study the principles of music and 
 drawing, Galileo found it necessary to acquire some 
 knowledge of geometry. His father seems to have 
 foreseen the consequences of following this new 
 pursuit ; and though he did not prohibit him from 
 reading Euclid under Ostilio Ricci, one of the pro- 
 fessors at Pisa, yet he watched his progress with 
 the utmost jealousy, and had resolved that it should 
 not interfere with his medical studies. The dem- 
 onstrations, however, of the Greek mathematician 
 had too many charms for the ardent mind of Gal- 
 ileo. His whole attention was engrossed with the 
 new truths which burst upon his understanding; 
 and, after many fruitless attempts to check his ar- 
 dour and direct his thoughts to professional objects, 
 
GALILEO. 17 
 
 his father was obliged to surrender his parental 
 control, and allow the fullest scope to the genius of 
 his son. 
 
 From the elementary works of geometry Gali- 
 leo passed to the writings of Archimedes ; and, 
 while he was studying the hydrostatical treatise* 
 of the Syracusan philosopher, he wrote his essay 
 on the hydrostatical balance,f in which he describes 
 the construction of the instrument, and the method 
 by which Archimedes detected the fraud commit, 
 ted by the jeweller in the composition of Hiero's 
 crown. This work gained for its author the esteem 
 of Guido Ubaldi, who had distinguished himself by 
 his mechanical and mathematical acquirements, 
 and who engaged his young friend to investigate 
 the subject of the centre of gravity in solid bodies. 
 The treatise on this subject which Galileo present- 
 ed to his patron, proved the source of his future 
 success in life. 
 
 Through the Cardinal del Monte, the brother-in- 
 law of Ubaldi, the reigning Duke of Tuscany, Fer- 
 dinand de Medici was made acquainted with the 
 merits of our young philosopher, and in 1589 he 
 was appointed lecturer on mathematics at Pisa. 
 As the salary, however, attached to this office was 
 
 * De Insidentibus in Fluido. 
 
 t Opere di Galileo, Milano, 1810, vol. iv., p. 248-257. 
 B2 
 
18 GALILEO. 
 
 only sixty crowns, he was compelled to enlarge this 
 inadequate income by the additional occupation of 
 private teaching, and thus to encroach upon the 
 leisure which he was anxious to devote to science. 
 
 With this moderate competency Galileo com- 
 menced his philosophical career. At the early 
 age of eighteen, when he had entered the Univer- 
 sity, his innate antipathy to the Aristotelian phi. 
 losophy began to display itself. This feeling was 
 strengthened by his earliest inquiries ; and upon 
 his establishment at Pisa he seems to have re- 
 garded the doctrines of Aristotle as the intellect- 
 ual prey which, in his chace of glory, he was 
 destined to pursue. Nizzoli, who flourished near 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, and Gior- 
 dano Bruno, who was burned at Rome in 1600, 
 led the way in this daring pursuit ; but it was re- 
 served for Galileo to track the Thracian boar 
 through its native thickets, and, at the risk of his 
 own life, to strangle it in its den. 
 
 With the resolution of submitting every opinion 
 to the test of experiment, Galileo's first inquiries 
 at Pisa were directed to the mechanical doctrines 
 of Aristotle. Their incorrectness and absurdity 
 soon became apparent ; and with a zeal, perhaps, 
 bordering on indiscretion, he denounced them to 
 his pupils with an ardour of manner and of ex- 
 pression proportioned to his own conviction of the 
 
GALILEO. 19 
 
 truth. The detection of long-established errors is 
 apt to inspire the young philosopher with an exul- 
 tation which reason condemns. The feeling of 
 triumph is apt to clothe itself in the language of as- 
 perity, and the abettor of erroneous opinions 13 
 treated as a species of enemy to science. Like 
 the soldier who fleshes his first spear in battle, the 
 philosopher is apt to leave the stain of cruelty on 
 his early achievements. It is only from age and 
 experience, indeed, that we can expect the discre- 
 tion of valour, whether it is called forth in contro- 
 versy or in battle. Galileo seems to have waged 
 this stern warfare against the followers of Aris- 
 totle ; and such was the exasperation which was 
 excited by his reiterated and successful attacks, 
 that he was assailed, during the rest of his life, 
 with a degree of rancour which seldom originates 
 in a mere difference of opinion. Forgetting that 
 all knowledge is progressive, and that the errors 
 of one generation call forth the comments, and 
 are replaced by the discoveries of the next, Gal- 
 ileo did not anticipate that his own speculations 
 and incompleted labours might one day provoke 
 unmitigated censure ; and he therefore failed in 
 making allowance for the prejudices and ignorance 
 of his opponents. He who enjoys the proud lot of 
 taking a position in advance of his age, need not 
 wonder that his less gifted contemporaries are left 
 
20 GALILEO. 
 
 behind. Men are not necessarily obstinate be- 
 cause they cleave to deeply-rooted and venerable 
 errors, nor are they absolutely dull when they are 
 long in understanding and slow in embracing new- 
 ly discovered truths. 
 
 It was one of the axioms of the Aristotelian 
 mechanics, that the heavier of two falling bodies 
 would reach the ground sooner than the other, 
 and that their velocities would be proportional to 
 their weights. Galileo attacked the argument by 
 which jhis opinion was supported ; and when he 
 found his reasoning ineffectual, he appealed to di- 
 rect experiment. He maintained that all bodies 
 would fall through the same height in the same 
 time, if they were not unequally retarded by the 
 resistance of the air; and though he performed 
 the experiment with the most satisfactory results, 
 by letting heavy bodies fall from the leaning tower 
 of Pisa, yet the Aristotelians, who, with their own 
 eyes, saw the unequal weights strike the ground at 
 the same instant, ascribed the effect to some un- 
 known cause, and preferred the decision of their 
 master to tfoat of Nature herself. 
 
 Galileo could not brook this opposition to his 
 discoveries, nor could the Aristotelians tolerate the 
 rebukes of their young instructer. The two par- 
 ties were consequently marshalled in hostile array; 
 when, fortunately for both, an event occurred 
 
GALILEO. 21 
 
 which placed them beyond the reach of danger. 
 Don Giovanni de Medici, a natural son of Cosmo, 
 had proposed a method of clearing out the harbour 
 of Leghorn. Galileo, whose opinion was request- 
 ed, gave such an unfavourable report upon it, that 
 the disappointed inventor directed against him all 
 the force of his malice. It was an easy task to 
 concentrate the malignity of his enemies at Pisa ; 
 and so effectually was this accomplished, that Gal- 
 ileo resolved to accept another professorship, to 
 which he had been previously invited. 
 
 The chair of mathematics in the University of 
 Padua having been vacant for five years, the re- 
 public of Venice had resolved to fill it up ; and, 
 on the recommendation of Guido Ubaldi, Galileo 
 was appointed to it in 1592, for a period of six 
 years. 
 
 Previous to this event Galileo had lost his fa- 
 ther, who died in 1591, at an advanced age. As 
 he was the eldest son, the support of the family 
 naturally devolved upon him ; and this sacred ob- 
 ligation must have increased his anxiety to better 
 his circumstances, and therefore added to his other 
 inducements to quit Pisa. In September, 1592, he 
 removed to Padua, where he had a salary of only 
 180 florins, and where he was again obliged to add 
 to his income by the labours of tuition. Notwith- 
 standing this fruitless occupation of v his time, he 
 
22 GALILEO. 
 
 appears to have found leisure for composing sever- 
 al of his works, and completing various inventions, 
 which will be afterward described. His manu- 
 scripts were circulated privately among his friends 
 and pupils ; but some of them strayed beyond this 
 sacred limit, and found their way into the hands 
 of persons who did not scruple to claim and pub- 
 lish as their own the discoveries and inventions 
 which they contained. 
 
 It is not easy to ascertain the exact time when 
 Galileo became a convert to the doctrines of Co- 
 pernicus, or the particular circumstances under 
 which he was led to adopt them. It is stated by 
 Gerard Voss that a public lecture of Moestlin, the 
 instructer of Kepler, was the means of making Gal- 
 ileo acquainted with the true system of the uni- 
 verse. This assertion, however, is by no means 
 probable ; and it has been ably shown by the la- 
 test biographer of Galileo,* that in his dialogues 
 on the Copernican system our author gives the true 
 account of his own conversion. This passage is 
 so interesting that we shall give it entire. 
 
 " I cannot omit this opportunity of relating to 
 you what happened to myself at the time when this 
 opinion (the Copernican system) began to be dis- 
 cussed. I was then a very young man, and had 
 scarcely finished my course of philosophy, which 
 
 * Life of Galileo, in Library of Useful Knowledge, p, 9. 
 
GALILEO. 23 
 
 other occupations obliged me to leave off, when 
 there arrived in this country, from Rostoch, a for- 
 eigner, whose name, I believe, was Christian Vur- 
 stisius (Wurteisen), a follower of Copernicus. 
 This person delivered on this subject two or three 
 lectures in a certain academy, and to a crowded 
 audience. Believing that several were attracted 
 more by the novelty of the subject than by any 
 other cause, and being firmly persuaded that this 
 opinion was a piece of solemn folly, I was unwill- 
 ing to be present. Upon interrogating, however, 
 some of those who were there, I found that they 
 all made it a subject of merriment, with the excep- 
 tion of one, who assured me that it was not a 
 thing wholly ridiculous. As I considered this in- 
 dividual to be both prudent and circumspect, I re- 
 pented that I had not attended the lectures ; and r 
 whenever I met any of the followers of Coperni- 
 cus, I began to inquire if they had always been of 
 the same opinion. I found that there was not one 
 of them who did not declare that he had long 
 maintained the very opposite opinions, and had 
 not gone over to the new doctrines till he was 
 driven by the force of argument. I next examined 
 them one by one, to see if they were masters of 
 the arguments on the opposite side ; and such was 
 the readiness of their answers, that I was satisfied 
 they had not taken up this opinion from ignorance 
 
24 GALILEO. 
 
 or vanity. On the other hand, whenever I intcrro- 
 gated the Peripatetics and the Ptolemeans and, 
 out of curiosity, I have interrogated not a few 
 respecting their perusal of Copernicus's work, I 
 perceived that there were few who had seen the 
 book, and not one who understood it. Nor have I 
 omitted to inquire among the followers of the Per- 
 ipatetic doctrines if any of them had ever stood 
 on the opposite side ; and the result was, that there 
 was not one. Considering, then, that nobody fol- 
 lowed the Copernican doctrine who had not pre- 
 viously held the contrary opinion, and who was not 
 well acquainted with the arguments of Aristotle 
 and Ptolemy ; while, on the other hand, nobody 
 followed Ptolemy and Aristotle who had before ad- 
 hered to Copernicus, and had gone over from him 
 into the camp of Aristotle weighing, I say, these 
 things, I began to believe that, if any one who re- 
 jects an opinion which he has imbibed with his 
 milk, and which has been embraced by an infinite 
 number, shall take up an opinion held only by a- 
 few, condemned by all the schools, and really re- 
 garded as a great paradox, it cannot be doubted 
 that he must have been induced, not to say driven, 
 to embrace it by the most cogent arguments. On 
 this account I have become very curious to pene- 
 trate to the very bottom of the subject."* 
 * Systema Cosmicum, Dial, ii., p. 121. 
 
GALILEO. 25 
 
 It appears, on the testimony of Galileo himself, 
 fthat he taught the Ptolemaic system in compliance 
 with the popular feeling, after he had convinced 
 IJiirnself pf the truth of the Copernican doctrines. 
 In the treatise on the sphere, indeed, which bears 
 his name,* and which must have been written soon 
 after he went to Padua, and subsequently to 1592, 
 the stability of the earth and the motion of the sun 
 are supported by the very arguments which Galileo 
 afterward ridiculed ; but we have no means of de- 
 termining whether or not he had then adopted the 
 true system of the universe. Although he might 
 have taught the Ptolemaic system in his lectures 
 after he had convinced himself of its falsehood, yet 
 it is not likely that he would go so far as to publish 
 to the world as true the very doctrines which he 
 despised. In a letter to Kepler, dated in 1597, he 
 distinctly states that he had, many years ago, adopt- 
 ed the opinions of Copernicus ; but that he had not 
 yet dared to publish his arguments in favour of them, 
 and his refutation of the opposite opinions. These 
 facts would leave us to place Galileo's conversion 
 somewhere between 1593 and 1597, although many 
 years cannot be said to have elapsed between these 
 two dates. 
 
 * The authenticity of this work has been doubted. It was 
 printed at Rome in 1656, from a MS. in the library of Somas- 
 chi, at Venice. See Opere di Galileo, torn, vii., p. 427. 
 
 c 
 
26 GALILEO. 
 
 At this early period of Galileo's life, in the year 
 1593, he met with an accident which had nearly 
 proved fatal. A party at Padua, of which he was 
 one, were enjoying, at an open window, a current 
 of air, which was artificially cooled by a fall 01 
 water. Galileo unfortunately fell asleep under its 
 influence ; and so powerful was its effect upon his 
 robust constitution, that he contracted a severe 
 chronic disorder, accompanied with acute pains in 
 his body, and loss of sleep and appetite, which at- 
 tacked him at intervals during the rest of his life. 
 Others of the party suffered still more severely, and 
 perished by their own rashness. 
 
 Galileo's reputation was now widely extended 
 over Europe. The Archduke Ferdinand (after- 
 ward Emperor of Germany), the Landgrave of 
 Hesse, and the princes of Alsace and Mantua, hon- 
 oured his lectures with their presence ; and Prince 
 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden also received in- 
 structions from him in mathematics during his so- 
 journ in Italy. 
 
 When Galileo had completed the first period of 
 his engagement at Padua, he was re-elected for 
 other six years, with an increased salary of 320 
 florins. This liberal addition to his income is as- 
 cribed by Fabbroni to the malice of one of his en- 
 emies, who informed the Senate that Galileo was 
 living in, illicit intercourse with Marina Gamba. 
 
GALILEO. 27 
 
 Without inquiring into the truth of the accusation, 
 the Senate is said to have replied, that if " he had 
 a family to support, he had the more need of an in- 
 creased salary." It is more likely that the liberal- 
 ity of the republic had been called forth by the 
 high reputation of their professor, and that the 
 terms of their reply were intended only to rebuke 
 the malignity of the informer. The mode of ex- 
 pression would seem to indicate that one or more 
 of Galileo's children had been born previous to his 
 re-election in 1598 ; but as this is scarcely consist, 
 ent with other facts, we are disposed to doubt the 
 authenticity of Fabbroni's anecdote. 
 
 The new star which attracted the notice of as- 
 tronomers in 1604, excited the particular attention 
 of Galileo. The observations which he made upon 
 it, and the speculations which they suggested, form- 
 ed the subject of three lectures, the beginning of 
 the first of which only has reached our times. 
 From the absence of parallax, he proved that the 
 common hypothesis of its being a meteor was er- 
 roneous, and that, like the fixed stars, it was situ- 
 ated far beyond the bounds of our own system. 
 The popularity of the subject attracted crowds to 
 his lecture-room ; and Galileo had the boldness to 
 reproach his hearers for taking so deep an interest 
 in a temporary phenomenon, while they overlooked 
 the wonders of creation which were daily presented 
 to their view. 
 
28 GALILEO. 
 
 In the year 1606 Galileo was again appointed 
 to the professorship at Padua, with an augmented 
 stipend of 520 florins. His popularity had now 
 risen so high that his audience could not be ac- 
 commodated in his lecture. room ; and even when 
 he had assembled them in the school of medicine, 
 which contained 1000 persons, he was frequently 
 obliged to adjourn to the open air. 
 
 Among the variety of pursuits which occupied 
 his attention was the examination of the properties 
 of the loadstone. In 1607 he commenced his ex- 
 periments ; but, with the exception of a method of 
 arming loadstones, which, according to the report 
 of Sir Kenelm Digby, enabled them to carry twice 
 as much weight as before, he does not seem to 
 have made any additions to our knowledge of mag- 
 netism. He appears to have studied with care the 
 admirable work of our countryman, Dr. Gilbert, 
 " De Magnete," which was published in 1600 ; and 
 he recognised in the experiments and reasonings 
 of the English philosopher the principles of that 
 method of investigating truth which he had himself 
 adopted. Gilbert died in 1603, in the 63d year of 
 his age, and probably never read the fine compli- 
 ment which was paid to him by the Italian philos- 
 opher : " I extremely praise, admire, and envy this 
 author." 
 
GALILEO. 29 
 
 . , 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Cosmo, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, invites Galileo to Pisa. 
 Galileo visits Venice in 1609, where he first hears of the 
 Telescope. He invents and constructs one, which excite s 
 a great Sensation. Discovers Mountains in the Moon, and 
 Forty Stars in the Pleiades. Discovers Jupiter's Satellites 
 in 1610. Effect of this Discovery on Kepler. Manner in 
 which these Discoveries were received. Galileo appointed 
 Mathematician to Cosmo. Mayer claims the Discovery of 
 the Satellites of Jupiter. Harriot observes them in England 
 in October, 1610. 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have brought down 
 the history of Galileo's labours to that auspicious 
 year in which he first directed the telescope to the 
 heavens. No sooner was that noble instrument 
 placed in his hands, than Providence released him 
 from his professional toils, and supplied him with 
 the fullest leisure and the amplest means for pur- 
 suing and completing the grandest discoveries. 
 
 Although he had quitted the service and the do- 
 mains of his munificent patron, the Grand-Duke of 
 Tuscany, yet he maintained his connexion with the 
 family by visiting Florence during his academic va- 
 cations, and giving mathematical instruction to the 
 younger branches of that distinguished house. 
 C2 
 
30 GALILEO. 
 
 Cosmo, who had been one of his pupils, now suc- 
 ceeded his father Ferdinand ; and, having his mind 
 early imbued with a love of knowledge, which had 
 become hereditary in his family, he felt that the 
 residence of Galileo within his dominions, and, still 
 more, his introduction into his household, would do 
 honour to their common country, and reflect a lus- 
 tre upon his own name. In the year 1609, ac- 
 cordingly, Cosmo made proposals to Galileo to re- 
 turn to his original situation at Pisa. These over- 
 tures were gratefully received ; and in the arrange- 
 ments which Galileo on this occasion suggested, 
 as well as in the manner in which they were urged, 
 we obtain some insight into his temper and char- 
 acter. He informs the correspondent through 
 whom Cosmo's offer was conveyed, that his salary 
 of 520 florins at Padua would be increased to as 
 many crowns at his re-election, and that he could 
 enlarge his income to any extent he pleased by 
 giving private lectures and receiving pupils. His 
 public duties, he stated, occupied him only sixty half- 
 hours in the year ; but his studies suffered such in- 
 terruptions from his domestic pupils and private 
 lectures, that his most ardent wish was to be re- 
 lieved from them,,in order that he might have suf- 
 ficient rest and leisure, before the close of his life, 
 to finish and publish those great works which he 
 had projected. In the event, therefore, of his re- 
 
GALILEO. 31 
 
 turning to Pisa, he hoped that it would be the first 
 object of his serene highness to give him leisure to 
 complete his works without the drudgery of lectu- 
 ring. He expresses his anxiety to gain his bread 
 by his writings, and he promises to dedicate them 
 to his serene master. He enumerates among these 
 books two on the system of the universe, three on 
 local motion, three books of mechanics, two on the 
 demonstration of principles, and one of problems ; 
 besides treatises on sound and speech, on light and 
 colours, on the tides, on the composition of contin- 
 uous quantity, on the motions of animals, and on 
 the military art. On the subject of his salary he 
 makes the following curious observations : 
 
 " I say nothing," says he, " on the amount of my 
 salary, being convinced that, as I am to live upon 
 it, the graciousness of his highness would not de- 
 prive me of any of those comforts, of which, how- 
 ever, I feel the want of less than' many others, 
 and therefore I say nothing more on the subject. 
 Finally, on the title and profession of my service, I 
 should wish that, to the title of mathematician, his 
 highness would add that of philosopher, as I profess 
 to have studied a greater number of years in phi- 
 losophy than months in pure mathematics ; and how 
 I have profited by it, and if I can or ought to de- 
 serve this title, I may let their highnesses see, as 
 often as it shall please them to give me an oppor- 
 
32 GALILEO. 
 
 tunity of discussing such subjects in their presence 
 with those who are most esteemed in this knowl- 
 
 During the progress of this negotiation Galileo 
 went to Venice, on a visit to a friend, in the month 
 of April or May, 1609. Here Jie learned from 
 common rumour that a Dutchman had presented 
 to Prince Maurice of Nassau an optical instrument, 
 which possessed the singular property of causing 
 distant objects to appear nearer the observer. This 
 Dutchman was Hans or John Lippershey, who, as 
 has been clearly proved by the late Professor Moll 
 of Utrecht,* was in the* possession of a telescope 
 made by himself so early as 2d of OctobeV, 1608. 
 A few days afterward, the truth of this report was 
 confirmed by a letter which Galileo received from 
 James Badorere at Paris, and he immediately ap- 
 plied himself to the consideration of the subject. 
 On the first night after his return to Padua, he 
 found in the doctrines of refraction the prihciple 
 which he sought. He placed at the ends of a lead- 
 en tube two spectacle glasses, both of which were 
 plane on one side, while one of them had its other 
 side convex, and the other its second side concave ; 
 and, having applied his eye to. the concave glass, 
 he saw objects pretty large and pretty near him. 
 
 * On the First Invention of Telescopes. Journ. R. In- 
 8tie., 1831, vol. i., p. 496. 
 
GALILEO. 33 
 
 This little instrument, which magnified only three 
 times, he carried in triumph to Venice, where it 
 excited the most intense interest. Crowds of the 
 principal citizens flocked to his house to see the 
 magical toy ; and, after nearly a month had been 
 spent in gratifying this epidemical curiosity, Gali. 
 leo was led to understand from Leonardo Deodati, 
 the doge of Venice, that the Senate would be high- 
 ly gratified by obtaining possession of so extraor- 
 dinary an instrument. Galileo instantly complied 
 with the wishes of his patrons, who acknowledged 
 the present by a mandate conferring upon him for 
 life his professorship at Padua, and generously rais- 
 ing his salary from 520 to 1000 florins.* 
 
 Although we cannot doubt the veracity of Gal- 
 ileo when he affirms that he had never seen any 
 of the Dutch telescopes, yet it is expressly stated 
 by Fuccarius that one of these instruments had at 
 this time been brought to Florence ; and Sirturus 
 assures us that a Frenchman, calling himself a 
 partner of the Dutch inventor, came to Milan in 
 May, 1609, and offered a telescope to the Count 
 de Fuentes. In a letter from Lorenzo Pignoria to 
 Paolo Gualdo, dated from Padua on the 31st of 
 August, 1609, it is expressly said that, at the re- 
 election of the professors, Galileo had contrived to 
 obtain 1000 florins for life, which was alleged to 
 * Viviani Vita del 1 Galileo, p. 69. 
 
34 GALILEO. 
 
 be on account of an eyeglass like the one which 
 was sent from Flanders to the Cardinal Bor- 
 ghese. 
 
 In a memoir so brief and general as the present, 
 it would be out of place to discuss the history of 
 this extraordinary invention. We have no hesita- 
 tion in asserting that a method of magnifying dis- 
 tant objects was known to Baptista Porta and oth- 
 ers ; but it seems to be equally certain that an in- 
 strument for producing these effects was first con- 
 structed in Holland, and that it was from that 
 kingdom that Galileo derived the knowledge of its 
 existence. In considering the contending claims, 
 which have been urged with all the ardour and 
 partiality of national feeling, it has been generally 
 overlooked, that a single convex tens, whose focal 
 length exceeds the distance at which we examine 
 minute objects, performs the part of a telescope 
 when an eye placed behind it sees distinctly the 
 inverted image which it forms. A lens twenty 
 feet in focal length will in this manner magnify 
 twenty times; and it was by the same principle 
 that Sir William Herschel discovered a new satel- 
 lite of Saturn, by using only the mirror of his for. 
 ty-feet telescope. The instrument presented to 
 Prince Maurice, and which the Marquis Spinola 
 found in the shop of John Lippershey, the specta- 
 cle-maker of Middleburg, must have been an as- 
 
GALILEO. 35 
 
 tronomical telescope consisting of two convex 
 lenses. Upon this supposition, it differed from 
 that which Galileo constructed ; and the Italian 
 philosopher will be justly entitled to the honour of 
 having invented that form of the telescope which 
 still bears his name, while we must accord to the 
 Dutch optician the honour of having previously 
 invented the astronomical telescope. 
 
 The interest which the exhibition of the tele- 
 scope* excited at Venice did not soon subside : Sir- 
 turi* describes it as amounting almost to phrensy. 
 When he himself had succeeded in making one of 
 these instruments, he ascended the tower of St. 
 Mark, where he might use it without molestation. 
 He was recognised, however, by a crowd in the 
 street ; and such was the eagerness of their curi- 
 osity, that they took possession of the wondrous 
 tube, and detained the impatient philosopher for 
 several hours, till they had successively witnessed 
 its effects. Desirous of obtaining the same grat- 
 ification for their friends, they endeavoured to learn 
 the name of the inn at which he lodged ; but Sir- 
 turi fortunately overheard their inquiries, and quit- 
 ted Venice early next morning, in order to avoid a 
 second visitation of this new school of philoso- 
 pher. The opticians speedily availed themselves 
 of the new instrument. Galileo's tube or the 
 * De Telescopic. 
 
36 GALILEO. 
 
 double eyeglass, or the cylinder, or the trunk, as it 
 was then called, for Demisiano had not yet given it 
 the appellation of telescope was manufactured in 
 great quantities, and in a very superior manner. 
 The instruments were purchased merely as philo- 
 sophical toys, and were carried by travellers into 
 every corner of Europe. 
 
 The art of grinding and polishing lenses was at 
 this time very imperfect. Galileo, and those whom 
 he instructed, were alone capable of making* toler- 
 able instruments. It appears from the testimony 
 of Gassendi and Gaertner, that in 1634 a good tel- 
 escope could not be procured in Paris, Venice, or 
 Amsterdam ; and that, even in 1637, there was 
 not one in Holland which could show Jupiter's disk 
 well defined. 
 
 After Galileo had completed his first instrument, 
 which magnified only three times, he executed a 
 larger and a better one, with a power of about 
 eight. " At length," as he himself remarks, " spa- 
 ring neither labour nor expense," he constructed 
 an instrument so excellent that it bore a magnify- 
 ing power of more than thirty times. 
 
 The first celestial object to which Galileo appli- 
 ed his telescope was the moon, which, to use his 
 own words, appeared as near as if it had been dis- 
 tant only two semidiameters of the earth. He 
 then directed it to the planets and the fixed stars, 
 
GALILEO. 37 
 
 which he frequently observed with " incredible de- 
 light."* 
 
 The observations which he made upon the moon 
 possessed a high degree of interest. The general 
 resemblance of its surface to that of our own globe 
 naturally fixed his attention ; and he was soon able 
 to trace, in almost every part of the lunar disk, 
 ranges of mountains, deep hollows, and other ine- 
 qualities, which reverberated from their summits 
 and margins the rays of the rising sun, while the 
 intervening hollows were still buried in darkness. 
 The dark and luminous spaces he regarded as indi- 
 cating seas and continents, which reflected, in differ- 
 ent degrees, the incidental light of the sun ; and he 
 ascribed the phosphorescence, as it has been im- 
 properly called, or the secondary light which is 
 seen on the dark limb of the moon in her first and 
 last quarters, to the reflection of the sun's light 
 from the earth. 
 
 These discoveries were ill received by the fol- 
 lowers of Aristotle. According to their precon- 
 ceived opinions, the moon was perfectly spherical 
 and absolutely smooth ; and to cover it with mount- 
 ains and scoop it out into valleys was an act of 
 impiety, which defaced the regular forms which 
 Nature herself had imprinted. It was in vain that 
 Galileo appealed to the evidence of observation, and 
 * Incredibili anirai jucunditate. 
 
 D 
 
38 GALILEO. 
 
 to the actual surface of our own globe. The very 
 irregularities on the moon were, in his opinion, the 
 proof of Divine wisdom ; and had its surface been 
 absolutely smooth, it would have been " but a vast 
 unblessed desert, void of animals, of plants, of 
 cities, and of men the abode of silence and inac- 
 tion senseless, lifeless, soulless, and stripped of all 
 those ornaments which now render it so varied and 
 so beautiful." 
 
 In examining the fixed stars and comparing them 
 with the planets, Galileo observed a remarkable 
 difference in the appearance of their disks. All 
 the planets appeared with round globular disks like 
 the moon, whereas the fixed stars never exhibited 
 any disk at all, but resembled lucid points sending 
 forth twinkling rays. Stars of all magnitudes he 
 found to have the same appearance ; those of the 
 fifth and sixth magnitude having the same charac- 
 ter, when seen through a telescope, as Sirius, the 
 largest of the stars, when seen by the naked eye. 
 Upon directing his telescope to nebulae and clusters 
 of stars, he was delighted to find that they consist- 
 ed of great numbers of stars which could not be 
 recognised by unassisted vision. He counted no 
 fewer than/or^ in the cluster called the Pleiades, 
 or Seven Stars ; and he has given us drawings of 
 this constellation, as well as of the belt and sword 
 of Orion, and of the nebula of Prsesepe. In the 
 
GALILEO. 39 
 
 great nebula of the Milky Way he descried crowds 
 of minute stars ; and he concluded that this singu- 
 lar portion of the heavens derived its whiteness 
 from still smaller stars, which his telescope was 
 unable to separate. 
 
 Important and interesting as these discoveries 
 were, they were thrown into the shade by those to 
 which he was led during an accurate examination 
 of the planets with a more powerful telescope. 
 On the 7th of January, 1610, at one o'clock in the 
 morning, when he directed his telescope to Jupiter, 
 he observed three stars near the body of the planet, 
 two being to the east and one to the west of him. 
 They were all in a straight line, and parallel to the 
 ecliptic, and appeared brighter than other stars of 
 the same magnitude. Believing them to be fixed 
 stars, he paid no great attention to their distances 
 from Jupiter and from one another. On the 8th 
 of January, however, when, from some cause or 
 other,* he had been led to observe the stars again, 
 he found a very different arrangement of them : all 
 the three were on the west side of Jupiter, nearer 
 one another than before, and almost at equal dis- 
 tances. Though he had not turned his attention 
 to the extraordinary fact of the mutual approach of 
 the stars, yet he began to consider how Jupiter 
 could be found to the east of the three stars, when 
 
 * Nescio quo fato ductus. 
 
40 GALILEO. 
 
 but the day before he had been to the west of two 
 of them. The only explanation which he could 
 give of this fact was, that the motion of Jupiter 
 was direct, contrary to astronomical calculations, 
 and that he had got before these two stars by his 
 own motion. 
 
 In this dilemma between the testimony of his 
 senses and the results of his calculation, he waited 
 for the following night with the utmost anxiety ; 
 but his hopes were disappointed, for the heavens 
 were wholly veiled in clouds. On the 10th two 
 only of the stars appeared, and both on the east of 
 the planet. As it was obviously impossible that 
 Jupiter could have advanced from west to east on 
 the 8th of January, and from east to west on the 
 10th, Galileo was forced to conclude that the phe- 
 nomenon which he had observed arose from the mo- 
 tion of the stars, and he set himself to observe dil- 
 igently their change of place. On the llth there 
 were still only two stars, and both to the east of 
 Jupiter ; but the more eastern star was now twice 
 as large as the other one, though on the prece- 
 ding night they had been perfectly equal. This 
 fact threw a new light upon Galileo's difficulties, 
 and he immediately drew the conclusion, which he 
 considered to be indubitable, " that there were in the 
 heavens three stars which revolved round Jupiter, in 
 the same manner as Venus and Mercury revolve 
 
GALILEO. 41 
 
 round the sun." On the 12th of January he again 
 observed them in new positions and of different 
 magnitudes, and on the 13th he discovered a 
 fourth star, which completed the four secondary 
 planets with which Jupiter is surrounded. 
 
 Galileo continued his observations on these bod- 
 ies every clear night till the 22d of March, and stud- 
 ied their motions in reference to fixed stars that 
 were at the same time within the field of his tele- 
 scope. Having thus clearly established that the 
 four new stars were satellites or moons, which re. 
 volved round Jupiter in the same manner as the 
 moon revolves round our own globe, he drew up an 
 account of his discovery, in which he gave to the 
 four new bodies the names of the Medicean Stars, 
 in honour of his patron, Cosmo de Medici, grand- 
 duke of Tuscany. This work, under the title of 
 "Nuncius Sidereus," or the "Sidereal Messenger," 
 was dedicated to the same prince ; and the dedica- 
 tion bears the date of the 24th of March, only two 
 days after he concluded his observations. 
 
 The importance of this great discovery was in- 
 stantly felt by the enemies as well as by the friends 
 of the Copernican system. The planets had hith- 
 erto been distinguished from the fixed stars only by 
 their relative change of place, but the telescope 
 proved them to be bodies so near to our own globe 
 as to exhibit well-defined disks, while the fixed stars 
 D2 
 
42 GALILEO. 
 
 retained, even when magnified, the minuteness of 
 remote and lucid points. The system of Jupiter, 
 illuminated by four moons performing their revolu- 
 tions in different and regular periods, exhibited to 
 the proud reason of man the comparative insignifi- 
 cance of the globe he inhabits, and proclaimed in 
 impressive language that that globe was not the 
 centre of the universe. 
 
 The reception which these discoveries met with 
 from Kepler is highly interesting, and characteris- 
 tic of the genius of that great man. He was one 
 day sitting idle and thinking of Galileo, when his 
 friend Wachenfels stopped his carriage at his door 
 to communicate to him the intelligence. " Such a 
 fit of wonder," says he, "seized me at a report 
 which seemed to be so very absurd, and I was 
 thrown into such agitation at seeing an old dispute 
 between us decided in this way, that between his 
 joy, my colouring, and the laughter of both, con- 
 founded as we were by such a novelty, we were 
 hardly capable, he of speaking, or I of listening. 
 On our parting, I immediately began to think how 
 there could be any addition to the number of the 
 planets without overturning my * Cosmographic 
 Mystery,' according to which Euclid's five regular 
 solids do not allow more than six planets round the 
 sun. * * * I am so far from disbelieving the ex- 
 istence of the four circumjovial planets, that I long 
 
GALILEO. 43 
 
 for a telescope, to anticipate you, if possible, in 
 discovering two round Mars, as the proportion 
 seems to require, six or eight round Saturn, and 
 perhaps one each round Mercury and Venus." 
 
 In a very different spirit did the Aristotelians re- 
 ceive the " Sidereal Messenger" of Galileo. The 
 principal professor of philosophy at Padua resisted 
 Galileo's repeated and urgent entreaties to look at 
 the moon and planets through his telescope; and 
 he even laboured to convince the grand-duke that 
 the satellites of Jupiter could not possibly exist. 
 Sizzi, an astronomer of Florence, maintained that, 
 as there were only seven apertures in the head 
 two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth 
 and as there were only seven metals, and seven 
 days in the week, so there could be only seven 
 planets. He seems, however, to have admitted the 
 visibility of the four satellites through the tele- 
 scope ; but he argues that, as they are invisible to 
 the naked eye, they can exercise no influence on 
 the earth ; and being useless, they do not therefore 
 exist. 
 
 A protege of Kepler's, of the name of Horky, 
 wrote a volume against Galileo's discovery, after 
 having declared " that he would never concede his 
 four new planets to that Italian from Padua, even 
 if he should die for it." This resolute Aristotelian 
 was at no loss for arguments. He asserted that 
 
44 GALILEO. 
 
 he had examined the heavens through Galileo 's own 
 glass, and that no such thing as a satellite existed 
 round Jupiter. He affirmed that he did not more 
 surely know that he had a soul in his body, than 
 that reflected rays are the sole cause of Galileo's 
 erroneous observations ; and that the only use of 
 the new planets was to gratify Galileo's thirst for 
 gold, and afford to himself a subject of discussion. 
 
 When Horky first presented himself to Kepler 
 after the publication of this work, the opinion of 
 his patron was announced to him by a burst of in- 
 dignation which overwhelmed the astonished au. 
 thor. Horky supplicated mercy for his offence ; 
 and, as Kepler himself informed Galileo, he took 
 him again into favour on the condition that Kepler 
 was to show him Jupiter's satellites, and that Hor- 
 ky was not only to see them, but to admit their ex- 
 istence. 
 
 When the spirit of philosophy had thus left the 
 individuals who bore so unworthily her sacred 
 name, it was fortunate for science that it found a 
 refuge among princes. Notwithstanding the reit- 
 erated logic of his philosophical professor at Padua, 
 Cosmo de Medici preferred the testimony of his 
 senses to the syllogisms of his instructer. He 
 observed the new planets several times along with 
 Galileo at Pisa, and when he parted with him he 
 gave him a present worth more than 1000 florins, 
 
GALILEO. 45 
 
 and concluded that liberal arrangement to which 
 we have already referred. 
 
 As philosopher and principal mathematician to 
 the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, Galileo now took up 
 his residence at Florence, with a salary of 1000 
 florins. No official duties, excepting that of lee. 
 turing occasionally to sovereign princes, were at- 
 tached to this appointment ; and it was expressly - 
 stipulated that he should enjoy the most perfect 
 leisure to complete his treatises on the constitution 
 of the universe, on mechanics, and on local motion. 
 The resignation of his professorship in the Univer- 
 sity of Padua, which was the necessary conse- 
 quence of his new appointment, created much dis- 
 satisfaction ; but, though many of his former friends 
 refused at first to hold any communication with 
 him, this excitement gradually subsided, and the 
 Venetian senate at last appreciated the feelings as 
 well as the motives which induced a stranger to 
 accept of promotion in his native land. 
 
 While Galileo was enjoying the reward and the 
 fame of his great discovery, a new species of en- 
 mity was roused against him. Simon Mayer, an 
 astronomer of no character, pretended that he had 
 discovered the satellites of Jupiter before Galileo, 
 and that his first observation was made on the 29th 
 of December, 1609. Other astronomers announ- 
 ced the discovery of new satellites : Schemer reck- 
 
46 GALILEO. 
 
 oned five, Rheita nine, and others found even so 
 many as twelve : these satellites, however, were 
 found to be only fixed stars. The names of Via- 
 dislavian, Agrippine, Uranodavian, and Ferdinan- 
 dotertian, which were hastily given to these com- 
 mon telescopic stars, soon disappeared from the 
 page of science, and even the splendid* telescopes 
 of modern times have not been able to add another 
 gem to the diadem of Jupiter. 
 
 A modern astronomer of no mean celebrity has, 
 even in the present day, endeavoured to rob Gali- 
 leo of this staple article of his reputation. From 
 a careless examination of the papers of our cele- 
 brated countryman, Thomas Harriot, which Baron 
 Zach had made in 1784, at Petworth, the seat of 
 Lord Egremont, this astronomer has asserted* that 
 Harriot first observed the satellites of Jupiter on 
 the 16th of January, 1610, and continued his ob- 
 servations till the 25th of February, 1612. Baron 
 Zach adds the following extraordinary conclusion : 
 " Galileo pretends to have discovered them on the 
 7th of January, 1610 ; so that it is not improbable 
 that Harriot was likewise the first discoverer of 
 these attendants of Jupiter." In a communication 
 which I received from Dr. Robertson, of Oxford, 
 in 1822,f he informed me that he had examined a 
 
 * Berlin Ephemeris, 1788. 
 
 t Edin. Phil. Journ., vol. vi., p. 313. 
 
GALILEO. 47 
 
 portion of Harriot's papers, entitled " De Jovialibus 
 Planetis," and that it appears from two pages of 
 these papers that Harriot first observed Jupiter's 
 satellites on the 11 fh of October, 1610. These ob- 
 servations are accompanied with rough drawings 
 of the positions of the satellites, and rough calcu- 
 lations of their periodical revolutions. My friend, 
 Professor Rigaud,* who has very recently examin- 
 ed the Harriot MSS., has confirmed the accuracy 
 of Dr. Robertson's observations, and has thus re- 
 stored to Galileo the honour of being the first and 
 the sole discoverer of these secondary planets. 
 
 * Life and Correspondence of Dr. Bradley, Oxford, 1832, 
 p. 533. See also his Supplement, Oxford, 1833, p. 17. 
 
48 GALILEO. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Galileo announces his Discoveries in Enigmas. Discovers 
 the Crescent of Venus ; the Ring of Saturn ; the Spots on 
 the Sun. Similar Observations made in England by Har- 
 riot. Claims of Fabricius and Scheiner to the Discovery of 
 the Solar Spots. Galileo's Letters to Velser on the Claims 
 of Scheiner. His Residence at the Villa of Salviati. 
 Composes his Work on Floating Bodies, which involves 
 him in new Controversies. 
 
 THE great success which attended the first tele- 
 scopic observations of Galileo induced him to ap- 
 ply his best instruments to the other planets of our 
 system. The attempts which had been made to 
 deprive him of the honour of some of his discover- 
 ies, combined, probably, with a desire to repeat his 
 observations with better telescopes, led him to an- 
 nounce his discoveries under the veil of an enigma, 
 and to invite astronomers to declare, within a giv- 
 en time, if they had observed any new phenomena 
 in the heavens. 
 
 Before the close of 1610 Galileo excited the cu- 
 riosity of astronomers by the publication of his first 
 enigma. Kepler and others tried in vain to deci- 
 pher it ; but, in consequence of the Emperor Ro- 
 
GALILEO. 49 
 
 dolph requesting a solution of the puzzle, Galileo 
 sent him the following clew : 
 
 " Altissimam planetam tergeminam observavi." 
 
 I have observed that the most remote planet is triple. 
 In explaining more fully the nature of his observa- 
 tion, Galileo remarked that Saturn was not a sin- 
 gle star, but three together, nearly touching one 
 another. He described them as having no relative 
 motion, and as having the form of three o's, name- 
 ly, oOo, the central one being larger than those on 
 each side of it. 
 
 Although Galileo had announced that nothing 
 new appeared in the other planets, yet he soon 
 communicated to the world another discovery of no 
 slight interest. The enigmatical letters in which 
 it was concealed formed the following sentence : 
 
 " Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater Amorum." 
 
 Venus rivals the phases of the moon. 
 Hitherto Galileo had observed Venus when her 
 disk was largely illuminated ; but having directed 
 his telescope to her when she was not far removed 
 from the sun, he saw her in the form of a crescent, 
 resembling exactly the moon at the same elonga- 
 tion. He continued to observe her night after 
 night, during the whole time that she could be seen 
 in the course of her revolution round the sun, and 
 he found that she exhibited the very same phases 
 E 
 
50 GALILEO. 
 
 which resulted from her motion round that lumi- 
 nary. 
 
 Galileo had long contemplated a visit to the me- 
 tropolis of Italy, and he accordingly carried his 
 intentions into effect in the early part of the year 
 1611. Here he was received with that distinction 
 which was due to his great talents and his extend- 
 ed reputation. Princes, 'cardinals, and prelates 
 hastened to do him honour ; and even those who 
 discredited his discoveries and dreaded their results 
 vied with the true friends of science in their anxi- 
 ety to see the intellectual wonder of the age. 
 
 In order to show the new celestial phenomena to 
 his friends at Rome, Galileo took with him his best 
 telescope ; and as he had discovered the spots on 
 the sun's surface in October or November, 1610, 
 or even earlier,* he had the gratification of exhib- 
 iting them to his admiring disciples. He accord- 
 ingly erected his telescope in the Quirinal garden, 
 belonging to Cardinal Bandini ; and in April, 1611, 
 he showed them to his friends in many of their 
 most interesting variations. From their change of 
 position on the sun's disk, Galileo at first inferred, 
 either that the sun revolved about an axis, or that 
 other planets, like Venus and Mercury, revolved so 
 
 * Professor Rigaud is of opinion that Galileo had discovered 
 the solar spots at an earlier period than eighteen months be- 
 fore May, 1612. 
 
GALILEO. 51 
 
 near the sun as to appear like black spots when 
 they were opposite to his disk. Upon continuing 
 his observations, however, he saw reason to aban- 
 don this hasty opinion. He found that the spots 
 must be in contact with the surface of the sun ; 
 that their figures were irregular ; that they had 
 different degrees of darkness ; that one spot would 
 often divide itself into three or four ; that three or 
 four spots would often unite themselves into one ; 
 and that all the spots revolved regularly with the 
 sun, whi|Ji appeared to complete its revolution in 
 about twenty-eight days. 
 
 Previous to the invention of the telescope, spots 
 had been more than once seen on the sun's disk 
 with the unassisted eye. But even if these were 
 of the same character as those which Galileo and 
 others observed, we cannot consider them as anti- 
 cipations of their discovery by the telescope. As 
 the telescope was now in the possession of several 
 astronomers, Galileo began to have many rivals in 
 discovery ; but, notwithstanding the claims of Har- 
 riot, Fabricius, and Scheiner, it is now placed be- 
 yond the reach of doubt that he was the first dis- 
 coverer of the solar spots. From the communi- 
 cation which I received in 1822 from the late Dr. 
 Robertson, of Oxford,* it appeared that Thomas 
 Harriot had observed the solar spots on the 8th of 
 * See page 46. 
 
52 GALILEO. 
 
 December, 1610 ; but his manuscripts, in Lord 
 Egremont's possession, incontestably* prove that 
 his regular observations on the spots, did not com- 
 mence till December 1, 1611, although he had seen 
 the spots at the date above mentioned, and that they 
 were continued till the 18th of January, 1C13. 
 The observations which he has recorded are 199 in 
 number, and the accounts of them are accompani- 
 ed with rough drawings representing the number, 
 position, and magnitude of the spots.f In the obser- 
 vation of Harriot, made on the 8th Decem\pr, 1610, 
 before he knew of Galileo's discovery, he saw three 
 spots of the sun, which he has represented in a di- 
 agram. The sun was then 7 or 8 high, and there 
 was a frost and a mist, which no doubt acted as a 
 darkening glass. Harriot does not apply the name 
 of spots to what he noticed in this observation, and 
 he does not enumerate it among the 199 observa- 
 tions above mentioned. Professor RigaudJ con- 
 siders it " a misapplication of terms to call such an 
 observation a discovery ;" but, with all the respect 
 which we feel for the candour of this remark, we 
 
 * These interesting MSS. I have had the good fortune of 
 seeing in the possession of my much valued friend, the late 
 Professor Rigaud, of Oxford. 
 
 t Edin. Phil. Journ., 1822, vol. vi., p. 317. See Rigaud's 
 Life of Bradley, Supplement, p. 31. 
 
 t Id. It., p. 37, 38. 
 
GALILEO. 53 
 
 are disposed to confer on Harriot the merit of an 
 original discoverer of the spots on the sun. 
 
 Another candidate for the honour of discovering 
 the spots of the sun was John Fabricius, who un- 
 doubtedly saw them previous to June, 1611. The 
 dedication of the work* in which he has recorded 
 his observation bears the date of the 13th of June, 
 1611 ; and it is obvious, from the work itself, that 
 he had seen the spots about the end of the year 
 1610 ; but as there is no proof that he saw them 
 before October, we are compelled to assign the pri- 
 ority of the discovery to the Italian astronomer. 
 
 The claim of Scheiner, professor of mathematics 
 at Ingolstadt, is more intimately connected with the 
 history of Galileo. This learned astronomer hav- 
 ing, early in 1611, turned his telescope to the sun, 
 necessarily discovered the spots which at that time 
 covered his disk. Light flying clouds happened at 
 the time to weaken the intensity of his light, so that 
 he was able to show the spots to his pupils. These 
 observations were not published till January, 1612 ; 
 and they appeared in the form of three letters, ad- 
 dressed to Mark Velser, one of the magistrates of 
 Augsburg, under the signature of Appellespost Tab- 
 ulam. Scheiner, who many years afterward pub- 
 
 * Job. Fabricii Phrysii de Maculis in Sole observatis, et ap- 
 parente earum cum Sole conversione, Narratio, Wittemb., 
 1611. 
 
 E2 
 
54 GALILEO. 
 
 lished an elaborate work on the subject, adopted the 
 same idea which had at first occurred to Galileo : 
 that the spots were the dark sides of planets revolv- 
 ing round and near the sun.* 
 
 * It does not appear from the history of solar observations 
 at what time, and by whom, coloured glasses were first intro- 
 'duced for permitting the eye to look at the sun with impunity. 
 Fabricius was obviously quite ignorant of the use of coloured 
 glasses. He observed the sun when he was in the horizon, 
 and when his brilliancy was impaired by the interposition of 
 thin clouds and floating vapours ; and he advises those who 
 may repeat his observations to admit at first to the eye a small 
 portion of the sun's light, till it is gradually accustomed to its 
 full splendour. When the sun's altitude became considerable, 
 Fabricius gave up his observations, which he often continued 
 so long that he was scarcely able, for two days together, to see 
 objects with their usual distinctness. Fabricius speaks of ob- 
 serving the sun by admitting his rays through a small hole into 
 a dark room, and receiving his image on paper ; but he says 
 nothing about a lens or a telescope being applied to the hole ; 
 and he does not say that he saw the spots of the sun in this 
 way. Harriot also viewed the solar spots when the sun was 
 near the horizon, or was visible through " thick ayer and thin 
 cloudes," or through thin mist. On December 21, 1611, at a 
 quarter past 2 P.M., he observed the spots when the sky was 
 perfectly clear, but his " sight was after dim for an houre." 
 
 Scheiner, in his " Appelles post Tabulam," describes four 
 different ways of viewing the spots ; one of which is by the 
 interposition of Uue or green glasses. His first method was 
 to observe the sun near the horizon ; the second was to view 
 him through a transparent cloud ; the third was to look at him 
 through his telescope with a blue or a green glass of a proper 
 
GALILEO. 55 
 
 On the publication of Schemer's letters, Velser 
 transmitted a copy of them to his friend Galileo, 
 with the request that he would favour him with his 
 opinion of the new phenomena. After some delay, 
 Galileo addressed three letters to Velser, in which 
 he combated the opinions of Scheiner on the cause 
 of the spots. The first of these letters was dated 
 the 4th of May, 1612 ;* but, though the controver- 
 sy was carried on in the language of mutual re- 
 spect and esteem, it put an end to the friendship 
 which had existed between the two astronomers. 
 In these letters Galileo showed that the spots often 
 dispersed like vapours or clouds ; that they some- 
 times had a duration of only one or two days, and 
 at other times of thirty or forty days ; that they 
 contracted in their breadth when they approached 
 the sun's limb, without any diminution of their 
 length ; that they describe circles parallel to each 
 other ; that the monthly rotation of the sun again 
 brings the same spots into view ;' and that they are 
 seldom seen at a greater distance than 30 from 
 the sun's equator. Galileo likewise discovered on 
 the sun's disc/acw&s, or luculi, as they were called, 
 
 thickness, and plane on both sides, or to use a thin blue glass 
 when the sun was covered with a thin vapour or cloud ; and 
 the fourth method was to begin and observe the sun at his 
 margin, till the eye gradually reached the middle of his disk. 
 * The original of this letter is in the British Museum. 
 
56 GALILEO. 
 
 which differ in no respect from the common ones 
 but in their being brighter than the rest of the sun's 
 surface.* 
 
 In the last of the letters which our author ad- 
 dressed to Velser, and which was written in De- 
 cember, 1612, he recurs to his former discovery of 
 the elongated shape, or, rather, the triple structure 
 of Saturn. The singular figure which he had ob- 
 served in this planet had entirely disappeared ; and 
 he evidently announces the fact to Velser, lest it 
 should be used by his enemies to discredit the ac- 
 curacy of his observations. " Looking on Saturn," 
 says he, " within these few days, I found it solitary, 
 without the assistance of its accustomed stars, and, 
 in short, perfectly round and denned like Jupiter ; 
 and such it still remains. Now what can be said 
 of so strange a metamorphosis ? Are the two 
 smaller stars consumed like the spots on the sun ? 
 Have they suddenly vanished and fled ? or was the 
 appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which 
 the glasses have for so long a time mocked me, and 
 so many others who have often observed with me ? 
 Now perhaps the time is come to revive the with- 
 ering hopes of those who, guided by more profound 
 contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of 
 the new observations, and recognised their impos- 
 
 * See Istoria e Dimonstrazioni, intorno alle macchie solare, 
 Roma, 1616. See Opere di Galileo, vol. v., p. 131-293. 
 
GALILEO. 57 
 
 sibilities. I cannot resolve what to say in a chance 
 so strange, so new, and so unexpected ; the short- 
 ness of the time, the unexampled occurrence, the 
 weakness of my intellect, and the terror of being 
 mistaken, have greatly confounded me." Although 
 Galileo struggled to obtain a solution of this mys- 
 tery, yet he had not the good fortune to succeed. 
 He imagined that the two smaller stars would re- 
 appear in consequence of the supposed revolution 
 of the planet round its axis ; but the discovery of 
 the ring of Saturn, and of the obliquity of its plane 
 to the ecliptic, was necessary to explain the phe- 
 nomena which were so perplexing to our author. 
 
 The ill health to which Galileo was occasional- 
 ly subject, and the belief that the air of Florence 
 was prejudicial to his complaints, induced him to 
 spend much of his time at Selve, the villa of his 
 friend Salviati. This eminent individual had ever 
 been the warmest friend of Galileo, and seems to 
 have delighted in drawing round him the scientific 
 genius of the age. He was a member of the cele- 
 brated Lyncaean Society founded by Prince Fred- 
 erigo Cesi ; and though he is not known as the 
 author of any important discovery, yet he has earn- 
 ed by his liberality to science a glorious name, 
 which will be indissolubly united with the immortal 
 destiny of Galileo. 
 
 The subject of floating bridges having been dis- 
 
68 GALILEO. 
 
 cussed at one of the scientific parties which had 
 assembled at the house of Salviati, a difference of 
 opinion arose respecting the influence of the shape 
 of bodies on their disposition to float or to sink in 
 a fluid. Contrary to the general opinion, Galileo 
 undertook to prove that it depended on other causes ; 
 and he was thus led to compose his discourse on 
 floating bodies,* which was published in 1612, and 
 dedicated to Cosmo de Medici. This work con- 
 tains many ingenious experiments, and much acute 
 reasoning in support of the true principles of hy- 
 drostatics ; and it is now chiefly remarkable as a 
 specimen of the sagacity and intellectual power of 
 its author. Like all his other works, it encounter- 
 ed the most violent opposition ; and Galileo was 
 more than once summoned into the field to repel 
 the aggressions of his ignorant and presumptuous 
 opponents. The first attack upon it was made by 
 Ptolemy Nozzolini, in a letter to Marzemedici, 
 archbishop of Florence ;f and to this Galileo re- 
 plied in a letter addressed to his antagonist. A 
 more elaborate examination of it was published by 
 Lodovico della Columbe, and another by M. Vin- 
 
 * Discorso intorno alle cose che stanno in su Pacqua, o 
 che in quella si muovono. Opere di Galileo, vol. ii., p. 165- 
 311. 
 
 t Opere di Galileo, vol. ii., p. 355-367. 
 
 t Ibid., 367-390. 
 
GALILEO. 59 
 
 cenzo di Grazia. To these attacks a minute and 
 overwhelming answer was printed in the name of 
 Benedetti Castelli, the friend and pupil of Galileo ; 
 but it was discovered, some years after Galileo's 
 death, that he was himself the author of this work.* 
 
 * These three treatises occupy the whole of the third vol- 
 ume of the Opere di Galileo. 
 
60 GALILEO. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Galileo treats his Opponents with Severity and Sarcasm. He 
 is aided by the Skeptics of the Day. The Church Party the 
 most powerful. Galileo commences the Attack, and is an- 
 swered by Caccini, a Dominican. Galileo's Letter to the 
 Grand-Duchess of Tuscany, in support of the Motion of 
 the Earth and the Stability of the Sun. Galileo visits 
 Rome. Is summoned before the Inquisition, and renounces 
 his Opinions as heretical. The Inquisition denounces the 
 Copernican System. Galileo has an Audience of the 
 Pope, but still maintains his Opinions in private Society. 
 Proposes to find out the Longitude at Sea by means of Ju- 
 piter's Satellites. His Negotiation on this Subject with 
 the Court of Spain. Its Failure. He is unable to observe 
 the three Comets of 1618, but is involved in the Contro- 
 versy to which they gave rise. 
 
 I THE current of Galileo's life had hitherto flowed I 
 1 in a smooth and unobstructed channel. He had now 
 attained the highest objects of earthly ambition. 
 His discoveries had placed him at the head of the 
 great men of the age ; he possessed a professional 
 income far beyond his wants, and even beyond his 
 anticipations ; and, what is still dearer to a philos- 
 opher, he enjoyed the most perfect leisure for car- 
 rying on and completing his discoveries. The op- 
 position which these discoveries encountered was 
 
GALILEO. 61 
 
 to him more a subject for triumph than for sorrow. 
 Prejudice and ignorance were his only enemies ; 
 and if they succeeded for a while in harassing his 
 march, it was only to lay a foundation for fresh 
 achievements. He who contends for truths which 
 he has himself been permitted to discover, may 
 well sustain the conflict in which presumption and 
 error are destined to fall. The public tribunal 
 may neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to 
 decide upon the issue ; but he can appeal to pos- 
 terity, and reckon with confidence on " its sure de- 
 cree." 
 
 The ardour of Galileo's mind, the keenness of 
 his temper, his clear perception of truth, and his 
 inextinguishable love of it, combined to exasperate 
 and prolong the hostility of his enemies. When 
 argument failed to enlighten their judgment, and 
 reason to dispel their prejudices, he wielded against 
 them his powerful weapons of ridicule and sar- 
 casm ; and in this unrelenting warfare he seems to 
 have forgotten that Providence had withheld from 
 his enemies those very gifts which he had so liber- 
 ally received. He who is allowed to take the start 
 of his species, and to penetrate the veil which con- 
 ceals from common minds the mysteries of nature, 
 must not expect that the world will be patiently 
 dragged at the chariot wheels of his philosophy. 
 Mind has its inertia as well as matter, and its 
 F 
 
62 GALILEO. 
 
 progress to truth can only be ensured by the grad- 
 ual and patient removal of the obstructions which 
 surround it. 
 
 The boldness may we not say the recklessness 
 with which Galileo insisted upon making prose- 
 lytes of his enemies, served but to alienate them 
 from the trutl). Errors thus assailed speedily in- 
 trench themselves in general feelings, and become 
 embalmed in the virulence of the passions. The 
 various classes of his opponents marshalled them- 
 selves for their mutual defence. The Aristotelian 
 professors, the temporizing Jesuits, the political 
 churchmen, and that timid but respectable body 
 who at all times dread innovation, whether it be in 
 religion or science, entered into an alliance against 
 the philosophical tyrant who threatened them with 
 the penalties of knowledge. 
 
 The party of Galileo, though weak in numbers, 
 was not without power and influence! He had 
 trained around him a devoted band, who idolized 
 his genius and cherished his doctrines. His pupils 
 had been appointed to several of the principal pro- 
 fessorships in Italy. The enemies of religion were 
 on this occasion united with the Christian philoso- 
 pher ; and there were, even in these days, many 
 princes and nobles who had felt the inconvenience 
 of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and who secretly abet- 
 ted Galileo in his crusade against established errors. 
 
GALILEO. 63 
 
 Although these two parties had been long dread- 
 ing each other's power and reconnoitring each 
 other's position, yet we cannot exactly determine 
 which of them hoisted the first signal for war. 
 The Church party, particularly its highest dignita- 
 ries, were certainly disposed to rest on the defen- 
 sive. Flanked on one side by the logic of the 
 schools, and on the other by the popular interpre- 
 tation of Scripture, and backed by the strong arm 
 of the civil power, they were not disposed to inter- 
 fere with the prosecution of science, however much 
 they may have dreaded its influence. The philos- 
 ophers, on the contrary, united the zeal of innova- 
 tors with that firmness of purpose which truth 
 alone can inspire. Victorious in every contest, 
 they were flushed with success, and they panted for 
 a struggle in which they knew they must triumph. 
 
 In this state of warlike preparation, Galileo ad- 
 dressed a letter in 1613 to his friend and pupil, 
 the Abbe Castelli, the object of which was to prove 
 that the Scriptures were not intended to teach us 
 science and philosophy. Hence he inferred that 
 the language employed in the sacred volume in 
 reference to such subjects should be interpreted 
 only in its common acceptation, and that it was 
 in reality as difficult to reconcile the Ptolemaic as 
 the Copernican system to the expressions which 
 occur in the Bible. 
 
64 GALILEO. 
 
 A demonstration was about this time made by 
 the opposite party, in the person of Caccini, a Do- 
 minican friar, who made a personal attack upon 
 Galileo from the pulpit. This violent ecclesiastic 
 ridiculed the astronomer and his followers, by ad- 
 dressing them sarcastically in the sacred language 
 of Scripture : " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye 
 here looking up into heaven ?" But this species of 
 warfare was disapproved of even by the Church ; 
 and Luigi Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, 
 not only apologized to Galileo, who had transmitted 
 to him a formal complaint against Caccini, but ex- 
 pressed the acuteness of his own feelings on being 
 implicated in the " brutal conduct of thirty or forty 
 thousand monks." 
 
 From the character of Caccini, and the part 
 which he afterward played in the persecution of 
 Galileo, we can scarcely avoid the opinion that his 
 attack from the pulpit was intended as a snare for 
 the unwary philosopher. It roused Galileo from 
 his wonted caution ; and stimulated, no doubt, by 
 the answer which he received from Maraffi, he pub- 
 lished a long letter of seventy pages, defending 
 and illustrating his former views respecting the in- 
 fluence of scriptural language on the two contend- 
 ing systems. As if to give the impress of royal 
 rity to this new appeal, he addressed it to 
 Christina, grand-duchess of Tuscany, the mother 
 
 jaatho 
 
 ^ nK-; a 
 
GALILEO. 65 
 
 of Cosmo ; and in this form it seems to have exci- 
 ted a new interest, as if it had expressed the opin- 
 ion of the grand-ducal family. These external cir- 
 cumstances gave additional weight to the powerful 
 and unanswerable reasoning which this letter con- 
 tains ; and it was scarcely possible that any man, 
 possessed of a sound mind, and willing to learn the 
 truth, should refuse his assent to the judicious views 
 of our author. He expresses his belief that the 
 Scriptures were designed to instruct mankind re- 
 specting their salvation, and that the faculties of 
 our minds were given us for the purpose of inves- 
 tigating the phenomena of nature. He considers 
 Scripture and nature as proceeding from the same 
 Divine author, and therefore incapable of speaking 
 a different language ; and he points out the absurd- 
 ity of supposing that professors of astronomy will 
 shut their eyes to the phenomena which they dis- 
 cover in the heavens, or will refuse to believe those 
 deductions of reason which appeal to their judg- 
 ment with all the power of demonstration. He 
 supports these views by quotations from the an- 
 cient fathers ; and he refers to the dedication of 
 Copernicus's own work to the Roman pontiff, Paul 
 III., as a proof that the pope himself did not re- 
 gard the new system of the world as hostile to the 
 sacred writings. Copernicus, on the contrary, tells 
 his holiness that the reason of inscribing to him 
 F2 
 
66 GALILEO. 
 
 his new system was, that the authority of the pon- 
 tiff might put to silence the calumnies of some in- 
 dividuals who attacked it by arguments drawn from 
 passages of Scripture twisted for their own purpose, 
 jit was in vain to meet such reasoning by any 
 other weapons than those of the civil power. The 
 enemies of Galileo saw that they must either crush 
 the dangerous innovation, or allow it the fullest 
 scope ; and they determined upon an appeal to the 
 Inquisition. Lorini, a monk of the Dominican or- 
 der, had already denounced to this body Galileo's 
 letter to Castelli ; and Caccini, bribed by the mas- 
 tership of the convent of St. Mary of Minerva, was 
 invited to settle at Rome for the purpose of im- 
 bodying the evidence against Galileo. 
 
 Though these plans had been carried on in se- 
 cret, yet Galileo's suspicions were excited ; and 
 he obtained leave from Cosmo to go to Rome 
 about the end of 1615.* Here he was lodged in 
 the palace of the grand-duke's ambassador, and 
 kept up a constant correspondence with the family 
 of his patron at Florence ; but in the midst of this 
 external splendour he was summoned before the 
 Inquisition, to answer for^the heretical doctrines 
 which he had published. He was charged with 
 maintaining the motion of the earth and the sta- 
 
 * It is said that Galileo was cited to appear at Rome on 
 this occasion, and the opinion is not without foundation. 
 
GALILEO. 67 
 
 bility of the sun ; with teaching this doctrine to his 
 pupils ; with corresponding on the subject with 
 several German mathematicians ; and with having 
 published it, and attempted to reconcile it to Scrip- 
 ture in his letters to Mark Velser in 1612. The 
 Inquisition assembled to consider these charges on 
 the 25th. of February, 1615 ; and it was decreed 
 that Galileo should be enjoined by Cardinal Bellar- 
 mine to renounce the obnoxious doctrines, and to 
 pledge himself that he would neither teach, defend, 
 nor publish them in future. In the event of his 
 refusing to acquiesce in this sentence, it was de- 
 creed that he should be thrown into prison. Gal- 
 ileo did not hesitate to yield to this injunction^" 'On 
 the day following, the 26th of February, he ap- 
 peared before Cardinal Bellarmine to renounce his 
 heretical opinions ; and having declared that he 
 abandoned the doctrine of the earth's motion, and 
 would neither defend nor teach it, in his conversa- 
 tion or in his writings, he was dismissed from the 
 bar of the Inquisition. 
 
 Having thus disposed of Galileo, the Inquisition 
 conceived the design of condemning the whole 
 system of Copernicus as heretical. Galileo, with 
 more hardihood than prudence, remained at Rome 
 for the purpose of giving his assistance in frustra- 
 ting this plan ; but there is reason to think that he 
 injured by his presence the very cause which he 
 
68 GALILEO. 
 
 meant to support. The inquisitors had determined 
 to put down the new opinions ; and they now in- 
 serted among the prohibited books Galileo's letters 
 to Castelli and the grand-duchess, Kepler's epitome 
 of the Copernican theory, and Copernicus's own 
 work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 Notwithstanding these proceedings, Galileo had 
 an audience of the pope, Paul V., in March, 1616. 
 He was received very graciously, and spent nearly 
 an hour with his holiness. When they were about 
 to part, the pope assured Galileo that the congre- 
 gation were not disposed to receive upon light 
 grounds any calumnies which might be propagated 
 by his enemies, and that, as long as he occupied 
 the papal chair, he might consider himself as safe. 
 
 These assurances were no doubt founded on the 
 belief that Galileo would adhere to his pledges; 
 but so bold and inconsiderate was he in the expres- 
 sion of his opinions, that even in Rome he was 
 continually engaged in controversial discussions. 
 The following very interesting account of these 
 disputes is given by Querenghi, in a letter to the 
 Cardinal D'Este : 
 
 " Your eminence would be delighted with Gali- 
 leo if you heard him holding forth, as he often does, 
 in the midst of fifteen or twenty, all violently at- 
 tacking him, sometimes in one house, sometimes in 
 another. But he is armed after such fashion that 
 
GALILEO. 69 
 
 he laughs all of them to scorn ; and even if the 
 novelty of his opinions prevents entire persuasion, 
 he at least convicts of emptiness most of the argu- 
 ments with which his adversaries endeavour to 
 overwhelm him. He was particularly admirable 
 on Monday last in the house of Signer Frederico 
 Ghisilieri ; and what especially pleased me was, 
 that before replying to the contrary arguments, he 
 amplified and enforced them with new grounds of 
 great plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries in 
 a more ridiculous plight, when he afterward over- 
 
 ^turned them all." . ^ 
 
 The discovery of Jupiter's satellites suggested to 
 Galileo a new method of finding the longitude at 
 sea. Philip III. had encouraged astronomers to 
 direct their attention to this problem by offering a 
 reward for its solution ; and in those days, when 
 new discoveries in science were sometimes rejected 
 as injurious to mankind, it was no common event 
 to see a powerful sovereign courting the assistance 
 of astronomers in promoting the commercial inter- 
 ests of his empire. Galileo seems to have regard- 
 ed the solution of this problem as an object worthy 
 of his ambition ; and he no doubt anticipated the 
 triumph which he would obtain over his enemies, 
 if the Medicean stars, which they had treated with 
 such contempt, could be made subservient to the 
 great interests of mankind. During his residence 
 
70 GALILEO. 
 
 at Rome in 1615 and 1616, Galileo had communi- 
 cated his views on this subject to the Comte di Le- 
 mos, the viceroy of Naples, who had presided over 
 the council of the Spanish Indies. This nobleman 
 advised him to apply to the Spanish minister, the 
 Duke of Lerma ; and, through the influence of the 
 Grand-duke Cosmo, his ambassador at the court 
 of Madrid was engaged to manage the affair. The 
 anxiety of Galileo on this subject was singularly 
 great. He assured the Tuscan ambassador that, 
 in order to accomplish this object, " he was ready 
 to leave all his comforts, his country, his friends, 
 and his family, to cross over into Spain, and to stay 
 as long as he might be wanted at Seville, or at Lis- 
 bon, or wherever it might be convenient to com- 
 municate a knowledge of his method." The leth- 
 argy of the Spanish court seems to have increased 
 with the enthusiasm of Galileo ; and, though the 
 negotiations were occasionally revived for ten or 
 twelve years, yet no steps were taken to bring them 
 to a close. This strange procrastination has been 
 generally ascribed to jealousy or indifference on 
 the part of Spain ; but Nelli, one of Galileo's bi- 
 ographers, declares, on the authority of Florentine 
 records, that Cosmo had privately requested from 
 the government the privilege of sending annually to 
 the Spanish Indies two Leghorn merchantmen free 
 of duty, as a compensation for the loss of Galileo ! 
 
GALILEO. 71 
 
 The failure of this negotiation must have been a 
 source of extreme mortification to the high spirit 
 and sanguine temperament of Galileo. He had 
 calculated, however, too securely on his means of 
 putting the new method to a successful trial. The 
 great imperfection of the timekeepers of that day, 
 and the want of proper telescopes, would have baf- 
 fled him in all his efforts, and he -would have been 
 subject to a more serious mortification from the 
 failure and rejection of his plan than that which he 
 actually experienced from the avarice of his patron 
 or the indifference of Spain. Even in the present 
 day no telescope has been invented which is capa- 
 ble of observing at sea the eclipses of Jupiter's sat- 
 ellites ; and though this method of finding the lon- 
 gitude has great advantages on shore, yet it has 
 been completely abandoned at sea, and superseded 
 by easier and more correct methods. 
 
 In the year 1618, when no fewer than three com- 
 ets visited our system, and attracted the attention 
 of all the astronomers of Europe, Galileo was un- 
 fortunately confined to his bed by a severe illness ; 
 but, though he was unable to make a single obser- 
 vation upon these remarkable bodies, he contrived 
 to involve himself in the controversies which they 
 occasioned. Marco Guiducci, an astronomer of 
 Florence, and a friend of Galileo, had delivered a 
 discourse on comets before the Florentine Acade. 
 
72 GALILEO. 
 
 my. The heads of this discourse, which was pub- 
 lished in 1619,* were supposed to have been com- 
 municated to him by Galileo, and this seems to 
 have been universally admitted during the contro- 
 versy to which it gave rise. The opinion main- 
 tained in this treatise, that comets are nothing but 
 meteors which occasionally appear in our atmo- 
 sphere, like halos and rainbows, savours so little of 
 the sagacity of Galileo that we should be disposed 
 to question its paternity. His inability to partake 
 in the general interest which these three comets 
 excited, and to employ his powerful telescope in 
 observing their phenomena and their movements, 
 might have had some slight share in the formation 
 of an opinion which deprived them of their impor- 
 tance as celestial bodies. But, however this may 
 have been, the treatise of Guiducci afforded a fa- 
 vourable point of attack to Galileo's enemies, and 
 the dangerous task was intrusted to Horatio Gras- 
 si, a learned Jesuit, who, in a work entitled The 
 Astronomical and Philosophical Balance, criticised 
 the discourse on comets, under the feigned name of 
 Lotario Sarsi. 
 
 Galileo replied to this attack in a volume entitled 
 II Saggiatore, or The Assayer, which, owing to the 
 state of his health, was not published till the au- 
 
 * Discorso delle Comete. Printed in the Opere di Galileo, 
 vol. vi., p. 117-191. 
 
GALILEO. 73 
 
 tumn of 1623.* This work was written in the 
 form of a letter to Virginio Cesarini, a member of 
 the Lyncsean Academy, and master of the chamber 
 to Urban VIII., who had just ascended thfe papal 
 throne. It was dedicated to the pontiff himself, 
 and has been long celebrated among literary men 
 for the beauty of its language, though it is doubt- 
 less one of the least important of Galileo's writings. 
 
 * Printed in the Opere di Galileo, vol. vi., p. 191-571. 
 
 G 
 
74 GALILEO. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Urban VITI., Galileo's Friend, raised to the Pontificate. 
 Galileo goes to Rome to offer his Congratulations. The 
 Pope loads Galileo with Presents, and promises a Pension 
 to his Son. Galileo in pecuniary Difficulties, owing to the 
 Death of his Patron, Cosmo. Galileo again rashly attacks 
 the Church, notwithstanding the Pope's Kindness. He 
 composes his System of the World, to demonstrate the Co- 
 pernican System. Artfully obtains a License to print it. 
 Nature of the Work. Its Influence on the Public Mind. 
 The Pope resolves on suppressing it. Galileo summon- 
 ed before the Inquisition. His Trial. His Defence. His 
 formal Abjuration of his Opinions. Observations on his 
 Conduct. The Pope shows great Indulgence to Galileo, 
 who is allowed to return to his own House at Arcetri as 
 the Place of his Confinement. 
 
 THE succession of the Cardinal MafFeo Barberini 
 to the papal throne, under the name of Urban VIII., 
 was hailed by Galileo and his friends as an event 
 favourable to the promotion of science. Urban 
 had not only been the personal friend of Galileo 
 and of Prince Cesi, the founder of the Lyncsean 
 Academy, but had been intimately connected with 
 that able and liberal association, and it was there- 
 fore deemed prudent to secure his favour and at- 
 tachment. If Paul III. had, nearly a century be- 
 
GALILEO. 75 
 
 fore, patronised Copernicus and accepted of the 
 dedication of his great work, it was not unreason- 
 able to expect that, in more enlightened times, an- 
 other pontiff might exhibit the same liberality to 
 
 science. 
 
 The plan of securing to Galileo the patronage of 
 Urban VIII. seems to have been devised by Prince 
 Cesi. Although Galileo had not been able for 
 some years to travel excepting in a litter, yet he 
 was urged by the prince to perform a journey to 
 Rome, for the express purpose of congratulating 
 his friend upon his elevation to the papal chair. 
 This request was made in October, 1623 ; and 
 though Galileo's health was not such, as to author- 
 ize him to undergo so much fatigue, yet he felt the 
 importance of the advice, and, after visiting Cesi at 
 Acqua Sparta, he arrived at Rome in the spring of 
 1624. The reception which he here experienced 
 far exceeded his most sanguine expectations. Du- 
 ring the two months which he spent in the capital 
 he was permitted to have no fewer than six long 
 and gratifying audiences of the pope. The kind- 
 ness of his holiness was of the most marked de- 
 scription. He not only loaded Galileo with pres- 
 ents,* and promised him a pension for his son Vin- 
 cenzo, but he wrote a letter to Ferdinand, who had 
 
 * A fine painting in gold, and a silver medal, and a " good 
 quantity of Agnus Dei." 
 
76 GALILEO. 
 
 just succeeded Cosmo as Grand-duke of Tuscany, 
 recommending Galileo to his particular patronage. 
 " For we find in him," says he, " not only literary 
 distinction, but the love of piety ; and he is strong 
 in those qualities by which pontifical good. will is 
 easily obtained. And now, when he has been 
 brought to this city to congratulate us on our ele- 
 vation, we have very lovingly embraced him ; nor 
 can we suffer him to return to the country, whither 
 your liberality recalls him, without an ample pro- 
 vision of pontifical love. And that you may know 
 how dear he is to us, we have willed to give him 
 this honourable testimonial of virtue and piety. 
 And we farther signify, that every benefit which 
 you shall confer upon him, imitating or even sur- 
 passing your father's liberality, will conduce to our 
 gratification." 
 
 Not content with thus securing the friendship 
 of the pope, Galileo endeavoured to bespeak the 
 good-will of the cardinals towards the Copernican 
 system. He had, accordingly, many interviews 
 with several of these dignitaries ; and he was as- 
 sured by Cardinal Hohenzoller that, in a represent- 
 ation which he had made to the pope on the sub- 
 ject of Copernicus, he stated to his holiness " that, 
 as all the heretics considered that system as un- 
 doubted, it would be necessary to be very circum- 
 spect in coming to any resolution on the subject." 
 
GALILEO. 77 
 
 To this remark his holiness replied, " That the 
 Church had not condemned this system ; and that 
 it should not be condemned as heretical, but only 
 as rash;" and he added, "that there was no fear 
 of any person undertaking to prove that it must ne- 
 cessarily be true." 
 
 The recent appointment of the Abbe Castelli, 
 the friend and pupil of Galileo, to be mathematician 
 to the pope, was an event of a most gratifying na- 
 ture ; and when we recollect that it was to Castelli 
 that he addressed the famous letter which was pro. 
 nounced heretical by the Inquisition, we must re- 
 gard it also as an event indicative of a new and 
 favourable feeling towards the friend of science. 
 The opinions of Urban, indeed, had suffered no 
 change. He was one of the few cardinals who had 
 opposed the inquisitorial decree of 1616, and his 
 subsequent demeanour was in every respect con- 
 formable to the liberality of his early views. The 
 sincerity of his conduct was still farther evinced by 
 the grant of a pension of one hundred crowns to 
 Galileo a few years after his visit to Rome, though 
 there is reason to think that this allowance was not 
 regularly paid. 
 
 The death of Cosmo, whose liberality had given 
 
 him both affluence and leisure, threatened Galileo 
 
 with pecuniary difficulties. He had been involved 
 
 in a " great load of debt," owing to the circum- 
 
 G2 
 
78 GALILEO. 
 
 stances of his brother's family ; and. in order to re- 
 lieve himself, he had requested Castelli to dispose 
 of the pension of his son Vincenzo. In addition to 
 this calamity he was now alarmed at the prospect 
 of losing his salary as an extraordinary professor 
 at Pisa. The great youth of Ferdinand, who was 
 scarcely of age, induced Galileo's enemies, in 1629, 
 to raise doubts respecting the payment of a salary 
 to a professor who neither resided nor lectured in 
 the University ; but the question was decided in his 
 favour, and we have no doubt that the decision was 
 facilitated by the friendly recommendation of the 
 pope, to which we have already referred. 
 ' Although Galileo had made a narrow escape from 
 the grasp of the Inquisition, yet he was never suf- 
 ficiently sensible of the lenity which he experienced. 
 When he left Rome in 1616, under the solemn 
 pledge of never again teaching the obnoxious doc- 
 trine, it was with a hostility against the Church, 
 suppressed but deeply cherished ; and his resolu- 
 tion to propagate the heresy seems to have been 
 coeval with the vow by which he renounced it. In 
 the year 1618, when he communicated his theory 
 of the tides to the Archduke Leopold, he alludes in 
 the most sarcastic manner to the conduct of the 
 Church. The same hostile tone, more or less, per- 
 vaded all his writings ; and while he laboured to 
 sharpen the edge of his satire, he endeavoured to 
 
GALILEO. 79 
 
 guard himself against its effects by an affectation 
 of the humblest deference to the decisions of theol- 
 ogy. Had Galileo stood alone, his devotion to sci- 
 ence might have withdrawn him from so hopeless a 
 contest ; but he was spurred on by the violence of 
 a party. The Lyncsean Academy never scrupled 
 to summon him from his researches. They placed 
 him in the forlorn hope of their combat, and he at 
 last fell a victim to the rashness of his friends. 
 
 But, whatever allowance we may make for the 
 ardour of Galileo's temper and the peculiarity of 
 his position, and however we may justify and even 
 approve of his past conduct, his visit to Urban VIII., 
 in 1624, placed him in a new relation to the Church, 
 which demanded on his part a new and correspond- 
 ing demeanour. The noble and generous reception 
 which he met with from Urban, and the liberal dec- 
 laration of Cardinal Hohenzoller on the subject of 
 the Copernican system, should have been regarded 
 as expressions of regret for the past and offers of 
 conciliation for the future. ' Thus honoured by the 
 head of the Church, and befriended by its dignita- 
 ries, Galileo must have felt himself secure against 
 the indignities of its lesser functionaries, and in the 
 possession of the fullest license to^gsecute his re- 
 searches and publish his discoifl^P provided he 
 avoided that dogma of thejh^^hich, even in 
 the present day, it has noJJKturccl to renounce. 
 
80 GALILEO. 
 
 But Galileo was bound to the Romish hierarchy by 
 even stronger ties. His son and himself were pen- 
 sioners of the Church, and, having accepted of its 
 alms, they owed to it, at least, a decent and re- 
 spectful allegiance. The pension thus given by 
 Urban was not a remuneration which sovereigns 
 sometimes award to the services of their subjects. 
 Galileo was a foreigner at Rome. The sovereign 
 of the papal state owed him no obligation ; and 
 hence we must regard the pension of Galileo as a 
 donation from the Roman pontiff to science itself, 
 and as a declaration to the Christian world that re- 
 ligion was not jealous of philosophy, and that the 
 Church of Rome was willing to respect and foster 
 evsn the genius of its enemies. 
 
 Galileo viewed all these circumstances in a dif- 
 ferent light. He resolved to compose a work in 
 which the Copernican system should be demon- 
 strated ; but he had not the courage to do this in 
 a direct and open manner. He adopted the plan 
 of discussing the subject in a dialogue between 
 three speakers, in the hope of eluding by this arti- 
 fice the censure of the Church. This work was 
 completed in 1630, but, owing to some difficulties 
 in obtaining a license to print it, it was not pub- 
 lished till I6 
 
 In obtaining |his license Galileo exhibited con- 
 siderable add ressSMfcis memory has not escaped 
 
GALILEO. 81 
 
 from the imputation of having acted unfairly, and 
 of having involved his personal friends in the con- 
 sequences of his imprudence. 
 
 The situation of master of the palace was, for- 
 tunately for Galileo's designs, filled by Nicolo Ric- 
 cardi, a friend and pupil of his own. This officer 
 was a sort of censor of new publications, and when 
 he was applied to on the subject of printing his 
 work, Galileo soon found that attempts had pre- 
 viously been made to thwart his views. He in- 
 stantly set off for Rome, and had an interview with 
 his friend, who was in every respect anxious to 
 oblige him. Riccardi examined the manuscript, 
 pointed out some incautious expressions which he 
 considered it necessary to erase, and returned it 
 with his written approbation, on the understanding 
 that the alterations he suggested would be made. 
 Dreading to remain in Rome during the unhealthy 
 season, which was fast approaching, Galileo re- 
 turned to Florence, with the intention of completing 
 the index .and dedication, and of sending the MS. 
 to Rome, to be printed under the care of Prince 
 Cesi. The death of that distinguished individual, 
 in August, 1630, frustrated Galileo's plan, and he 
 applied for leave to have the book printed in Flor- 
 ence. Riccardi was at first desirous of examining 
 the MS. again ; but, after inspecting only the begin- 
 ning and the end of it, h^gave Galileo leave to 
 
 [ of it,h^ 
 
82 GALILEO. 
 
 print it wherever he chose, providing it bore the 
 license of the Inquisitor-general of Florence, and 
 one or two other persons whom he named. 
 
 Having overcome all these difficulties, Galileo's 
 work was published in 1632, under the title of 
 The System of the World of Galileo Galilei, &c., 
 in which, in four dialogues concerning the two prin- 
 cipal systems of the world the Ptolemaic and the 
 Copernican he discusses, indeterminately and 
 firmly, the arguments proposed on both sides." It 
 is dedicated to Ferdinand, grand-duke of Tuscany, 
 and is prefaced by an " address to the prudent 
 reader," which is itself characterized by the utmost 
 imprudence. He refers to the decree of the Inqui- 
 sition in the most insulting and ironical language. 
 He attributes it to passion and to ignorance, not by 
 direct assertion, but by insinuations ascribed to 
 others ; and/ he announces his intention to defend 
 the Copernican system as a pure mathematical 
 hypothesis, and not as an opinion having an ad- 
 vantage over that of the stability of the earth abso- 
 lutely. The dialogue is conducted by three per- 
 sons, Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio. Salviati, 
 who is the true philosopher in the dialogue, was 
 the real name of a nobleman whom we have al- 
 ready had occasion to mention. Sagredo, the name 
 of another noble friend of Galileo's, performs a sec. 
 ondary part under Salviati. He proposes doubts, 
 
 SaMati. He 
 
GALILEO. 83 
 
 suggests difficulties, and enlivens the gravity of the 
 dialogue with his wit and pleasantry. Simplicio 
 is a resolute follower of Ptolemy and Aristotle, and, 
 with a proper degree of candour and modesty, he 
 brings forward all the common arguments in fa- 
 vour of the Ptolemaic system. Between the wit of 
 Sagredo and the powerful philosophy of Salviati, 
 the peripatetic sage is baffled in every discussion ; 
 and' there can be no doubt that Galileo aimed a 
 more fatal blow at the Ptolemaic system by this 
 mode of discussing it, than if he had endeavoured 
 to overturn it by direct arguments. 
 
 The influence of this work on the public mind 
 was such as might have been anticipated. The ob- 
 noxious doctrines which it upheld were eagerly re- 
 ceived and widely disseminated ; and the Church of 
 Rome became sensible of the shock which was thus 
 given to its intellectual supremacy. Pope Urban 
 VIII., attached though he had been to Galileo, nev- 
 er once hesitated respecting the line of conduct 
 which he felt himself bound to pursue. His mind 
 was nevertheless agitated with conflicting senti- 
 ments. He entertained a sincere affection for sci- 
 ence and literature, and yet he was placed in the po- 
 sition of their enemy. He had been the personal 
 friend of Galileo, and yet his duty compelled him 
 to become his accuser. Embarrassing as these feel- 
 ings were, other considerations contributed to sooth 
 
84 GALILEO. 
 
 him. He had, in his capacity of a cardinal, oppo- 
 sed the first persecution of Galileo. He had, since 
 his elevation to the pontificate, traced an open path 
 for the march of Galileo's discoveries ; and he had 
 finally endeavoured to bind the recusant philosopher 
 by the chains of kindness and gratitude. All these 
 means, however, had proved abortive, and he was 
 now called upon to support the doctrine which he 
 had subscribed, and administer the law of which he 
 was the guardian. 
 
 It has been supposed, without any satisfactory 
 evidence, that Urban may have been influenced by 
 less creditable motives. Salviati and Sagredo being 
 well-known personages, it was inferred that Sim- 
 plicio must also have a representative. The ene- 
 mies of Galileo are said to have convinced his holi- 
 ness that Simplicio was intended as a portraiture of 
 himself ; and this opinion received some probabili- 
 ty from the fact that the peripatetic disputant had 
 employed many of the arguments which Urban had 
 himself used in his discussions with Galileo. The 
 latest biographer of Galileo* regards this motive 
 as necessary to account for " the otherwise inexpli* 
 cable change which took place in the conduct of 
 Urban to his old friend ;" but we cannot admit the 
 truth of this supposition. The Church had been 
 placed in hostility to a powerful and liberal party, 
 * Library of Useful Knowledge, Life of Galileo, chap. viii. 
 
GALILEO. 85 
 
 which was adverse to its interests. The dogmas 
 of the Catholic faith had been brought into direct 
 collision with the deductions of science. The lead- 
 er of the philosophic band had broken the most sol. 
 emn armistice with the Inquisition : he had renoun- 
 ced the ties of gratitude which bound him to the 
 pontiff ; and Urban was thus compelled to intrench 
 himself in a position to which he had been driven 
 bj his opponents. 
 
 The design of summoning Galileo before the 
 Inquisition seems to have been formed almost im- 
 mediately after the publication of his book ; for 
 even in August, 1632, the preliminary proceedings 
 had reached the ears of the Grand-duke Ferdinand. 
 The Tuscan ambassador at Rome was speedily ac- 
 quainted with the dissatisfaction which his sover- 
 eign felt at these proceedings ; and he was instruct- 
 ed to forward to Florence a written statement of 
 the charges against Galileo, in order to enable him 
 to prepare for his defence. Although this request 
 was denied, Ferdinand again interposed, and trans- 
 mitted a letter to hte ambassador, recommending 
 the admission of Campanella and Castelli into the 
 congregation of ecclesiastics 'by whom Galileo was 
 to be- judged. Circumstances, however, rendered 
 it prudent to withhold this letter. Castelli was sent 
 away from Rome, and Scipio Chiaramonte, a bigot- 
 H 
 
86 GALILEO. 
 
 ed ecclesiastic, was summoned from Pisa to com- 
 plete the number of the judges. 
 
 It appears from a despatch of the Tuscan minis- 
 ter that Ferdinand was enraged at the transaction ; 
 and he instructed his ambassador, Niccolini, to 
 make the strongest representations to the pope. 
 Niccolini had several interviews with his holiness, 
 but all his expostulations were fruitless. He found 
 Urban highly incensed against Galileo ; and his 
 holiness begged Niccolini to advise the archduke 
 not to interfere any farther, as he would not " get 
 through it with honour." On the 15th of Septem- 
 ber the pope caused it to be intimated to Niccolini, 
 as a mark of his especial esteem for the grand-duke, 
 that he was obliged to refer the work to the Inqui- 
 sition ; but both the prince and his ambassador 
 were declared liable to the usual censures if they 
 divulged the secret. 
 
 From the measures which this tribunal had for. 
 merly pursued, it was not difficult to foresee the re- 
 sult of their present deliberations. They summon- 
 ed Galileo to appear before tfcpm at Rome, to an- 
 swer in person the charges under which he Jay. 
 The Tuscan ambassador expostulated warmly with 
 the court of Rome on the inhumanity of this pro- 
 ceeding. He urged his advanced age, his infirm 
 health, the discomforts of the journey, and the mis- 
 
GALILEO. 87 
 
 eries of the quarantine,* as motives for reconsider- 
 ing their decision : buV'the pope was inexorable ; 
 and though it was agreed to relax the quarantine as 
 much as possible in his favour, yet it was declared 
 indispensable that he should appear in person be- 
 fore the Inquisition. 
 
 Worn out with age and infirmities, and exhaust- 
 ed with the fatigues of his journey, Galileo arrived 
 at Rome on the 14th of February, 1633. The 
 Tuscan ambassador announced his arrival in an 
 official form to the commissary of the Holy Office, 
 and Galileo awaited in calm dignity the approach 
 of his trial. Among those who proffered their ad. 
 vice in this distressing emergency we must enu- 
 merate the Cardinal Barberino, the pope's nephew, 
 who, though he may have felt the necessity of an 
 interference on the part of the Church, was yet de- 
 sirous that it should be effected with the least inju- 
 ry to Galileo and to science. He accordingly vis- 
 ited Galileo, and advised him to remain as much at 
 home as possible, to keep aloof from general society, 
 and to see only his most intimate friends. The 
 same advice was given from different quarters ; 
 and Galileo, feeling its propriety, remained in strict 
 seclusion in the palace of the Tuscan ambassador. 
 
 * The communication between Florence and Rome was at 
 this time interrupted by a contagious disease which had broken 
 out in Tuscany. 
 
88 GALILEO. 
 
 During the whole of the trial which had now 
 commenced, Galileo was treated with the most 
 marked indulgence. Abhorring, as we must do, 
 the principles and practice of this odious tribunal, 
 and reprobating its interference with the cautious 
 deductions of science, we must yet admit that, on 
 this occasion, its deliberations were not dictated by 
 passion, nor its power directed by vengeance. 
 Though placed at their judgment-seat as a heretic, 
 Galileo stood there with the recognised attributes 
 of a sage ; and though an offender against the laws 
 of which they were the guardian, yet the highest 
 respect was yielded to his genius, and the kindest 
 commiseration to his infirmities. 
 
 In the beginning of April, when his examination 
 in person was to commence, it became necessary 
 that he should be removed to the Holy Office ; but 
 instead of committing him, as was the practice, to 
 solitary confinement, he was provided with apart- 
 ments in the house of the fiscal of the Inquisition. 
 His table was provided by the Tuscan ambassador, 
 and his servant was allowed to attend him at his 
 pleasure, and to sleep in an adjoining apartment. 
 Even this nominal confinement, however, Galileo's 
 high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the 
 disease to which he was constitutionally subject 
 contributed to fret and irritate him, and he became 
 impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as 
 
GALILEO. 89 
 
 from his bondage. Cardinal Barberino seems to 
 have received notice of the state of Galileo's feel- 
 ings, and, with a magnanimity which posterity will 
 ever honour, he liberated the philosopher on his 
 own responsibility ; and in ten days after his first 
 examination, and on the last day of April, he was 
 restored to the hospitable roof of the Tuscan am- 
 bassador. 
 
 Though this favour was granted on the condition 
 of his remaining in strict seclusion, Galileo recov- 
 ered his health, and, to a certain degree, his usual 
 hilarity, amid the kind attentions of Niccolini and 
 his family ; and when the want of exercise had 
 begun to produce symptoms of indisposition, the 
 Tuscan minister obtained for him leave to go into 
 the public gardens in a half-closed carriage. 
 
 After the Inquisition had examined Galileo per- 
 sonally, they allowed him a reasonable time for 
 preparing his defence. He felt the difficulty of 
 adducing anything like a plausible justification of 
 his conduct ; and he resorted to an ingenious, 
 though a shallow artifice, which was regarded by 
 the court as an aggravation of the crime. After 
 his first appearance before the Inquisition in 1616, 
 he was publicly and falsely charged by his enemies 
 with having then abjured his opinions, and he was 
 taunted as a criminal who had been actually pun- 
 ished for his offences. As a refutation of these 
 H2 
 
90 GALILEO. 
 
 calumnies, Cardinal Bellarmine had given him a 
 certificate in his own handwriting, declaring that 
 he neither abjured his opinions, nor suffered pun- 
 ishment for them; and that the doctrine of the 
 earth's motion and the sun's stability was only de- 
 nounced to him as contrary to Scripture, and as 
 one which could not be defended. To this certifi- 
 cate the cardinal did not add, because he was not 
 called upon to do it, that Galileo was enjoined not 
 to teach in any manner the doctrine thus denounced ; 
 and Galileo ingeniously avails himself of this sup- 
 posed omission to account for his having, in the 
 lapse of fourteen or sixteen years, forgotten the in- 
 junction. He assigned the same excuse for his 
 having omitted to mention this injunction to Ric- 
 cardi, and to the inquisitor-general at Florence, 
 when he obtained the license to print his Dialogues. 
 The court held the production of this certificate to 
 be at once a proof and an aggravation of his of. 
 fence, because the certificate itself declared that 
 the obnoxious doctrines had been pronounced con- 
 trary to the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 Having duly weighed the confessions and excu- 
 ses of their prisoner, and considered the general 
 merits of the case, the Inquisition came to an 
 agreement upon the sentence which they were to 
 pronounce, and appointed the 22d of June as the 
 day on which it. was to be delivered. Two days 
 
GALILEO. 91 
 
 previous to this Galileo was summoned to appear 
 at the Holy Office, and on the morning of the 21st 
 he obeyed the summons. On the 22d of June he 
 was clothed in a penitential dress, and conducted 
 to the convent of Minerva, where the Inquisition 
 was assembled to give judgment. A long and 
 elaborate sentence was pronounced, detailing the 
 former proceedings of the Inquisition, and specify- 
 ing the offences which he had committed in teach- 
 ing heretical doctrines, in violating his former 
 pledges, and in obtaining by improper means a li- 
 cense for the printing of his Dialogues. After an 
 invocation of the name of our Saviour and of the 
 Holy Virgin, Galileo is declared to have brought 
 himself under strong suspicions of heresy, and to 
 have incurred all the censures and penalties which 
 are enjoined against delinquents of this kind ; but 
 from all these consequences he is to be held absolv- 
 ed, 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. In order that his of- 
 fence might not go altogether unpunished, that h^ 
 might be more cautious in future, and be a warn- 
 ing to others to abstain from similar delinquencies, 
 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 du- 
 
92 GALILEO. 
 
 ring their pleasure, and that, in the course of the 
 next three years, he should recite once a week the 
 seven penitential psalms. 
 
 The ceremony of Galileo's abjuration was one 
 of exciting interest and of awful formality. Cloth- 
 ed in the sackcloth of a repentant criminal, the 
 venerable sage fell upon his knees before the as. 
 sembled cardinals ; and, laying his hands upon the 
 Holy Evangelists, he invoked the^Divine aid in ab. 
 juring and detesting, and vowing never again to \ 
 teach, the doctrine of the earth's motion and of the 
 sun's stability. He pledged himself that he would 
 never again, either in words or in writing, propa- 
 gate such heresies; and he swore that he would 
 fulfil and observe the penances which had been in- 
 flicted upon him.* At the conclusion of this cere- 
 mony, in which he recited his abjuration word for 
 word, and then signed it, he was conveyed, in con- 
 formity with his sentence, to the prison of the In- 
 quisition. 
 
 The account which we have now given of the 
 trial and the sentence of Galileo is pregnant with 
 the deepest interest and instruction. Human na- 
 
 * It has been said, but upon what authority we cannot state, 
 that when Galileo rose from his knees, he stamped on the 
 ground, and said in a whisper to one of his friends, " E pur 
 si muove." "It does move, though." Life of Galileo, Lib. 
 Useful Knowledge, part ii., p. 63. 
 
GALILEO. 93 
 
 ture is here drawn in its darkest colouring ; and in 
 surveying the melancholy picture, it is difficult to 
 decide whether religion or philosophy has *been 
 most degraded. While we witness the presumptu- 
 ous priest pronouncing infallible the decrees of his 
 own erring judgment, we see the high-minded phi- 
 losopher abjuring the eternal and immutable truths 
 which he had himself the glory of establishing. 
 In the ignorance and prejudices of the age in a 
 too literal interpretation of the language of Scrip- 
 ture in a mistaken respect for the errors that 
 had become venerable from their antiquity and 
 in the peculiar position which Galileo had taken 
 among the avowed enemies of the Church, we may 
 find the elements of an apology, poor though it be, 
 for the conduct of the Inquisition. But what ex- 
 cuse can we devise for the humiliating confession 
 and abjuration of Galileo ? Why did this master- 
 spirit of the age this high-priest of the stars 
 this representative of science this hoary sage, 
 whose career of glory was near its consummation 
 why did he reject the crown of martyrdom which 
 he had himself coveted, and which, plaited with im- 
 mortal laurels, was about to descend upon his head ? 
 If, in place of disavowing the laws of Nature, and 
 surrendering in his own person the intellectual dig- 
 nity of his species, he had boldly asserted the truth 
 of his opinions, and confided his character to pos- 
 
94 GALILEO. 
 
 terity, and his cause to an all-ruling Providence, he 
 would have strung up the hair-suspended sabre, and 
 disarmed forever the hostility which threatened to 
 overwhelm him. The philosopher, however, was 
 supported only by philosophy ; and in the love of 
 truth he found a miserable substitute for the hopes 
 of the martyr. Galileo cowered under the fear of 
 man, and his submission was the salvation of the 
 Church. The sword of the Inquisition descended 
 on his prostrate neck ; and though its stroke was 
 not physical, yet it fell with a moral influence fa- 
 tal to the character of its victim and to the dignity 
 of science. 
 
 In studying with attention this portion of scien- 
 tific history, the reader will not fail to perceive 
 that the Church of Rome was driven into a dilem- 
 ma, from which the submission and abjuration of 
 Galileo could alone extricate it. He who confess- 
 es a crime and denounces its atrocity, not only 
 sanctions, but inflicts the punishment which is an- 
 nexed to it. Had Galileo declared his innocence 
 and avowed his sentiments, and had he appealed to 
 the past conduct of the Church itself, to the ac- 
 knowledged opinions of its dignitaries, and even to 
 the acts of its pontiffs, he would have at once con- 
 founded his accusers and escaped from their toils. 
 After Copernicus, himself a Catholic priest, had 
 openly maintained the motion of the earth and tho 
 
GALILEO. 95 
 
 stability of the sun; after he had dedicated the 
 work which advocated these opinions to Pope Paul 
 III., on the express ground that the authority of the 
 pontiff might silence the calumnies of those who 
 attacked these opinions by arguments drawn from 
 Scripture ; after the Cardinal Schonberg and the 
 Bishop of Culm had urged Copernicus to publish 
 the new doctrines ; and after the Bishop of Erme- 
 land had erected a monument to commemorate his 
 great discoveries, how could the Church of Rome 
 have appealed to its pontifical decrees as the ground 
 of persecuting and punishing Galileo? Even in 
 later times the same doctrines had been propaga- 
 ted with entire toleration : nay, in the very year of 
 Galileo's first persecution, Paul Anthony Fosca- 
 rinus, a learned Carmelite monk, wrote a pamphlet, 
 in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of 
 the earth, and endeavours to reconcile to this new 
 doctrine the passages of Scripture which had been 
 employed to subvert it. This very singular pro- 
 duction was dated from the Carmelite convent at 
 Naples ; was dedicated to the very reverend Se- 
 bastian Fantoni, general of the Carmelite order; 
 and, sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities, it 
 was published at Naples in 1615, the very year of 
 the first persecution of Galileo. 
 
 Nor was this the only defence of the Copernican 
 system which issued from the bosom of the Church. 
 
96 GALILEO. 
 
 Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, published 
 in 1622 " An Apology for Galileo" and he even 
 dedicates it to D. Boniface, cardinal of Cajeta. 
 Nay, it appears from the dedication that he under- 
 took the work at the command of the cardinal, and 
 that the examination of the question had been in- 
 trusted to the cardinal by the Holy Senate. After 
 an able defence of his friend, Campanella refers, at 
 the conclusion of his apology, to the. suppression of 
 Galileo's writings, and justly observes that the ef- 
 fect of such a measure would be to make them more 
 generally read and more highly esteemed. The 
 boldness of the apologist, however, is wisely tem- 
 pered with the humility of the ecclesiastic ; and he 
 concludes his work with the declaration, that in all 
 his opinions, whether written or to be written, he 
 submits himself to the opinions of the Holy Mother 
 Church of Rome and to the judgment of his su- 
 periors. 
 
 By these proceedings of the dignitaries, as well 
 as the clergy of the Church of Rome, which had 
 been tolerated for more than a century, the decrees 
 of the pontiffs against the doctrine of the earth's 
 motion were virtually repealed, and Galileo might 
 have pleaded them with success in arrest of judg- 
 ment. Unfortunately, however, for himself and for 
 science, he acted otherwise. By admitting their 
 authority, he revived in fresh force these obsolete 
 
GALILEO. 97 
 
 and obnoxious enactments ; and by yielding to their 
 power, he riveted for another century the almost 
 broken chains of spiritual despotism. 
 
 It is a curious fact in the annals of heresy and 
 sedition, that opinions maintained with impunity by 
 one individual, have, in the same age, brought oth- 
 ers to the stake or to the scaffold. The results of 
 deep research or extravagant speculation seldom 
 provoke hostility when meekly announced as the de* 
 ductions of reason or the convictions of conscience. 
 As the dreams of a recluse or of an enthusiast, 
 they may excite pity or call forth contempt ; but, 
 like seed quietly cast into the earth, they will rot 
 and germinate according to the vitality with which 
 they are endowed. But if new and startling opin- 
 ions are thrown in the face of the community if 
 they are uttered in triumph or in insult in con- 
 tempt of public opinion, or in derision of cherished 
 errors, they lose the comeliness of truth in the ran* 
 cour of their propagation ; and they are like seed 
 scattered in a hurricane, which only irritates and 
 blinds the husbandman. [ Had Galileo concluded 
 his System of the World with the quiet peroration 
 of his apologist Campanella, and dedicated it to the 
 pope, it might have stood in the library of the Vat- 
 ican beside the cherished though equally heretical 
 volume of Copernicus/ 
 
 In the abjuration of his opinions by Galileo Pope 
 I 
 
98 GALILEO. 
 
 Urban VIII. did not fail to observe the full extent 
 of his triumph, and he, exhibited the utmost sagaci- 
 ty in the means which he employed to secure it. 
 While he endeavoured to overawe the enemies of 
 the Church by the formal promulgation of Galileo's 
 sentence and abjuration, and by punishing the offi- 
 cials who had assisted in obtaining the license to 
 print his work, he treated Galileo with the utmost 
 lenity, and yielded to every request that was made 
 to diminish, and almost suspend, the constraint 
 under which he lay. The sentence of abjuration 
 was ordered to be publicly read at several univer- 
 sities. At Florence the ceremonial was performed 
 in the Church of Sante Croce, and the friends and 
 disciples of Galileo were especially summoned to 
 witness the public degradation of their master. 
 The inquisitor at Florence was ordered to be rep- 
 rimanded for his conduct ; and Riccardi, the mas- 
 ter of the sacred palace, and Ciampoli, the secre- 
 tary of Pope Urban himself, were dismissed from 
 their situations. 
 
 Galileo had remained only four days in the pris- 
 on of the Inquisition, when, on the application of 
 Niccolini, the Tuscan ambassador, he was allowed 
 to reside with him in his palace. As Florence still 
 suffered under the contagious disease which we 
 have already mentioned, it was proposed that Si- 
 enna should be the place of Galileo's confinement, 
 
GAtlLEO. 99 
 
 and that his residence should be in one of the con- 
 vents- of that city. Niccolini, however, recom- 
 mended the palace of the Archbishop Piccolomini 
 as a more suitable residence ; and though the arch- 
 bishop was one of Galileo's best friends, the pope 
 agreed to the arrangement, and in the beginning of 
 July Galileo quitted Rome for Sienna. 
 
 After having spent nearly six months under the 
 hospitable roof of his friend, with no other re- 
 straint than that of being confined to the limits of 
 the palace, Galileo was permitted to return to his 
 villa near Florence under the same restrictions ; 
 and as the contagious disease had disappeared in 
 Tuscany, he was able, in the month of December, 
 to re-enter his own house at Arcetri, where he 
 spent the remainder of his days. 
 
100 GALILfeO. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Galileo loses his favourite Daughter. He falls into a state of 
 Melancholy and ill Health. Is allowed to go to Florence 
 for its Recovery in 1638, but is prevented from leaving his 
 House or receiving his Friends. His Friend Castelli per- 
 mitted to visit him in the Presence of an Officer of the In- 
 quisition. He composes his celebrated Dialogues on Local 
 Motion. Discovers the Moon's Libration. Loses the Sight 
 of one Eye. The other Eye attacked by the same Disease. 
 Is struck Blind. Negotiates with the Dutch Government 
 respecting his Method of finding the Longitude. He is al- 
 lowed free Intercourse with his Friends. His Illness and 
 Death in 1642. His Epitaph. His Social, Moral, and Sci- 
 entific Character. 
 
 ALTHOUGH Galileo had now the happiness of re- 
 joining his family under their paternal- roof, yet, 
 like all sublunary blessings, it was but of short du- 
 ration. His favourite daughter Maria, who, along 
 with her sister, had joined the convent of St. Mat- 
 thew in the neighbourhood of Arcetri, had looked 
 forward to the arrival of her father with the most 
 affectionate anticipations. She hoped that her fil- 
 ial devotion might form some compensation for the 
 malignity of his enemies, and she eagerly assumed 
 the labour of reciting weekly the seven penitentiary 
 psalms which formed part of her father's sentence. 
 
GALILEO. 101 
 
 These sacred duties, however, wer,e destined to 
 terminate almost at the moment they jvere begun. 
 She was seized with a fatal illness in the same, 
 month in which she rejoined her parent, and btiferj 
 the month of April she was no more. This heavy 
 blow, so suddenly struck, overwhelmed Galileo in 
 the deepest agony. Owing to the decline of his 
 health and the recurrence of his old complaints, 
 he was unable to oppose to this mental suffering 
 the constitutional energy of his mind. The bul- 
 warks of his heart broke down, and a flood of 
 grief desolated his manly and powerful mind. He 
 felt, as he expressed it, that he was incessantly 
 called by his daughter ; his pulse intermitted ; his 
 heart was agitated with unceasing palpitations ; his 
 appetite entirely left him, and he considered his 
 dissolution so near at hand that he would not per- 
 mit his son Vicenzo to set out upon a journey 
 which he had contemplated. 
 
 From this state of melancholy and indisposition 
 Galileo slowly, though partially recovered, and, 
 with the view of obtaining medical assistance, he 
 requested leave to go to Florence. His enemies, 
 however, refused this application, and he was given 
 to understand that any additional importunities 
 would be visited with a more vigilant surveillance. 
 He remained, therefore, five years at Arcetri, from 
 1634 to 1638, without any remission of his con- 
 12 
 
102 GALILEO. 
 
 finement, and pursuing his studies under the influ- 
 ence cf a continued and general indisposition. 
 
 There is no reason to think that Galileo or his 
 friends renewed their application to the Church of 
 Rome ; but in 1638 the pope transmitted, through 
 the inquisitor Fariano, his permission that he 
 might remove to Florence for the recovery of his 
 health, on the condition that he should present him. 
 self at the office of the inquisitor to learn the terms 
 upon which this indulgence was granted. Galileo 
 accepted of the kindness thus unexpectedly proffer- 
 ed. But the conditions upon which it was given 
 were more severe than he expected. He was pro- 
 hibited from leaving his house or admitting his 
 friends ; and so sternly was this system pursued, 
 that he required a special order for attending mass 
 during Passion Week. 
 
 The severity of this order was keenly felt by 
 Galileo. While he remained at Arcetri, his seclu- 
 sion from the world would have been an object of 
 choice if it had not been the decree of a tribunal ; 
 but to be debarred from the conversation of his 
 friends in Florence in that city where his genius 
 had been idolized and where his fame had become 
 immortal was an aggravation of punishment which 
 he was unable to bear. With his accustomed kind, 
 ness, the grand-duke made a strong representation 
 on the subject to his ambassador at the court of 
 
GALILEO. 103 
 
 Rome. He stated that, from his great age and in- 
 firmities, Galileo's career was near its close ; that 
 he possessed many valuable ideas, which the world 
 might lose if they were not matured and conveyed 
 to his friends ; and that Galileo was anxious to 
 make these communications to Father Castelli, who 
 was then a stipendiary of the court of Rome. The 
 grand-duke commanded his ambassador to see Cas. 
 telli on the subject ; to urge him to obtain leave 
 from the pope to spend a few months in Florence ; 
 and to supply him with money and everything that 
 was necessary for his journey. Influenced by this 
 kind and liberal message, Castelli obtained an au- 
 dience of the pope, and requested leave to pay a 
 visit to Florence. Urban -instantly suspected the 
 object of his journey ; and, upon Castelli's acknowl- 
 edging that he could not possibly refrain from see- 
 ing Galileo, he received permission to visit him in 
 the company of an officer of the Inquisition. Cas- 
 telli accordingly went to Florence, and a few 
 months afterward Galileo was ordered to return to 
 Arcetri. 
 
 During Galileo's confinement at Sienna and Ar- 
 cetri, between 1633 and 1638, his time was prin- 
 cipally occupied in the composition of his " Dia- 
 logues on Local Motion," in which he treats of the 
 strength and cohesion of solid bodies, of the laws 
 of uniform and accelerated motions, of the motion 
 
104 GALILEO. 
 
 of projectiles, and of the centre of gravity of solids. 
 This remarkable work, which was considered by 
 its author as the best of his productions, was print- 
 ed by Louis Elzevir at Amsterdam, and dedicated 
 to the Count de Noailles, the French ambassador 
 at Rome. Various attempts to have it printed in 
 Germany had failed ; and, in order to save himself 
 from the malignity of his enemies, he was obliged 
 to pretend that the edition published in Holland had 
 been printed from a MS. intrusted to the French 
 ambassador. 
 
 Although Galileo had for a long time abandoned 
 his astronomical studies, yet his attention was di- 
 rected, about the year 1636, to a curious appear- 
 ance in the lunar disk, which is known by the name 
 of the moon's libration. When we examine with 
 a telescope the outline of the moon, we observe that 
 certain parts of her disk, which are seen at one 
 time, are invisible at another. This change or li- 
 bration is of four different kinds, viz., the diurnal 
 libration, the libration in longitude, the libration in 
 latitude, and the spheroidal libration. Galileo dis- 
 covered the first of these kinds of libration, and ap- 
 pears to have had some knowledge of the second ; 
 but the third was discovered by Hevelius, and the 
 fourth by Lagrange. 
 
 This curious discovery was- the result of the last 
 telescopic observations of Galileo. Although his 
 
GALILEO. 105 
 
 right eye had for some years lost its power^ yet his 
 general vision was sufficiently perfect to enable him 
 to carry on his usual researches. In 1636, how- 
 ever, this affection of his eye became more serious, 
 and in 1637 his left eye was attacked with the 
 same disease. His medical friends at first sup- 
 posed that cataracts were formed in the crystalline 
 lens, and anticipated a cure from the operation of 
 couching. These hopes were fallacious. The dis- 
 ease turned out to be in the cornea, and every at- 
 tempt to restore its transparency was fruitless. 
 In a few months the white cloud covered the whole 
 aperture of the pupil, and Galileo became totally 
 blind. This sudden and unexpected calamity had 
 almost overwhelmed Galileo and his friends. In 
 writing to a correspondent he exclaims, " Alas ! 
 your dear friend and servant has become totally 
 and irreparably blind. These heavens, this earth, 
 this universe, which by wonderful observation I had 
 enlarged a thousand times beyond the belief of past 
 ages, are henceforth shrunk into the narrow space 
 which I myself occupy. So it pleases God; it 
 shall therefore please me also." His friend, Fa- 
 ther Castelli, deplores the calamity in the same 
 tone of pathetic sublimity : " The noblest eye," 
 says he, " which Nature ever made is darkened ; 
 an eye so privileged, and gifted with such rare pow- 
 ers, that it may truly be said to have seen more 
 
106 GALILEO. 
 
 than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have 
 opened the eyes of all that are to come." 
 
 Although Galileo had been thwarted in his at- 
 tempt to introduce into the Spanish marine his new 
 method of finding the longitude at sea, yet he never 
 lost sight of an object to which he attached the 
 highest importance. As the formation of correct 
 tables of the motion of Jupiter's satellites was a ne- 
 cessary preliminary to its introduction, he had oc- 
 cupied himself for twenty -four years in observations 
 for this purpose, and he had made considerable 
 progress in this laborious task. After the publica- 
 tion of his " Dialogues on Motion" in 1636, he re- 
 newed his attempts to bring his method into actual 
 use. For this purpose he addressed himself to 
 Lorenzo Real, who had been the Dutch governor- 
 general in India, and offered the free use of his 
 method to the States-general of Holland.* The 
 
 * It is a carious fact, that Morin had about this time pro- 
 posed to determine the longitude by the moon's distance from 
 a fixed star, and that the commissioners assembled in Paris to 
 examine it requested Galileo's opinion of its value and practi- 
 cability. Galileo's opinion was highly unfavourable. He saw 
 clearly, and explained distinctly, the objection to Morin's 
 method, arising from the imperfection of the lunar tables, and 
 the inadequacy of astronomical instruments ; but he seemed 
 not to be conscious that the very same objections applied with 
 eyen greater force to his own method, which has since been 
 
GALILEO. 107 
 
 Dutch government received this proposal with an 
 anxious desire to have it carried into effect. At 
 the instigation of Constantine Huygens, the father 
 of the illustrious Huygens, and the secretary to the 
 Prince of Orange, they appointed commissioners to 
 communicate with Galileo ; and while they trans- 
 mitted him a gold chain as a mark of. their esteem, 
 they at the same time assured him that, if his plan 
 should prove successful, it would not pass unreward- 
 ed. The commissioners entered into an active 
 correspondence with Galileo, and had even appoint- 
 ed one of their number to communicate personally 
 with him in Italy. Lest this, however, should ex- 
 cite the jealousy of the court of Rome, Galileo ob- 
 jected to the arrangement, so that the negotiation 
 was carried on solely by correspondence. 
 
 It was at this time that Galileo was struck with 
 blindness. His friend and pupil, Renieri, under- 
 took in this emergency to arrange and complete 
 his observations and calculations ; but, before he 
 had made much progress in the arduous task, each 
 of the four commissioners died in succession, and 
 it was with great difficulty that Constantine Huy- 
 gens succeeded in renewing the scheme. It was 
 again obstructed, however, by the death of Galileo ; 
 and when Renieri was about to publish, by the or- 
 
 supplanted by that of the French savant. See Life of Galileo, 
 Library of Useful Knowledge, p. 94. 
 
108 GALILEO. 
 
 der of the grand-duke, the " Ephemeris" and " Ta- 
 bles of the Jovian Planets," he was attacked with 
 a mortal disease, and the manuscripts of Galileo, 
 which he was on the eve of publishing, were never 
 more heard of. By such a series of misfortunes 
 were the plans of Galileo and of the States-general 
 completely overthrown. It is some consolation, 
 however, to know that neither science nor naviga- 
 tion suffered any severe loss. Notwithstanding 
 the perfection of our present tables of Jupiter's sat- 
 ellites, and of the astronomical instruments by which 
 their eclipse may be observed, the method of Gal- 
 ileo is still impracticable at sea. 
 
 In consequence of the strict seclusion to which 
 Galileo had been subjected, he was in the practice 
 of dating his letters from his prison at Arcetri ; but 
 after he had lost the use of his eyes, the Inquisition 
 seems to have relaxed its severity, and to have al- 
 lowed him the freest intercourse with his friends. 
 The Grand-duke of Tuscany paid him frequent vis- 
 its ; and among the celebrated strangers who came 
 from distant lands to see the ornament of Italy, 
 were Gassendi, Deodati, and our illustrious coun- 
 tryman Milton. During the last three years of his 
 life, his eminent pupil Viviani formed one of his 
 family ; and in October, 1641, the celebrated Tor- 
 ricelli, another of his pupils, was admitted to the 
 same distinction. 
 
GALILEO. 109 
 
 Though the powerful mind of Galileo still retain- 
 ed its vigour, yet his debilitated frame was exhaust- 
 ed with mental labour. He often complained that 
 his head was too busy for his body, and that the 
 continuity of his studies was frequently broken with 
 attacks of hypochondria, want of sleep, and acute 
 rheumatic pains. Along with these calamities he 
 was afflicted with another still more severe with 
 deafness almost total ; but though he was now ex- 
 cluded from all communication with the external 
 world, yet his mind still grappled with the material 
 universe ; and while he was studying the force of 
 percussion, and preparing for a continuation of his 
 " Dialogues on Motion," he was attacked with fever 
 and palpitation of the heart, which, after continuing 
 two months, terminated fatally on the 8th of Janu- 
 ary, 1642, in the 78th year of his age. 
 
 Having died in the character of a prisoner of 
 the Inquisition, this odious tribunal disputed his 
 right of making a will and of being buried in con- 
 secrated ground. These objections, however, were 
 withdrawn; but though a large sum was subscri- 
 bed for erecting a monument to him in the Church 
 of Santa Croce, in Florence, the pope would not 
 permit the design to be carried into execution. 
 His sacred remains were therefore deposited in an 
 obscure corner of the church, and remained for 
 more than thirty years unmarked with any monu- 
 K 
 
110 GALILEO. 
 
 mental tablet. The following epitaph, given with- 
 out any remark in the Leyden edition of his Dia- 
 logues, is, we presume, the one which was inscri- 
 bed on a tablet in the Church of Santa Croce : 
 
 GALILEO GALILEI Florentine, 
 Philosopho et Geometrae vere lynceo, 
 
 Naturae GEdipo, 
 
 Mirabilium semper inventorum machinatori, 
 Qui inconcessa adhuc mortalibus gloria 
 
 Caelorum provincias auzit 
 
 Et universe xledit incrementum : 
 
 Non enim vitreos spherarum orbes 
 
 Fragilesque Stellas conflavit : 
 
 Sed aeterna mundi corpore 
 
 Mediceae beneficent! dedicavit, 
 
 Cujus incxtincta glorise cupiditas 
 
 Ut oculos nationum 
 Saeculorumque omnium 
 
 Videre doceret, 
 
 Proprios impendit oculos. 
 
 Cum jam nil amplius haberet natura 
 
 Quod ipse videret. 
 
 Cujus inventa vix intra rerum limites comprehensa 
 Firmamentum ipsum non solum continet, 
 
 Sed etiam recipit. 
 
 Qui relictis tot scientiarum monumentis 
 Plura secum tulit, quam reliquit. 
 
 Gravi enim 
 
 Sed nondum affecta senectute, 
 
 Novis conternplationibus 
 
 Majorem gloriam affectans 
 
 Inexplebilem sapientiae animam 
 
GALILEO. Ill 
 
 Immature nobis obitu 
 
 Exhalavit 
 Anno Domini 
 
 MCXLII. 
 Stalls suae 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 At his death in 1703 Viviani purchased his prop- 
 erty, with the charge of erecting a monument over 
 Galileo's remains and his own. This design was 
 not carried into effect till 1737, at the expense of 
 the family of Nelli, when both their bodies were 
 disinterred, and removed to the site of the splendid 
 monument which now covers them. This monu- 
 ment contains the bust of Galileo, with figures of 
 Geometry and Astronomy. It was designed by 
 Giulio Foggini. Galileo's bust was executed by 
 Giovanni Battista Foggini ; the figure of Astron- 
 omy by Vincenzio Foggini, his son ; and that of 
 Geometry by Girolamo Ticciati. 
 
 Galileo's house at Arcetri still remains. In 
 1821 it belonged to one Signer Alimari, having 
 been preserved in the state in which it was left by 
 Galileo; it stands very near the convent of St. 
 Matthew, and about a mile to the southeast of 
 Florence. An inscription by Nelli, over the door 
 of the house, still remains. 
 
 The character of Galileo, whether we view him 
 as a member of the social circle or as a man of sci- 
 
112 GALILEO. 
 
 ence, presents many interesting and instructive 
 points of contemplation. Unfortunate, and to a 
 certain extent immoral, in his domestic relations, 
 he did not derive from that hallowed source all the 
 enjoyments which it generally yields ; and it was 
 owing to this cause, perhaps, that he was more fond 
 of society than might have been expected from his 
 studious habits. His habitual cheerfulness and 
 gayety, and his affability and frankness of manner, 
 rendered him a universal favourite among his 
 friends. Without any of the pedantry of exclusive 
 talent, and without any of that ostentation which 
 often marks the man of limited though profound 
 acquirements, Galileo never conversed upon sci- 
 entific or philosophical subjects except among those 
 who were capable of understanding them. The 
 extent of his general information, indeed, his great 
 literary knowledge, but, above all, his retentive 
 memory, stored with the legends and the poetry of 
 ancient times, saved him from the necessity of 
 drawing upon his own peculiar studies for the 
 topics of his conversation. 
 
 Galileo was not less distinguished for his hospi- 
 tality and benevolence ; he was liberal to the poor, 
 and generous in the aid which he administered to 
 men of genius and talent, who often found a com- 
 fortable asylum under his roof. In his domestic 
 economy he was frugal without being parsimo- 
 
GALILEO. 113 
 
 nious. His hospitable board was ever ready for 
 the reception of his friends ; and, though he was 
 himself abstemious in his diet, he seems to have 
 been a lover of good wines, of which he received 
 always the choicest varieties out of the grand, 
 duke's cellar. This peculiar taste, together with 
 his attachment to a country life, rendered him fond 
 of agricultural pursuits, and induced him to devote 
 his leisure hours to the cultivation of his vine- 
 yards. 
 
 In his personal appearance Galileo was about the 
 middle size, and of a square-built but well-propor- 
 tioned frame. His complexion was fair, his eyes 
 penetrating, and his hair of a reddish hue. His 
 expression was cheerful and animated, and though 
 his temper was easily ruffled, yet the excitement 
 was transient, and the cause of it speedily forgot- 
 ten. 
 
 One of the most prominent traits in the charac- 
 ter of Galileo was his invincible love of truth, and 
 his abhorrence of that spiritual despotism which 
 had so long brooded over Europe. His views, 
 however, were too liberal, and too far in advance 
 of the age which he adorned ; and however much 
 we may admire the noble spirit which he evinced 
 and the personal sacrifices which he made in his 
 struggle for truth, we must yet lament the hotness 
 of his zeal and the temerity of his onset. In his 
 K2 
 
114 ^GALILEO. 
 
 contest with the Church of Rome he fell under her 
 victorious banner ; and though his cause was that 
 of truth and hers that of superstition, yet the sym- 
 pathy of Europe was not roused by his misfortunes. 
 Under the sagacious and peaceful sway of Coperni- 
 cus astronomy had effected a glorious triumph over 
 the dogmas of the Church, but under the bold and 
 uncompromising sceptre of Galileo all her con- 
 quests were irrecoverably lost. 
 
 The scientific character of Galileo, and his meth- 
 od of investigating truth, demand our warmest ad- 
 miration. The number and ingenuity of his in- 
 ventions, the brilliant discoveries which he made irr 
 the heavens, and the depth and beauty of his re- 
 searches respecting the laws of motion, have gain- 
 ed him the admiration of every succeeding age, 
 and have placed him next to Newton in the lists of 
 original and inventive genius. To this high rank 
 he was doubtless elevated by the inductive process- 
 es which he followed in all his inquiries. Under 
 the sure guidance of observation and experiment 
 he advanced to general laws ; -and if Bacon had 
 never lived, the student of nature would have found 
 in the writings and labours of Galileo, not only the 
 boasted principles of the inductive philosophy, but 
 also their practical application to the highest ef- 
 forts of invention and discovery. 
 
LIFE 
 
 OP 
 
 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
LIFE OF TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Tycho's Birth, Family, and Education. An Eclipse of the 
 Sun turns his Attention to Astronomy. Studies Law at 
 Leipsic, but pursues Astronomy by Stealth. His Uncle's 
 Death. He returns to Copenhagen, and resumes his Ob- 
 servations. Revisits Germany. Fights a Duel, and loses 
 his Nose. Visits Augsburg, and meets Hainzel, who as- 
 sists him in making a large Quadrant. Revisits Denmark, 
 and is warmly received by the King. He settles at his 
 Uncle's Castle of Herritzvold. His Observatory and Lab- 
 oratory. Discovers the new Star in Cassiopeia. Account 
 of this remarkable Body. Tycho's Marriage with a Peas- 
 ant-girl, which irritates his Friends. His Lectures on As- 
 tronomy. He visits the Prince of Hesse. Attends the 
 Coronation of the Emperor Rudolph at Ratisbon. He re- 
 turns to Denmark. 
 
 AMONG the distinguished men who were destined 
 tQ-jevive the sciencesjind to establish the true sys- 
 tem of the universe, Tycho Brahe holds a conspic- 
 uous place. He was born on the 14th December, 
 1546, at Knudstorp, the estate of his ancestors, 
 which is situated near Helsingborg, in Scania, and 
 was the eldest son and second child of a family of 
 five sons and five daughters. His father, Otto 
 
118 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 Brahe, who was descended from a noble Swedish 
 family, was in such straitened circumstances that 
 he resolved to educate his sons for a military pro- 
 fession ; but Tycho seems to have disliked the 
 choice that was made for him ; and his next broth- 
 er, Steno, who appears to have had a similar feel- 
 ing, exchanged the sword for the more peaceful oc- 
 cupation of privy councillor to the king. The rest 
 of his brothers, though of senatorial rank, do not 
 seem to have extended the renown of their family ; 
 but their youngest sister, Sophia, is represented as 
 an accomplished mathematician, and is said to have 
 devoted her mind to astronomy as well as to the 
 astrological reveries of the age. 
 
 George Brahe, the brother of Otto, having no 
 children of his own, resolved to adopt and to edu- 
 cate one of his nephews. On the birth of Tycho, 
 accordingly, he was desirous of having him placed 
 under his wife's care ; but his parents could not be 
 prevailed upon to part with their child till after the 
 birth of Steno, their second son. 
 
 Having been instructed in reading and writing 
 under proper masters, Tycho began the study of 
 Latin in his seventh year, and, in opposition to 
 his father's views, he prosecuted it for five years 
 under private teachers, from whom he received 
 also occasional instruction in poetry and the belles, 
 lettres. 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 119 
 
 In April, 1559, about three years after his fa- 
 ther's death, Tycho was sent to the University of 
 Copenhagen, to study rhetoric and philosophy, with 
 the view of preparing for the study of the law, and 
 qualifying himself for some of those political offi- 
 ces which his rank entitled him to expect. In this 
 situation he contracted no fondness for any partic- 
 ular study ; but after he had been sixteen months 
 at college, an event occurred which directed all the 
 powers of his mind to the science of astronomy. 
 The attention of the public had been long fixed on a 
 great eclipse of the sun, which was to happen on 
 the 21st of August, 1560 ; and as in those days a 
 phenomenon of this kind was linked with the des- 
 tinies of nations as well as of individuals, the in- 
 terest which it excited was as intense as it was 
 general. Tycho watched its arrival with peculiar 
 anxiety. He read the astrological diaries of the 
 day, in which its phases and its consequences were 
 described ; and when he saw the sun darkened at 
 the very moment that had been predicted, and to 
 the very extent that had been delineated, he resolv- 
 ed to make himself master of a science which was 
 capable of predicting future events, and especially 
 that branch of it which connected these events with 
 the fortunes and destinies of man. With this view 
 he purchased the Tabula Bergenses, calculated by 
 John Stadius, and began with ardour the study of 
 the planetary motions. 
 
120 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 When Tycho had completed his course at Co- 
 penhagen, he was sent, in February, 1562, under 
 the charge of a tutor, to study jurisprudence at 
 Leipsic. Astronomy, however, engrossed all his 
 thoughts ; and he had no sooner escaped from the 
 daily surveillance of his master, than he rushed 
 with headlong impetuosity into his favourite pur- 
 suits. With his pocket-money he purchased as- 
 tronomical books, which he read in secret ; and by 
 means of a celestial globe the size of his fist, he 
 made himself acquainted with the stars, and follow- 
 ed them night after night through the heavens, 
 when sleep had lulled the vigilance of his precep- 
 tor. By means of the Ephemerides of Stadius, he 
 learned to distinguish the planets, and to trace them 
 through their direct and retrograde movements } 
 and having obtained the Alphonsine and Prutenic 
 Tables, and compared his own calculations and ob- 
 servations with those of Stadius, he observed great 
 differences in the results, and from that moment he 
 seems to have conceived the design of devoting his 
 life to the accurate construction of tables, which he 
 justly regarded as the basis of astronomy. 
 
 With this view he applied himself secretly to 
 the study of arithmetic and geometry, and with- 
 out the assistance of a master he acquired that 
 mathematical knowledge which enabled him to re- 
 alize these early aspirations. His ardour for as- 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 121 
 
 tronomy was still farther inflamed, and the resolu- 
 tion which it inspired still farther strengthened, by 
 the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which 
 taok place in August, 1563. The calculated time 
 of this phenomenon differed considerably from the 
 true time which was observed ; and in determining 
 the instant of conjunction, Tycho felt in the strong- 
 est manner the imperfection of the instruments 
 which he used. For this purpose he employed a 
 sort of compass, one leg of which was directed to 
 one planet, and the second to the other planet or, 
 fixed star ; and, by measuring the angular opening 
 between them, he determined the distance of the 
 two celestial bodies. By this rude contrivance he 
 found that the Alphonsine Tables erred a whole 
 month in the time of conjunction, while the Coper, 
 nican ones were at least several days in error. 
 To this celebrated conjunction Tycho ascribed the 
 great plague which in subsequent years desolated 
 Europe, because it took place in the beginning of 
 Leo, and not far from the nebulous stars of Cancer, 
 two of the zodiacal signs which are reckoned by 
 Ptolemy "suffocating and pestilent!" 
 
 There dwelt at this time at Leipsic an ingenious 
 artisan named Scultetus, who was employed by 
 Homelius, the professor, of mathematics in that 
 city, to assist him in the construction of his instru- 
 ments. Having become acquainted with this young 
 L 
 
122 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 man, Tycho put into his hand a wooden radius, 
 such as was recommended by Gemma Frisius, for 
 the purpose of having it divided in the manner 
 adopted by Homelius ; and with this improved in- 
 strument he made a great number of astronomical 
 observations out of his window without ever exci- 
 ting the suspicions of his tutor. 
 
 Having spent three years at Leipsic, he was 
 about to make the tour of Germany, when, in con- 
 sequence of his uncle's death, he was summoned 
 to his native country to inherit the fortune which 
 had been left him. He accordingly quitted Leip- 
 sic about the middle of May, 1565, and, after hav- 
 ing arranged his domestic concerns in Denmark, 
 he continued his astronomical observations with 
 the radius constructed for him by Scultetus. The 
 ardour with which he pursued his studies gave 
 great umbrage to his friends as well as to his rela- 
 tions. He was reproached for having abandoned 
 <. the profession of the law ; his astronomical obser- 
 vations were ridiculed as not only useless, but de- 
 grading ; and among his numerous connexions, his 
 maternal uncle, Steno Bille, was the only one who 
 applauded him for following the bent of his genius. 
 Under these uncomfortable circumstances he re- 
 solved to quit his country, and pay a visit to the 
 most interesting cities of Germany. 
 
 At Wittemberg, where he arrived in April, 1566, 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 123 
 
 he resumed his astronomical observations ; but, in 
 consequence of the plague having broken out in 
 that city, he removed to Rostoch in the following 
 autumn. Here an accident occurred which had 
 nearly deprived him of his life. On the 10th of De- 
 cember he was invited to a wedding feast ; and, 
 among other guests, there was present a noble 
 countryman of his own, Manderupius Pasbergius. 
 "Some difference having arisen between them on 
 this occasion, they parted with feelings of mutual 
 displeasure. On the 27th of the same month they 
 met again at some festive games, and having re- 
 vived their former quarrel, they agreed to settle 
 their differences by the sword. They accordingly 
 met at 7 o'clock in the evening of the 29th, and 
 fought in total darkness. In this blind combat 
 Manderupius cut off the whole of the front of JTy- 
 cho's nose, and it was fortunate for astronomy that 
 his more valuable organs were defended by so 
 faithful an outpost. The quarrel, which is said to 
 Kave originated in a difference of opinion respect- 
 ing their mathematical acquirements, terminated 
 here ; and Tycho repaired his loss by cementing 
 upon his face a nose of gold and silver, which is 
 said to have formed a good imitation of the original. 
 During the years 1567 and 1568, Tycho contin- 
 ued to reside at Rostoch, with the exception of a 
 few months, during which he made a rapid journey 
 
124 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 into Denmark. He lived in a house-in the College 
 of the Jesuits, which he had rented on account of 
 its fitness for celestial observations ; but, though he 
 intended to spend the winter under its roof, he had 
 made no arrangement respecting his future life, 
 leaving it, as he said, in the hands of Providence. 
 A desire, however, to visit the "south' of Germany 
 induced him to quit Rostoch, and, having crossed 
 the Danube, he paid a visit to Augsburg. 
 
 Upon entering this ancient city Tycho was par- 
 ticularly struck with the grandeur of its fortifica- 
 tions, the splendour of its private houses, and the 
 beauty of its fountains ; and, after a short residence 
 within its walls, he was still more delighted with the 
 industry of the people, the refinement of the higher 
 classes, and the love of literature and science which 
 was cherished by its wealthy citizens. Among the 
 interesting acquaintances which he formed at Augs- 
 burg were two brothers, John and Paul Hainzel, 
 the one a septemvir, and the other the consul or 
 burgomaster. They were both distinguished by 
 their learning, and both of them, particularly Paul, 
 were ardent lovers of astronomy. Tycho had 
 hitherto no other astronomical instrument than the 
 coarse radius which was made for him by Sculte- 
 tus, and he waited only for a proper occasion to 
 have a larger and better instrument constructed for 
 his use. Having now the command of workmen 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 125 
 
 who could execute his plans, he conceived the bold 
 design of making a divided instrument which should 
 distinctly exhibit single minutes of a degree. While 
 he was transferring the first rude conception of his 
 instrument to paper, Paul Hainzel entered his study, 
 and was so struck with the grandeur of the plan 
 that he instantly undertook to have it executed at 
 his own expense. The projected instrument was a 
 quadrant of fourteen cubits radius ! and Tycho and 
 his friend entered upon its construction with that 
 intense ardour which is ever crowned with success. 
 In the village of Gegginga, about half a mile to 
 the south of the city, Paul Hainzel had a country 
 house, the garden of which was chosen as the spot 
 where the quadrant was to be fixed. The best art- 
 ists in Augsburg, clockmakers, jewellers, smiths, 
 and carpenters, were engaged to execute the work, 
 and from the zeal which so novel an instrument in- 
 spired, the quadrant was completed in less than a 
 month. Its size was ^ so jrreaJL .that twenty men. 
 could with difficulty transport it to its place of fix- 
 ture. . The two principal rectangular radii wer 
 beams of oak ; the arch which lay between their 
 extremities was made of solid wood of a particu- 
 lar kind, and the whole was bound together by 
 twelve beams. It received additional strength from 
 several iron bands, and the arch was covered with 
 plates of brass, for the purpose of receiving the 
 L2 
 
126 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 5400 divisions into which it was to be subdivided. 
 A large and strong pillar of oak, shod with iron, 
 was driven into the ground, and kept in its place 
 by solid mason- work. To this pillar the quadrant 
 was fixed in a vertical plane, and steps were pre- 
 pared to elevate the observer when stars of a low 
 altitude required his attention. As the instrument 
 could not be conveniently covered with a roof, it 
 was protected from the weather by a covering made 
 of skins ; but, notwithstanding this and other pre- 
 cautions, it was broken to pieces by a violent storm, 
 after having remained uninjured for the space of 
 five years. 
 
 As this quadrant was fitted only to determine 
 the altitudes of the celestial bodies, Tycho con- 
 structed a large sextant for the purpose of measu- 
 ring their distances. It consisted of two radii, 
 which opened and shut round a centre, and which 
 were nearly four cubits long, and also of two 
 arches, one of which was graduated, while the oth. 
 er served to keep the radii in the same plane. 
 After the radii had been opened or shut till they 
 nearly comprehended the angle between the stars 
 to be observed, the adjustment was completed by 
 means of a very fine tangent screw. With this in- 
 strument Tycho made many excellent observations 
 during his stay at Augsburg. He began also the 
 construction of a wooden globe about six feet in 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 127 
 
 diameter. Its outer surface was turned with great 
 accuracy into a sphere, and kept from warping by 
 interior bars of wood supported at its centre. 
 
 After receiving a visit from the celebrated Peter 
 Ramus, who subsequently fell a victim at the mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew, Tycho left Augsburg, 
 having received a promise from his friend Hainzel 
 that he would communicate to him the observations 
 made with his large quadrant, and with the sextant 
 which he had given him in a present. He paid a 
 visit to Philip Appian in passing through Ingolstadt, 
 and returned to his native country about the end of 
 1571. 
 
 The fame which he had acquired as an astrono- 
 mer procured for him a warmer reception than that 
 which he had formerly experienced. The king in- 
 vited him to court, and his friends and admirers 
 loaded him with kindness. His uncle, Steno Bille, 
 who now lived at the ancient convent of Herritz- 
 vold, and who had always taken a deep interest in 
 the scientific character of his nephew, not only in- 
 vited him to his house, but assigned to him for an 
 observatory the part of it which was best adapted 
 for that purpose.* Tycho cheerfully accepted of 
 this liberal offer. The immediate proximity of 
 Herritzvold to Knudstorp rendered this arrange- 
 ment peculiarly convenient, and in the house of his 
 uncle he experienced all that kindness and consid- 
 
128 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 eration which natural affection and a love of sci- 
 ence combined to cherish. When Steno learned 
 that the study of chymistry was one of the pursuits 
 of his nephew, he granted him a spacious house, a 
 Jew yards distant from the convent, for his labora- 
 tory. Tycho lost no time in fitting up his observ- 
 atory and in providing his furnaces ; and regard- 
 ing gold and silver and the other metals as the stars 
 of the earth, he used to represent his two opposite 
 pursuits as forming only one science, namely, ce- 
 lestial and terrestrial astronomy. 
 
 In the hopes of enriching himself by the pursuits 
 of alchymy, Tycho devoted most of his attention to 
 those satellites of gold and silver which now con- 
 stituted his own system, and which disturbed by 
 their powerful action the hitherto uniform move- 
 ments of their primary. His affections were ever 
 turning to Germany, where astronomers of kindred 
 views, and artists of surpassing talent, were to be 
 found in almost every city. The want of money 
 alone prevented him from realizing his wishes ; and 
 it was in the hope of attaining the means of trav- 
 elling that he in a great measure forsook his sex- 
 tants for his crucibles. In order, however, that he 
 might have one good instrument in his observatory, 
 he constructed a sextant similar to, but somewhat 
 larger than, that which he had presented to Hain- 
 zel. Its limb was made of solid brass, and was ex- 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 129 
 
 quisitely divided into single minutes of a degree. 
 Its radii were strengthened with plates of brass, 
 and the apparatus for shutting and opening them 
 was made with great accuracy. 
 
 The possession of this instrument was peculiarly 
 fortunate for Tycho, for an event now occurred 
 which roused him from his golden visions, and di- 
 rected all his faculties into their earlier and purer 
 current. On the llth of November, 1572, wfopii 
 he was returning to supper from his laboratory, the 
 clearness of the sky inspired him with the desire of 
 completing some particular observations. On look- 
 ing up to the starry firmament he was surprised to 
 see an extraordinary light in the constellation of 
 Cassiopeia, which was then above his head. He 
 felt confident that he had never before observed 
 such a star in that constellation, and distrusting the 
 evidence of his own senses, he called out the ser- 
 vants and the peasants, and having received their 
 testimony that it was a huge star such as they had 
 never seen before, he was satisfied of the correct- 
 ness of his own vision. Regarding it as a new and 
 unusual phenomenon, he hastened to his observa- 
 tory, adjusted his sextant, and measured its distan- 
 ces from the nearest stars in Cassiopeia. He no- 
 ted also its form, its magnitude, its light, and its 
 colour, and he waited with great anxiety for the 
 next night, that he might determine the important 
 
130 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 point whether it was a fixed star, or a body within, 
 or near to, our own system. 
 
 For several years Tycho had been in the prac- 
 tice of calculating, at the beginning of each year, a 
 s.ort of almanac for his own use, and in this he in- 
 serted all the observations which he had made on 
 the new star, and the conclusions which he had 
 drawn from them. JJaving gone to Copenhagen in 
 the course of the .ensuing' spring, ho showed this 
 manuscript to John Pratensis, a professor, in whose 
 house he was always hospitably received. Charles 
 Danzeus, the French ambassador, and a person of 
 great learning, having heard of Tycho's arrival, 
 invited himself to dine with him at the house of 
 Pratensis. The conversation soon turned upon the 
 new star, and Tycho found his companion very 
 skeptical about its existence. Danzeus was par- 
 ticularly jocular on the subject, and attacked the 
 Danes for their inattention to so important a science, 
 as astronomy,, Tycho received this lecture in good 
 temper, and with the anxious expectation that a 
 clear sky would enable him to give a practical ref- 
 utation of the attack which was made upon his 
 country, The night turned out serene, and the 
 whole party saw with astonishment the new star 
 under the most favourable circumstances. Praten- 
 sis conceived that it was similar to the one observ- 
 ed by Hipparchus, and urged Tycho to publish the 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 131 
 
 observations which he had made upon it. Tycho 
 refused to accede to this request, on the pretext 
 that his work was not sufficiently perfect ; but the 
 true reason, as he afterward acknowledged, was, 
 that he considered it would be a disgrace for a no- 
 bleman either to study such subjects or to commu- 
 nicate them to the public. This absurd notion was 
 with some difficulty overcome, and through the 
 earnest entreaties arid assistance of Pratensis, his 
 work on the new star was published in 1573. 
 
 This remarkable body presents to us one of the 
 most interesting phenomena in astronomy. The 
 date of its first appearance has not been exactly as- 
 certained. Tycho saw it on the llth of Novem. 
 ber, but Cornelius Gemma had seen it on the 9th, 
 Paul Hainzel saw it on the 7th of August at Augs. 
 burg, and Wolfgangus Schulerus observed it at 
 Wittemberg on the 6th. Tycho conjectures that 
 it was first seen on the 5th, and Hieronymus Mu- 
 nosius asserts that at Valentia, in Spain, it was not 
 seen on the 2d, when he was showing that part of 
 the heavens to his pupils. This singular body Con- 
 tinued to be seen during 16 months, and did not 
 disappear till March, 1574. In its appearance it 
 was exactly like a star, having none of the distinct- 
 ive marks of a comet. It twinkled strongly, and 
 grew larger than Lyra or Sinus, or any other fixed 
 star. It seemed to be somewhat larger than Ju. 
 
132 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 piter when he is nearest the earth, and rivalled Ve~ 
 nus in her greatest brightness. In ihe first month 
 of its appearance it was less than Jupiter ; in the 
 second it equalled him ; in the third it surpassed 
 him in splendour ; in the fourth it was equal to 
 Sirius ; in the fifth to Lyra ; in the sixth and sev- 
 enth to stars of the second magnitude ; in the eighth, 
 ninth, and tenth to stars of the third magnitude ; in 
 the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth to stars of the 
 fourth magnitude ; in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 to stars of the fifth magnitude ; and in the sixteenth 
 month to stars of the sixth magnitude. After this 
 it became so small that it at last disappeared. Its 
 colour changed also with its size. At first it was 
 white and bright ; in the third month it began to 
 become yellowish ; in the fifth it became reddish 
 like Aldebaran ; and in the seventh and eighth it 
 became bluish like Saturn, growing afterward dull- 
 er and duller. Its place in the heavens was inva- 
 riable. Its longitude was in the 6th degree and 
 54th minute of Taurus, and its latitude 53 45' 
 nofth. Its right ascension was 26f, and its 
 declination 61 46'. It had no parallax, and was 
 unquestionably situated in the region of the fixed 
 stars. 
 
 After Tycho had published his book, he proposed 
 to travel into Germany and Italy ; but he was seized 
 with a fever, and he had no sooner recovered from 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 133 
 
 it than he became involved in a love affair, which 
 frustrated all his schemes. Although Tycho was 
 afraid of casting a stain upon his nobility by pub- 
 lishing his observations on the new star, yet he did 
 not scruple to debase his lineage by marrying a 
 peasant-girl of the village of Knudstorp. This 
 event took place in 1573, and in 1574 his wife gave 
 birth to his daughter Magdalene. Tycho's noble 
 relations were deeply offended at this imprudent 
 step ; and so far did the mutual animosity extend, 
 that the king himself was obliged to effect a recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 The fame of our author as an astronomer and 
 mathematician was now so high, that several young 
 Danish nobles requested him to deliver a course of 
 lectures upon these interesting subjects. This ap- 
 plication was seconded by Pratensis, Danzeus, and 
 all his best friends, but their solicitations were vain. 
 The king at last made the request in a way which 
 ensured its being granted ; and Tycho delivered a 
 course of lectures, in which he apt only gave a full 
 view of the science of astronomy, H but defended and 
 explained all the reveries of astrology. 
 
 Having finished his lectures and arranged his 
 domestic affairs, he set out on his projected jour- 
 ney about the beginning of thejspring of 1575, leav- 
 ing behind him his wife and daughter till, he should 
 fix upon a place of permanent residence. The 
 M 
 
134 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 first town which he visited was Hesse-CasseJ, the 
 residence of WTHiam^landgrave of Hesse, wHose 
 patronage of astrenrjiny and whose skill in making 
 celestial observations have immortalized his name. 
 Here Tycho spent eight or ten delightful days, du- 
 ring which the two astronomers were occupied one 
 half of the day in scientific conversation and the 
 other half in astronomical observations ; and he 
 would have prolonged a visit which gave him so 
 much pleasure, had not the death of one of the 
 landgrave's daughters interrupted their labours. 
 Passing through Frankfort, Tycho went into Switz- 
 erland ; and, after visiting many cities on his way, 
 he fixed upon Basle as a place of residence, not 
 oply from Its central position, but fronq-thfe ^salu- 
 brity of the air and the cheapness of living. From 
 Switzerland he went to Venice, and, in returning 
 through Germany, he came to Ratisbon at the time 
 of the Congress, which had been called together on 
 the 1st of November for the coronation of the Em- 
 peror Rudolph. On this occasion he met with sev- 
 eral distinguished individuals, who were not only 
 skilled in astronomy, but who were among its 
 warmest patrons. From Ratisbon he passed to 
 SaalfeW, and thence to Wittemburg, where he saw 
 the parallactic instruments and the wooden quad- 
 rant which had been used by John Pratensis in 
 
TYCHO BRAHC. 135 
 
 determining the latitude of the city and in meas- 
 uring the altitudes of the new star. 
 
 Tycho was now impatient for home, and he lost 
 no time in returning to Denmark, where events 
 were awaiting him which frustrated all his schemes, 
 by placing him in the most favourable situation for 
 promoting his own happiness and advancing the 
 interests of astronomy. 
 
136 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Frederic II. patronises Tycho, and resolves to establish him 
 in Denmark. Grants him the Island of Huen for Life, and 
 Builds the splendid Observatory of Uraniburg. Descrip- 
 tion of the Island and of the Observatory. Account of its 
 Astronomical Instruments. Tycho begins his Observa- 
 tions. His Pupils. Tycho is made Canon of Rothschild, 
 and receives a large Pension. His Hospitality to his Vis- 
 iters. Ingratitude of Witichius. Tycho sends an Assist- 
 ant to take the Latitude of Frauenburg and Konigsberg. 
 Is visited by Ulric, duke of Mecklenburg. Change in Ty- 
 cho's Fortunes. 
 
 THE patronage which had been extended to as- 
 tronomers by several of the reigning princes of 
 Germany, especially by the Landgrave of Hesse, 
 and Augustus, elector of Saxony, had begun to 
 excite a love of science in the minds of other sov- 
 ereigns. The King of Denmark seems to have 
 felt it as a stain upon his character that the only 
 astronomer in his dominions should carry on his 
 observations in distant kingdoms, and adorn by his 
 .discoveries other courts, than his own. With this 
 feeling he sent ambassadors to Hesse-Cassel to in- 
 quire after Tycho, and to intimate to him his wish 
 that he should return to Denmark, and his anxiety 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 137 
 
 to promote the advancement of astronomy in his 
 own dominions. Tycho had left Cassel when these 
 messengers arrived, and had heard nothing of the 
 king's intentions till he was about to quit Knudstorp 
 with his family for Basle. At this time he was 
 surprised at the arrival of a noble messenger, who 
 brought a letter requesting him to meet the king as 
 soon as possible at Copenhagen. Tycho lost no 
 time in obeying the royal summons. The king re- 
 ceived him with the most flattering kindness. He 
 offered to give him a grant for life of the island of 
 Huen, between Denmark and Sweden, and to con- 
 struct and furnish with instruments, at his own ex- 
 pense, an observatory, as well as a house for the 
 accommodation of his family, together with a lab- 
 oratory for carrying on his chymical inquiries. 
 Tycho, who truly loved his country, was deeply af. 
 fected with the munificence of the royal offer. He 
 accepted of it with that warmth of gratitude which 
 it was calculated to inspire ; and he particularly 
 rejoiced in the thought that if any success should 
 attend his future labours, the glory of it would be- 
 long to his native land. 
 
 The island of Huen is about six miles from the 
 coast of Zealand, three from that of Sweeden, and 
 fourteen from Copenhagen. It is six miles in cir- 
 cumference, and rises into the form of a mountain, 
 which, though very high, terminates in a plain. It 
 M2 
 
138 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 is nowhere rocky, and even in the time of Tycho it 
 produced the best kinds of grain, afforded excel- 
 lent pasturage for horses, cattle, and sheep, and 
 possessed deer, hares, rabbits, and partridges in 
 abundance. It contained at that time only one vil- 
 lage, with about forty inhabitants. 
 
 Having surveyed his new territory, Tycho re- 
 solved to build a magnificent tower in the centre 
 of the elevated plain, which he resolved to call 
 Uraniburg, or The City of the Heavens. Having 
 made the necessary arrangements, he repaired to 
 the island on the 8th of August, and his friend 
 Charles Danzeus laid the foundation stone of the 
 new observatory, which consisted of a slab of por- 
 phyry, with the following inscription : 
 
 REGNANTE IN DANIA FREDERICO II., CAROLUS 
 AQUITANUS R. G. I. D. L.,* DOMUI HUIC PHILOSOPHISE, IM- 
 PRIMISQUE ASTRORUM CONTEMPLATIONI, REGIS DECRETO A 
 NOBILI TIRO TYCHONE BRAKE DE KNUDSTRUP EXTRUCT^S: 
 TOTIVUM HUNC LAPIDEM MEMORISE ET FELICIS AUSPICII ERGO 
 P. ANNO CIO.IO.LXXVI. VI. ID. AUGUSTI. 
 
 This ceremony was performed early in the 
 morning of a splendid day, in which the rising sun 
 threw its blessing upon^ Frederic? and upon the 
 party of noblemen and philosophers who had as- 
 sembled to testify their love of science. An en- 
 tertainment was provided for the occasion, and co- 
 * Regis Gallorum in Dania Legatus. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 139 
 
 pious libations of a variety of wines were offered 
 for the success of the undertaking. 
 
 The observatory was surrounded by a rampart, v 
 each face of which was three hundred feet long. \ 
 About the middle of each face the rampart became 
 a semicircle, the inner diameter of which was 
 ninety feet. The height of the rampart was twen- / 
 ty-two feet, and its thickness at the base twenty. 
 Its four angles corresponded exactly with the four > 
 cardinal points, and at the north and south angles \ 
 were erected turrets, of which one was a printing- 
 house, and the other the residence of the servants. 
 Gates were erected at the east and west angles, 
 and above them were apartments for the reception 
 of strangers. Within the rampart was a shrub- 
 bery, with about three hundred varieties of trees, 
 and at the centre of each semicircular part of the 
 rampart was a bower or summer-house. The 
 shrubbery surrounded the flower-garden, which 
 was terminated within by a circular wall of about 
 forty-five feet high, which enclosed a more elevated 
 area, in the centre of which stood the principal 
 building in the observatory, and from which four 
 paths led to the above-mentioned angles, with as 
 many doors for entering the garden. 
 
 The principal building was about sixty feet 
 square. The doors were placed on the east and 
 west sides ; and to the north and south fronts were 
 
HO TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 attached two round towers, whose inner diameter 
 was about thirty-two feet, and which formed the 
 observatories, which had windows in their roof that 
 could be opened towards any part of the heavens. 
 The accommodations for the family were numer- 
 ous and splendid. Under the observatory, in the 
 south tower, were the museum and library, and be- 
 low this again was a laboratory in a subterraneous 
 crypt, containing sixteen furnaces of various kinds. 
 Beneath this was a well forty feet deep, from which 
 water was distributed by siphons to every part of 
 the building. 
 
 Besides the principal building there were other 
 two situated without the rampart, one to the north, 
 containing a workshop for the construction of as- 
 tronomical and other instruments, and the other to 
 the south, which was occupied as a sort of farm- 
 house. These buildings cost the King of Den- 
 mark 100,000 rix-dollars (20,000), and Tycho is 
 said to have expended upon them a similar sum. 
 
 & .the two towers could not accommodate the 
 instruments which Tycho required for his observa- 
 tions, he found it necessary to erect, on the hill 
 about sixty paces to the south of Uraniburg, a sub- 
 terranean observatory, in which he might place his 
 larger instruments, which required to be firmly 
 fixed, and to be protected from the wind and the 
 weather. This observatory, which he called Stiern- 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 141 
 
 berg, or the mountain of the stars, consisted of 
 several crypts, separated by solid walls, and to. 
 these there was ~ subterranean passage from the 
 laboratory in Uraniburg. The various buildings 
 which TycKo erected were built in a regular style 
 of architecture, and were highly ornamented, not 
 only with external decorations, but with the statues 
 and pictures of the most distinguished astronomers, 
 from Hipparchus and Ptolemy down to Copernicus, 
 and with inscriptions and poems in honour of as- 
 tronomers. 
 
 While these buildings were erecting, and after 
 their completion, Tycho was busily occupied in pre- 
 paring instruments for observation. These were 
 of the most splendid description, and the reader 
 will form some notion of their grandeur and their 
 expense from the following list : 
 
 In the south and greater Observatory. 
 
 1. A semicircle of solid iron, covered with brass, four cubits 
 radius. 
 
 2. A sextant of the same materials and size. 
 
 3. A quadrant of one and a half cubits radius, and an azi- 
 muth circle of three cubits. 
 
 4. Ptolemy's parallactic rules, covered with brass, four 
 cubits in the side. 
 
 5. The sextant already described in page 126. 
 
 6. Another quadrant, like No. 3. 
 
 7. Zodiacal armillaries of melted brass, and turned out of 
 the solid, of three cubits in diameter. 
 
142 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 Near this observatory was a large clock, with one wheel 
 two cubits in diameter, and two smaller ones, which, like it, 
 indicated hours, minutes, and seconds. 
 
 In the south and lesser Observatory. 
 
 8. An armillary sphere of brass, with a steel meridian, whose 
 diameter was about 4 cubits. 
 
 In the north Observatory. 
 
 9. Brass parallactic rules, which revolved in azimuth above 
 a brass horizon, twelve feet in diameter. 
 
 10. A half sextant, of four cubits radius. 
 
 11. A steel sextant. 
 
 12. Another half sextant, with steel limb, four cubits ra- 
 dius. 
 
 13. The parallactic rules of Copernicus. 
 
 14. Equatorial armillaries. 
 
 15. A quadrant of a solid plate of brass, five cubits in radius, 
 showing every ten seconds. 
 
 16. In the museum was the large globe made at Augsburg : 
 see p. 126. 
 
 In the Stiern-berg Observatory. 
 
 17. In the central part, a large semicircle, with a brass limb, 
 and three clocks, showing hours, minutes, and seconds. 
 
 18. Equatorial armillaries of seven cubits, with semi-armil- 
 laries of nine cubits. 
 
 19. A sextant of four cubits radius. 
 
 20. A geometrical square of iron, with an intercepted quad- 
 rant of five cubits, and divided into fifteen seconds. 
 
 21. A quadrant of four cubits radius, showing ten seconds, 
 with an azimuth circle. 
 
 22. Zodiacal armillaries of brass, with steel meridians, three 
 cubits in diameter. 
 
 23. A sextant of brass, kept together by screws, and capa- 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 143 
 
 ble of being taken to pieces for travelling with. Its radius 
 was four cubits. 
 
 24. A movable armillary sphere, three cubits in diameter. 
 
 25. A quadrant of solid brass, one cubit radius, and divided 
 into minutes by Nonian circles. 
 
 26. An astronomical radius of solid brass, three cubits long. 
 
 27. An astronomical ring of brass, a cubit in diameter. 
 
 28. A small brass astrolabe. 
 
 In almost all the instruments now enumerated, 
 the limb was subdivided by diagonal lines, a meth- 
 od which Tycho first brought into use, but which, 
 in modern times, has been superseded by the in- 
 ventions of Nonius and Vernier. 
 
 When Tycho had thus furnished his observatory, 
 he devoted himself to the examination of the stars ; 
 and during the twenty-one years which he spent in 
 this delightful occupation, he made vast additions 
 to astronomical science. In order to instruct the 
 young in the art of observation, and educate assist- 
 ants for his observatory, he had sometimes under 
 his roof from six to twelve pupils, whom he board- 
 ed and educated. Some of these were named by 
 the king, and educated at his expense. Others 
 were sent by different academies and cities ; and 
 several, who had presented themselves of their own 
 accord, were liberally admitted by the generous 
 astronomer. 
 
 As Tycho had spent nearly a ton of gold (about 
 100,000 dollars) in his outlay at Uraniburg, his own 
 
144 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 income was reduced to very narrow limits. To 
 supply this defect, Frederic gave him an annual 
 pension of 2000 dollars, besides an estate in Nor- 
 way, and made him canon of the Episcopal Church 
 of Rothschild, or prebend of St. Laurence,* which 
 had an annual income of 1000 dollars, and which 
 was burdened only with the expense of keeping up 
 the chapel containing the Mausolea of the Kings of 
 the family of Oldenburg. 
 
 It would be an unprofitable task, and one by no 
 means interesting to the general reader, to give a 
 detailed history of the various astronomical obser- 
 vations and discoveries which were made by Tycho 
 during the twenty years that he spent at Uraniburg. 
 Every phenomenon that appeared in the heavens 
 he observed with the greatest care, while he at the 
 same time carried on regular series of observations 
 for determining the places of the fixed stars, and 
 for improving the tables of the sun, moon, and plan- 
 ets. Though almost wholly devoted to these noble 
 pursuits, yet he kept an open house, and received 
 with unbounded hospitality the crowds of philoso- 
 phers, nobles, and princes who came to be intro- 
 duced to the first astronomer of the age, and to 
 admire the splendid temple which the Danish sov- 
 ereign had consecrated to science. 
 
 * This office had been usually conferred on the king's chan- 
 cellor. 
 
TYCHO BRAHB. 145 
 
 Among the strangers whom he received under 
 his roof, there were some who returned his kind- 
 ness with ingratitude. Among these was Paul Wi- 
 tichius, a mathematician, who, under the pretence 
 of devoting his whole life to. astronomy, insinuated 
 himself into the utmost familiarity with Tycho. 
 The unsuspecting astronomer explained to his guest 
 all his inventions, described all his methods, and 
 even made hfcn acquainted with those views which 
 he had not realized, and with instruments which he 
 had not yet executed. When Witichius had thus 
 obtained possession of the methods, and inventions, 
 and views of Tycho, and had enjoyed his hospital, 
 ity for three months, he pretended that he was 
 obliged to return to Germany to receive an inher- 
 itance to which he had succeeded. After quitting 
 Uraniburg, this ungrateful mathematician neither 
 returned to see Tycho, nor kept up any correspond, 
 ence with him ; and it was not till five years after 
 his departure that Tycho learned, from the letters 
 of the Prince of Hesse to Ranzau, that Witichius 
 had passed through Hesse, and had described as 
 his own the various inventions and methods which 
 had been shown to him in Huen. 
 
 Being unable to reconcile his own observations 
 with those of Copernicus and with the Prutenic 
 Tables, Tycho resolved to obtain new determina- 
 tions of the latitude of Frauenburg, in Prussia, 
 N 
 
146 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 where Copernicus made his observations, and of 
 Konigsberg, to the meridian of which Hheinhold 
 had adapted hid Prutenic Tables. For these pur- 
 poses he sent one of his assistants, Elias Morsianus, 
 with a proper instrument, under the protection of 
 Bylovius, ambassador of the Margrave of Anspach, 
 to the King of Denmark, who was returning by sea 
 to Germany ; and, after receiving the greatest at- 
 tention and assistance from the n6%le canons of 
 Ermeland, he determined, from nearly a month's 
 observations on the sun and stars, that the latitude 
 of Frauenburg was 54 22', in place of 54 19', 
 as given by Copernicus. In like manner he de- 
 termined that the latitude of Konigsberg was 54 
 43' in place of 54 17', as adopted by Rheinhold. 
 When Morsianus returned to Huen in July, he 
 brought with him, as a present to Tycho, from John 
 Hannovius, one of the canons of Ermeland, the 
 Ptolemaic Rules, or the parallactic instrument 
 which Copernicus had used and made with his own 
 hands. It consisted of two equal wooden rules, five 
 cubits long, and divided into 1414 parts. Tycho 
 preserved this gift as one peculiarly dear to him, 
 and on the day of his receiving it he composed a 
 set of verses in honour of the great astronomer to 
 whom it belonged. 
 
 Among the distinguished visits which were paid 
 to Tycho, we must enumerate that of Ulric, duke 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 147 
 
 of Mecklenburg, in 1586. Although his daughter 
 Sophia, queen of Denmark, had already paid two 
 visits to Uraniburg in the same year, yet such was 
 her love of astronomy that she accompanied her 
 father and his wife Elizabeth on this occasion. Ul- 
 ric was not only fond of science in general, but had 
 for many years devoted himself to chymical pur- 
 suits, and he was therefore peculiarly gratified in 
 examining the splendid laboratory and extensive 
 apparatus which Tycho possessed. It has been 
 said by some of the biographers of Tycho, that the 
 Landgrave of Hesse visited Uraniburg about this 
 period ; but this opinion is not correct, as it was 
 only his astronomer and optician, Rothman, who 
 made a journey to Huen in 1591 for the recovery 
 of his health. Tycho had long carried on a corre- 
 spondence with this able astronomer respecting the 
 observations made at the observatory of Hesse- 
 Cassel, and during the few months which they now 
 spent together they discussed in the amplest man- 
 ner all the questions which had previously been agi- 
 tated. Rothman was astonished at the wonderful 
 apparatus which he saw at Uraniburg, and return- 
 ed to his native country charmed with the hospital- 
 ity of the Danish astronomer. 
 
 Hitherto we have followed Tycho through a ca- 
 reer of almost unexampled prosperity. When he 
 had scarcely reached his thirtieth year, he was es- 
 
148 
 
 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 tablished, by the kindness and liberality of his sov- 
 ereign, in the most splendid observatory that had 
 ever been erected in Europe ; and a thriving fam- 
 ily, an ample income, and a widely-extended repu- 
 tation were added to his blessings. Of the value 
 of these gifts he was deeply sensible, and he en. 
 joyed them the more that he received them with a 
 grateful heart. Tycho was a Christian as well as 
 a philosopher. The powers of his gifted mind have 
 been amply displayed in his astronomical labours ; 
 but we shall now have occasion to witness his piety 
 and resignation in submitting to an unexpected and 
 an adverse destiny. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 149 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Tycho's Labours do Honour to his Country. Death of Fred- 
 eric II. James VI. of Scotland visits Tycho at Uraniburg. 
 Christian IV. visits Tycho. The Duke of Brunswick's 
 Visit to Tycho. The Danish Nobility, jealous of his Fame, 
 conspire against him. He is compelled to quit Uraniburg, 
 and to abandon his Studies. Cruelty of the Minister Wal- 
 chendorp. Tycho quits Denmark with his Family and In- 
 struments. Is hospitably received by Count Rantzau,who 
 introduces him to the Emperor Rudolph. The Emperor 
 invites him to Prague. He gives him a Pension of 3000 
 Crowns, and the Castle of Benach as a Residence and an 
 Observatory. Kepler visits Tycho, who obtains for him the 
 Appointment of Mathematician to Rudolph. 
 
 THE love of astronomy which had been so une- 
 quivocally exhibited by Frederic II. and his royal 
 consort, inspired their courtiers with at least an 
 outward respect for science, and among the min- 
 isters and advisers of the king Tycho reckoned 
 many ardent friends. It was everywhere felt that 
 Denmark had elevated herself among the nations 
 of Europe by her liberality to Tycho, and the 
 peaceful glory which he had in return conferred 
 upon his country was not of a kind to dissatisfy 
 even rival nations. In the conquests of science no 
 N2 
 
150 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 widow's or orphan's tears are shed, no captives 
 are dragged from their homes, and no devoted vic- 
 tims are yoked to the chariot-wheels of the triumph- 
 ant philosopher. The newly-acquired domains of 
 knowledge belong, in right of conquest, to all na- 
 tions, and Denmark had now earned the gratitude 
 of Europe by the magnitude as well as the success 
 of her contingent. 
 
 An event, however, now occurred which threat- 
 ened with destruction the interests of Danish sci- 
 ence. v ^In the beginninfi O f 
 II, didd, in the 64tfi year of his age and the 29th 
 of his reign. His remains were Conveyed to 
 Rothschild, and deposited in the chapel under Ty- 
 cho's care, where a finely-executed bust of him 
 was afterward placed. His son and successor, 
 Christian IV., was only in the llth year of his 
 age, and though his temper and disposition were 
 good, yet Tycho had reason to be alarmed at the 
 possibility of his discontinuing the patronage of 
 astronomy. The taste for science, however, which 
 had sprung up in the Danish court, had extended 
 itself no wider than the influence of the reigning 
 sovereign. The parasites of royalty saw them- 
 selves eclipsed in the bright renown which Tycho 
 had acquired, and every new visit to Uraniburg by 
 a foreign prince supplied fresh fuel to the rancour 
 which had long been smothering in their breasts. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 151 
 
 The accession of a youthful king held out to his 
 enemies an opportunity of destroying the influence 
 of Tycho ; and though no adverse step was taken, 
 yet he had the sagacity to foresee, in " trifles light 
 as air," the approaching confirmation of his fears. 
 Hope, however, still cheered him amid his labours ; 
 but that hope was founded chiefly on the learning 
 and character of Nicolas Caasius, the chancellor 
 of the kingdom, from whom he had experienced 
 the warmest attentions. 
 
 Among the princes who visited Uraniburg, there 
 were none who conducted themselves with more 
 condescension and generosity than our own sov- 
 ereign, James VI. In the year 1590, when the 
 Scottish king repaired to Denmark to celebrate his 
 marriage with the Princess Anne, the king's sister, 
 he paid a visit to Tycho, attended by his council- 
 lors and a large suite of nobility. During the 
 eight days which he spent at Uraniburg, James 
 carried on long discussions with Tycho on various 
 subjects, but chiefly on the motion which Coper- 
 nicus had ascribed to the earth. He examined 
 narrowly all the astronomical instruments, and 
 made himself acquainted with the principles of 
 their construction and the method of using them. 
 He inspected the busts and pictures in the museum, 
 and when he perceived the portrait of George Bu- 
 chanan, his own preceptor, he could not refrain 
 
152 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 from the strongest expressions of delight. Upon 
 quitting the hospitable roof of Tycho, James not 
 only presented him with a magnificent donation, 
 but afterward gave him his royal license to pub- 
 lish his works in England during seventy years. 
 This license was accompanied with the following 
 high eulogium on his abilities and learning : " Nor 
 have I become acquainted with these things only 
 from the relation of others, or from a bare in- 
 spection of your works, but I have seen them be- 
 fore my own eyes, and have heard them with my 
 own ears, in your residence at Uraniburg, and have 
 drawn them from the various learned and agreea- 
 ble conversations which I there held with you, and 
 which even now affect my mind to such a degree 
 that it is difficult to determine whether I recollect 
 them with greater pleasure or admiration ; as I 
 now willingly testify, by this license, to present and 
 to future generations," &c. 
 
 At the request of Tycho, the king also compo- 
 sed and wrote in his own hand some Latin verses, 
 which were more complimentary than classical. 
 His chancellor had also composed some verses of 
 a similar character during his visit to Tycho. A 
 short specimen of these will be deemed sufficient 
 by the classical reader : 
 
 " Vidit et obstupuit Rex Huennum Scoticus almam ; 
 Miratus clari tot monumenta viri." 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 153 
 
 In the year 1591, when Christian IV. had reach- 
 ed his 14th year, he expressed a desire to pay a 
 visit to Uraniburg. He accordingly set out with 
 a large party, consisting of his three principal sen- 
 ators, and other councillors and noblemen ; and 
 having examined the various instruments in the ob- 
 servatories and laboratory, he proposed to Tycho 
 various questions on mechanics and mathematics, 
 but particularly on the principles of fortification 
 and ship-building. Having observed that he par- 
 ticularly admired a brass globe, which, by means 
 of internal wheelwork, imitated the diurnal motion 
 of the heavens, the rising and setting of the sun, 
 and the phases of the moon, Tycho made him a 
 present of it, and received in return an elegant 
 gold chain, with his majesty's picture, with an as- 
 surance of his unalterable attachment and protec- 
 tion. 
 
 Notwithstanding this assurance, Tycho had al- 
 ready, as we have stated, begun to suspect the de- 
 signs of his enemies ; and in a letter addressed to 
 the Landgrave of Hesse, early in 1591, he throws 
 out some hints which indicated the anxieties that 
 agitated his mind. The Landgrave of Hesse, as 
 if he had heard some rumours unfavourable to the 
 prospects of Tycho, requested him to write him 
 respecting the state of the kingdom and concerning 
 his own private affairs. To this letter, which was 
 
154 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 dated early in February, Tycho replied about the 
 beginning of April. He informed the landgrave 
 that he led a private life in his own island, exempt 
 from all official functions, and never willingly ta- 
 king a part in public affairs. He was desirous of 
 leaving the ambition of public honours to others, 
 and of devoting himself wholly to the study of phi- 
 losophy and astronomy ; and he expressed a hope 
 that, if he should be involved in the tumults and 
 troubles of life either by his own destiny or by 
 evil counsels, he might be able, by the blessing of 
 God, to extricate himself by the force of his mind 
 and the integrity of his life. He comforted him- 
 self with the idea that every soil was the country 
 of a great man, and that, wherever he went, the blue 
 sky would still be over his head ;* and he distinctly 
 states at the close of his letter that he had thought 
 of transferring his residence to some other place, 
 as there were some of the king's councillors who 
 had already begun to calumniate his studies, and to 
 grudge him his pension from the treasury. 
 
 The causes which led to this change of feeling 
 on the part of Christian IV.'s advisers have not 
 been explained by the biographers of Tycho. It 
 has been stated, in general terms, that he had made 
 many enemies by the keenness of his temper and 
 the severity of his satire ; but I have not been able 
 
 * Omne solum forti patria, et coelum undique supra est. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 155 
 
 to discover any distinct examples of these peculiar- 
 ities of his mind. In an event, indeed, which oc- 
 curred about this time, he slightly resented a piece 
 of marked incivility on the part of Henry Julius, 
 duke of Brunswick, who had married the Princess 
 Eliza of Denmark ; but it is not likely that so triv- 
 ial an aifair, if it were known at court, could have 
 called down upon him the hostility of the king's 
 advisers. 
 
 The Duke of Brunswick had in 1590 paid a vis- 
 it to Uraniburg, and had particularly admired an 
 antique brass statue of Mercury, about a cubit long, 
 which Tycho had placed in the roof of the hypo- 
 caust or central crypt of the Stiern-berg observato- 
 ry. By means of a concealed mechanism, it moved 
 round in a circular orbit. The duke requested the 
 statue and its machinery, which Tycho gave him, 
 on the condition that he should obtain a model of 
 it, for the purpose of having another executed by a 
 skilful workman. The duke not only forgot his 
 promise, but paid no attention to the letters which 
 were addressed to him. Tycho was justly irrita- 
 ted at this unprincely conduct, and ordered this 
 anecdote to be inserted in the description of Urani- 
 burg which he was now preparing for publication. 
 
 In the year 1592, Tycho lost his distinguished 
 friend and correspondent the Prince of Hesse, and 
 astronomy one of its most active and intelligent 
 
156 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 cultivators. His grief on this occasion was deep 
 and sincere, and he gave utterance to his feelings 
 in an impassioned elegy, in which he recorded the 
 virtues and talents of his friend. Prince Maurice, 
 the son and successor of the landgrave, continued, 
 with the assistance of able observers, to keep up 
 the reputation of the observatory of Hesse-Cassel, 
 and the observations which were there made were 
 afterward published by Snellius. The extensive 
 and valuable correspondence between Tycho and 
 the landgrave was prepared for publication about 
 the beginning of 1593, and contains also the letters 
 of Rothman and Rantzau. 
 
 For several years the studies of Tycho had been 
 treated with an unwilling toleration by the Danish 
 court. Many of the nobles envied the munificent 
 establishment which he had received from Frederic, 
 and the liberal pension which he drew from his 
 treasury. But among his most active enemies 
 were some some physicians, who envied his reputa- 
 tion as a successful and a gratuitous practitioner of 
 the healing art. Numbers of invalids flocked jtp 
 Huen, and diseases which resisted all other meth- 
 ods of cure are said to have yielded to the pana- 
 ceal prescription of the astrologer. Under the in- 
 fluence of such motives, these individuals succeed- 
 ed in exciting against Tycho the hostility of the 
 court. They drew the public attention to the ex- 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 157 
 
 hausted state of the treasury. They maintained 
 that he had possessed too long the estate in Nor- 
 way, which might be given to men who laboured 
 more usefully for the commonwealth ; and they 
 accused him of allowing the chapel at Rothschild 
 to fall into decay. The president of the council, 
 Christopher Walchendorp, and the king's chancel- 
 lor, were the most active of the enemies of Tycho ; 
 and, having poisoned the mind of their sovereign 
 against the most meritorious of his subjects, Tycho 
 was^de^yed of his canonry, his estate in Norway, 
 and his pension. 
 
 Being no longer able to bear the expenses of his 
 establishment in Huen, and dreading that the feel- 
 ings which had been excited against him might be 
 still farther roused, so as to Deprive him of the Isl- 
 and of Huen itself, he resolved to transfer his in- 
 struments to some other situation. Notwithstand- 
 ing this resolution, he remained with his family in 
 the island, and continued his observations till the 
 spring of 1597, when he took a house in Copenha- 
 gen, and removed to it all his smaller and more 
 portable instruments, leaving those which were 
 large or fixed in the crypts of Stiern-berg. His 
 first plan was to remove everything from Huen as 
 a measure of security ; but the public feeling be- 
 gan to turn in his favour, and there were many 
 good men in Copenhagen who did not scruple to 
 
158 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 reprobate the conduct of the government. The 
 president of the council, Walchendorp a name 
 which, while the heavens revolve, will be pronoun- 
 ced with horror by astronomers saw the change 
 of sentiment which his injustice had produced, and 
 adopted an artful method of sheltering himself from 
 public odium. In consequence of a quarrel with 
 Tycho, the recollection of which had rankled in 
 his breast, he dreaded to be the prime mover in his 
 persecution. He therefore appointed a committee 
 of two persons, one of whom was Thomas Feu- 
 chius, to report to the government on the nature 
 and utility of the studies of Tycho. These two 
 individuals were entirely ignorant of astronomy and 
 the use of instruments ; and even if they had not, 
 they would have been equally subservient to the 
 views of the minister. They reported that the 
 studies of Tycho were of no value, and that they 
 were not only useless, but noxious. Armed with 
 this report, Walchendorp prohibited Tycho, in the 
 king's name, from continuing his chymical experi- 
 ments ; and instigated, no doubt, by this wicked 
 minister, an attack was made upon himself, and his 
 shepherd or his steward was injured in the affray. 
 Tycho was provoked to revenge himself upon his 
 enemies, and the judge was commanded not to in- 
 terfere in the matter. 
 
 Thus persecuted by his enemies, Tycho resolved 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 159 
 
 to remain no longer in an ungrateful country. He 
 carried from Huen everything that was movable, 
 and having packed up his instruments, his crucibles, 
 and his books, he hired a ship to convey them to 
 some foreign land. His wife, his five sons and 
 four daughters, his male and his female servants, 
 and many of his pupils and assistants, among whom 
 were Tengnagel, his future son-in-law, and the cel- 
 ebrated Longomontanus, embarked at Copenhagen 
 to seek the hospitality of some better country than 
 their own. 
 
 Freighted with the glory of Denmark, this inter- 
 esting bark made the best of its way across the 
 Baltic, and arrived safely at Rostoch. Here the 
 exiled patriarch found many of his early friends, 
 particularly Henry Bruce, an able astronomer, to 
 whom he had formerly presented one of his brass 
 quadrants. The approach of the plague, how- 
 ever, prevented Tycho from making any arrange- 
 ments for a permanent residence ; and, having re- 
 ceived a warm invitation from Count Henry Rant- 
 zau, who lived in Holstein at the castle of Wan- 
 desberg, near Hamburg, he went with all his fami- 
 ly, about the end of 1597, to enjoy the hospitality 
 of his friend. 
 
 Though Tycho derived the highest pleasure from 
 the kindness and conversation of Count Rantzau, 
 yet a cloud overshadowed the future, and he had 
 
160 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 yet to seek for a patron and a home. His hopes 
 were fixed on the Emperor Rudolph, who was not 
 only fond of science, but who was especially ad- 
 dieted to alchymy and astrology, and his friend 
 Rantzau promised to have him introduced to the 
 emperor by proper letters. When Tycho learned 
 that Rudolph was particularlyionToT"mechanical 
 instruments and of chymistry, he resolved to com- 
 plete and to dedicate to him his work on the me- 
 chanics of astronomy, and to add to it an account 
 of his chymical labours. This task he soon per- 
 formed, and his work appeared in 1598, under the 
 title of Tychonis Brake, Astronomia instaurata Me- 
 chanica. Along with this work he transmitted to 
 the emperor a copy of his MS. catalogue of 1000 
 fixed stars. 
 
 With these proofs of his services to science, and 
 instigated by various letters in his favour, the Em- 
 peror Rudolph desired his vice-chancellor to send 
 for Tycho, and to assure him that he would be re- 
 ceived according to his great merits, and that no- 
 thing should be wanting to promote his scientific 
 studies. Leaving his wife and daughters at Wan- 
 desberg, and taking with him his sons and his pu- 
 pils, Tycho went to Wittemberg ; but, having learn- 
 ed that the plague had broken out at Prague, and 
 that the emperor had gone to Pilsen, he deferred 
 for a while his journey into Bohemia. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 161 
 
 jjarly in the spring of 1599, when the pestilence 
 had ceased at Prague, and the emperor had return-" 
 ecTto Ms capital, Tycho set out for Bohemia. On 
 his arrival at Prague he found a splendid house 
 ready for his reception, and a kind message from 
 the emperor prohibiting him from paying his re- 
 spects to him till he had recovered from the fa- 
 tigues of his journey. On his presentation to Ru- 
 dolph, the generous emperor received him with the 
 most distinguished kindness. He announced to 
 him that he was to receive an annual pension of 
 3000 crowns ; that an estate would, as soon as pos- 
 sible, be settled upon him and his family and their 
 successors ; that a town-house would be provided 
 for him ; and that he might have his choice of va- 
 rious castles and houses in the country as the site 
 of his observatory and laboratory. The emperor 
 had also taken care to provide everything that was 
 necessary for Tycho's immediate wants ; and so 
 overwhelmed was he with such unexpected kind- 
 ness, that he remarked that, as he could not find 
 words to express his gratitude, the whole heavens 
 would speak for him, and posterity should know 
 what a refuge his great and good sovereign had 
 been to the Queen of the Arts. 
 
 Among the numerous friends whom Tycho found 
 at Prague were his correspondents Coroducius and 
 Hagecius, and his benefactor Barrovitius, the em- 
 02 
 
162 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 peror's secretary. He was congratulated by them 
 all on his distinguished reception at court, and was 
 regarded as the ^Eneas of science, who had been 
 driven from his peaceful home, and who had car- 
 ried with him to the Latium of Germany his wife, 
 his children, and his household gods. If external 
 circumstances could remove the sorrows of the 
 past, Tycho must now have been supremely happy. 
 In his spacious mansion, which had belonged to his 
 friend Curtius, he found a position for one of his 
 best instruments ; and having covered with poeti- 
 cal inscriptions the four sides of the pedestal on 
 which it stood, in honour of his benefactors as well 
 as of former astronomers, he resumed with dili- 
 gence his examination of the stars. 
 
 When Rudolph saw tho magnificent instruments 
 which Tycho had brought along with him, and had 
 acquired some knowledge of their use, he pressed 
 him to send to Denmark for the still larger ones 
 which he had left at >Stiern-buig. In tin: mean 
 time, he gave him the choice of the castles of Bran- 
 disium, Lyssa, and'Benach as his country resi- 
 dence ; and after visiting them about the end of 
 May, Tycho gave the preference to Benach, which 
 was situated upon a rising ground, and commanded 
 an extensive Horizon. It contained splendid and 
 commodious buildings, and was almost, as he calls 
 it, a small city, situated on the stream Lisor, near 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 163 
 
 its confluence with the Albis. It stood a little to 
 the east and north of Prague, and was distant from 
 that city only five German miles, or about six hours' 
 journey. 
 
 On the SQtii of August the Prefect of Brandis- 
 ium gave Tycho possession of his new residence. 
 His gratitude to his royal patron was copiously 
 displayed, not only in a Latin poem written on the 
 occasion, but in Latin inscriptions which he placed 
 above the doors of his observatory and his labora- 
 tory. In order that he might establish an astro- 
 nomical school at Prague, he wrote to Longomonta- 
 nus, Kepler, Miiller, David Fabricius, and two stu- 
 dents at Wittemburg, who were good calculators, 
 requesting them to reside with him at Benach as 
 his assistants and pupils : he at the same time de- 
 spatched his destined son-in-law, Tengnagel, ac- 
 companied by Pascal Muleus, to bring home his 
 wife and daughters from Wandesberg, and his in- 
 struments from Huen ; and he begged that Longo- 
 montanus would accompany them to Denmark, and 
 return in the same carriage with them to Bohemia. 
 
 Kepler arrived at Prague in January, 1600, and, 
 after spending three or four months at Benach in 
 carrying on his inquiries and in making astronom- 
 ical observations, he returned to Gratz. Tycho 
 had undertaken to obtain for him the appointment 
 of his assistant. It was arranged that the emperor 
 
164 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 should allow him a hundred florins, on the condition 
 that the states of Styria would permit him to retain 
 his salary for two years. This scheme, however, 
 failed, and Kepler was about to study medicine, and 
 offer himself for a professorship of medicine at Tu- 
 bingen, when Tycho undertook to obtain him a per- 
 manent appointment from the emperor. Kepler 
 accordingly returned in September, 1601, and, on 
 the recommendation of his friend, he was named im- 
 perial mathematician, on the condition of assisting 
 Tycho in his observations. 
 
 Tycho had experienced much inconvenience in 
 his residence at Benach from his ignorance of the 
 language and customs of the country, as well as 
 from other causes. He was therefore anxious to 
 transfer his instruments to Prague ; and no sooner 
 were his wishes conveyed to the emperor than he 
 gave him leave to send them to the royal gardens 
 and the adjacent buildings. His family and his lar- 
 ger instruments having now arrived from Huen, the 
 astronomer, with his family and his property, were 
 safely lodged in the royal edifice. Having found 
 that there was no house in Prague more suited for 
 his purposes than that of his late friend Curtius, the 
 emperor purchased it from his widow, and Tycho 
 removed into it on the 25th of February, 1601. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 165 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Tycho resumes his Astronomical Observations. Is attacked 
 with a painful Disease. His Sufferings and Death in 1601. 
 His Funeral. His Temper. His Turn for Satire and 
 Raillery. His Piety. Account of Astronomical Discover- 
 ies. His Love of Astrology and Alchymy. Observations 
 on the Character of the Alchymists. Tycho's Elixir. His 
 Fondness for the Marvellous. His Automata and Invisible 
 Bells. Account of the Idiot, called Lep, whom he kept as 
 a Prophet. History of Tycho's Instruments. His great 
 Brass Globe preserved at Copenhagen. Present State of 
 the Island of Huen. 
 
 ALTHOUGH Tycho continued in this new position 
 to observe the planets with his usual assiduity, yet 
 the recollection of his sufferings, and the inconve- 
 niences and disappointments which he had expe- 
 rienced, began to prey upon his mind and to affect 
 his health. Notwithstanding the continued liber- 
 ality of the emperor, and the kindness of his friends 
 and pupils, he was yet a stranger in a distant land. 
 Misfortune was unable to subdue that love of coun- 
 try which was one of the most powerful of his af- 
 fections ; and, though its ingratitude might have 
 broken the chain which bound him to the land of 
 his nativity, it seems only to have riveted it more 
 
166 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 firmly. His imagination, thus influenced, acquired 
 an undue predominance over his judgment. He 
 viewed the most trifling occurrences as supernatu- 
 ral indications ; and in those azure moments when 
 the clouds broke from his mind, and when he dis- 
 played his usual wit and pleasantry, he frequently 
 turned the conversation to the subject of his latter 
 end. 
 
 This state of mind was the forerunner, though 
 probably the effect, of a painful disease, which had 
 doubtless its origin in the severity and continuity 
 of his studies. On the 13th of October, when he 
 was supping at the house of a nobleman called 
 Rosenberg, he was seized with a retention of urine, 
 which forced him to leave the party. 
 
 This attack continued with little intermission for 
 more than a week, and during this period he suf- 
 fered great pain, attended with want of sleep and 
 temporary delirium, during which he frequently ex- 
 claimed, Ne frustra vixisse videor. On the 24th 
 he recovered from this painful situation, and be- 
 came perfectly tranquil. His strength, however, 
 was gone, and he saw that he had not many hours 
 to live. He expressed an anxious wish that his la- 
 bours would redound to the glory of his Maker, to 
 whom he offered up the most ardent prayers. He 
 enjoined his son and his son-in-law not to allow 
 them to be lost. He encouraged his pupils not to 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 167 
 
 abandon their pursuits, he requested Kepler to com- 
 plete the Jludolphine Tables, and to his family he 
 recommended piety and resignation to the Divine 
 will. Among those who never quitted Tycho in 
 his illness was Erick Brahe, Count Wittehorn, a 
 Swede, and a relation of his own, and counsellor 
 to the King of Poland. This amiable individual 
 never left the bedside of his friend, and administer- 
 ed to him all those attentions which his situation 
 required. Tycho, turning to him, thanked him for 
 his affectionate kindness, and requested him to 
 maintain the relationship with his family. He then 
 expired without pain, amid the consolations, the 
 prayers, and the tears of his friends. This event 
 took place on the gfi^bf October, ^1601, when he 
 was only .fifty-four years and ten months old. 
 
 The Emperor Rudolph evinced the greatest sor- 
 row when he was informed of the death of his friend, 
 and he gave orders that he should be buried in the 
 most honourable manner, in the principal church 
 of the ancient city.* The funeral took place on 
 the 4th of November, and he was interred in the 
 dress of a nobleman, and with the ceremonies of his 
 order. The funeral oration was pronounced by 
 Jessenius, before a distinguished assemblage, and 
 many elegies were written on his death. 
 
 * The Church of Tiers, where a monument has been erect- 
 ed to his memory. 
 
168 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 Tycho was a little above the middle size, and in 
 the last years of his life he was slightly corpulent. 
 He had reddish yellow hair and a ruddy complex. 
 ion. He was of a sanguine temperament, and is 
 said to have been sometimes irritable, and even ob- 
 stinate. This failing, however, if he did possess 
 it, was not exhibited towards his pupils or his sci- 
 entific friends, who ever entertained for him the 
 warmest affection and esteem. Some of his pupils 
 had remained in his house more than twenty years ; 
 and in the quarrel which arose between him and 
 Kepler,* and which is allowed to have originated 
 entirely in the temper of the latter, he conducted 
 himself with the greatest patience and forbearance. 
 There is reason to think that the irritability with 
 which he has been charged was less an affection of 
 his mind than the effect of that noble independence 
 of character which belonged to him, and that it has 
 been inferred chiefly from his conduct to some of 
 those high personages with whom he was brought 
 in contact. When Walchendorp, the president of 
 the council, kicked his favourite hound, it was no 
 proof of irritability of character that Tycho ex- 
 pressed in strong terms his disapprobation of the 
 deed. 
 
 It was doubtless a greater weakness m his char- 
 acter that he indulged his turn for satire without 
 * See the Life of Kepler. 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 169 
 
 being able to bear retaliation. His jocular habits, 
 too, sometimes led him into disagreeable positions. 
 When the Duke of Brunswick was dining with him 
 at Uraniburg, the duke said, towards the end of the 
 dinner, that as it as late, he must be going. Ty- 
 cho jocularly remarked that this could not be done 
 without his permission ; upon which the duke rose 
 and left the party without taking leave of his host. 
 Tycho became indignant in his turn, and continued 
 to sit at table ; but, as if repenting of what he had 
 done, he followed the duke, who was on his way to 
 the ship, and, calling upon him, displayed the cup 
 in his hand, as if he had washed out his offence by 
 a draught of wine. 
 
 Tycho was a man of true piety, and cherished 
 the deepest veneration for the Sacred Scriptures, 
 and for the great truths which they reveal. Their 
 principles regulated his conduct, and their promises 
 animated his hopes. His familiarity with the won. 
 ders of the heavens increased instead of diminish- 
 ing his admiration of Divine wisdom, and his daily 
 conversation was elevated by a constant reference 
 to a superintending Providence. 
 
 As a practical astronomer, Tycho has not been 
 surpassed by any observer of ancient or of modern 
 times. T^he splendour and number of Jijs_ifiSjru- 
 ments ; the ingenuity which he exhibited in invcnt- 
 o'hes, and in improving and adding to those 
 P 
 
170 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 which were formerly known, and his skill and assi- 
 
 tf ^^.^^M^MM^M***** 
 
 auily as ^ui oJbsatvwvliave-givcTi a" character to his 
 labours and a value to his observations which will 
 be appreciated to the latest posterity. The ap- 
 pearance of the new star in 1572 led him to form 
 a catalogue of 777 stars, vastly superior in accu- 
 racy to those of Hipparchus and Ulugh Beig. His 
 improvements on the hinar theory were still more 
 valuable. He discovered the important inequality 
 called the variation, and also the annual inequality 
 which depends on the position of the earth in its 
 orbit. He discovered also the inequality in the in- 
 clination of the moon's orbit and in the motion of 
 her nodes. He determined with new accuracy the 
 astronomical refractions from an altitude of 45 
 down to the horizon, where he found it to be 34' ; 
 and he made a vast collection of observations on 
 the planets, which formed the groundwork of Kep- 
 ler's discoveries and the basis of the Rudolphine 
 Tables. Tycho's powers of observation were not 
 ' equalled by his capacity for general views. It was 
 nerhaps owi" g rr fr ft* YfinfirP* 1 ^ far thp Spri > 
 tures than to the vanity of giving his name to a new 
 gystSnrtnrrt lie rejected the Copernican hypothesis. 
 Hence he was led to propose a new system, called 
 the Tychonic, in which the earth is stationary in 
 the centre of the universe, while the sun, with all 
 the other planets and comets revolving round him, 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 171 
 
 performs his daily revolution about the earth, This 
 arrangement of the planets afforded a sufficient ex- 
 planation of the various phenomena of the heav- 
 ens ; and as it was consistent with the language of 
 Scripture, and conformable to the indications of the 
 senses, it found many supporters, notwithstanding 
 the physical absurdity of making the whole system 
 revolve round one of the smallest of the planets. 
 
 It is a painful transition to pass from the astro- 
 nomical labours of Tycho to his astrological and 
 chymical pursuits. That Tycho studied and prac- 
 tised astrology has been universally admitted. He 
 calculated the nativity of the Emperor Rudolph, 
 and foretold that his relations would make some 
 attempts upon his life. The credulous emperor 
 confided in the prediction, and when the conduct of 
 his brother seemed to justify his belief, he confined 
 himself to his palace, and fell a prey to the fear 
 which it inspired. Tycho, however, seems to have 
 entirely renounced his astrological faith in his lat- 
 ter days ; and Kepler states,* in the most pointed 
 manner, that Tycho carried on his astronomical 
 labours with his mind entirely free from the super- 
 stitions of astrology ; that he derided and detested 
 the vanity and knavery of astrologers, and was 
 convinced that the stars exercised no influence on 
 the destinies of men. 
 
 * In his Preface to the Rudolphine Tables. 
 
172 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 Although Tycho informed Rothman that he de- 
 voted as much labour and expense to the study of 
 terrestrial (chymistry) as he did to that of celestial 
 astronomy, yet it is a singular fact that he never 
 published any account of his experiments, nor has" 
 he left among his writings any trace of his chymi- 
 cal inquiries. He pretended, however, to have 
 made discoveries in the science ; and we should 
 have been disposed to reprobate the apology which 
 he makes for not publishing them, did we not know 
 that it had been frequently given by the other al- 
 chymists of the age : " On consideration," says he, 
 " and by the advice of the most learned men, I 
 thought it improper to unfold the secrets of the art 
 (of alchymy) to the vulgar, as few persons were 
 capable of using its mysteries to advantage and 
 without detriment." 
 
 Admitting, then, as we must do, that Tycho was 
 not only a professed alchymist, but that he was 
 practically occupied with its pursuits and contin- 
 ually misled by its delusions, it may not be unin- 
 teresting to the reader to consider how far a belief 
 in alchymy, and a practice of its arts, have a found- 
 ation in the weakness of human nature, and to 
 what extent they are compatible with the piety and 
 elevated moral feeling by which our author was 
 distinguished. 
 
 In the history of human errors, two classes of im- 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 173 
 
 posters, of very different characters, present them- 
 selves to our notice : those who wilfully deluded 
 their species, and those who permitted their species 
 to delude themselves. The first of those classes 
 consisted of the selfish tyrants who upheld an un- 
 just supremacy by systematic delusions, and of 
 grovelling mountebanks who quenched their avari- 
 cious thirst at the fountains of credulity and igno- 
 rance. The second class comprehended spirits of 
 a nobler mould : it embraced the speculative en- 
 thusiasts, whom the love of fame and of truth urged 
 onward in a fruitless research, and those great lights 
 of knowledge and of virtue, who, while they stood 
 forward as the landmarks of the age which they 
 adorned, had neither the intellectual nor the moral 
 courage to divest themselves of the supernatural 
 radiance with which the ignorance of the vulgar 
 had encircled them. 
 
 The thrones and shrines which delusion once 
 sustained even in the civilized quarter of the globe, 
 are forever fallen, and that civil and religious lib- 
 erty, which in past ages was kept down by the mar- 
 vellous exhibitions of science to the senses, is now 
 maintained by its application to the reason of man. 
 The charlatans, whether they deal in moral or in 
 physical wonders, form a race which is never ex- 
 tinct. They migrate to the different zones of the 
 social system, and though they change their place, 
 P2 
 
174 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 and their purposes, and their victims, yet their char- 
 acter and motives remain the same. The philo- 
 sophical mind, therefore, is not disposed to study 
 either of these varieties of impostors ; but the other 
 two families which compose the second class are 
 objects of paramount interest. The eccentricities 
 and even the obliquities of great minds merit the 
 scrutiny of the metaphysician and the moralist, and 
 they derive a peculiar interest from the state of so- 
 ciety in which they are exhibited. Had Cardan 
 and Cornelius Agrippa lived in modern times, their 
 vanity and self-importance would have been check- 
 ed by the forms of society ; and even if their harm, 
 less pretensions had been displayed, they would 
 have disappeared in the blaze of their genius and 
 knowledge. But, nursed in superstition, and edu- 
 cated in dark and turbulent times, when everything 
 intellectual was in a state of restless transition, the 
 genius and character of great men necessarily re- 
 flected the peculiarities of the age in which they 
 lived. 
 
 Had history transmitted to us correct details of 
 the leading alchymists and scientific magicians of 
 the dark ages, we should have been able to analyze 
 their actions and their opinions, and trace them, 
 probably, to the ordinary principles by which the 
 human mind is in every age influenced and direct- 
 ed. But when a great man has once become an 
 
TYCHO BRAHE. 175 
 
 object either of interest or of wonder, and still 
 more when he is considered as the possessor of 
 knowledge and skill which transcend the capacity 
 of the age, he is soon transformed into the hero of 
 romance. His powers are overrated, his deeds ex- 
 aggerated, and he becomes the subject of idle le- 
 gends, which acquire a firmer hold on credulity 
 from the slight sprinkling of truth with which they 
 are seasoned. To disclaim the possession of lofty 
 attributes thus ascribed to great men is a degree 
 of humility which is not often exercised. But even 
 when this species of modesty is displayed, it never 
 fails to defeat its object. It but calls forth a deep- 
 er homage, and fixes the demigod more firmly in 
 his shrine. 
 
 The history of learning furnishes us with many 
 examples of that species of delusion in which a 
 great mind submits itself to vulgar adulation, and 
 renounces unwillingly, if it renounces at all, the 
 unenviable reputation of supernatural agency. In 
 cases where self-interest and ambition are the basis 
 of this peculiarity of temperament, and in an age 
 when the conjuror and the alchymist were the com- 
 panions and even the idols of princes, it is easy to 
 trace the steps by which a gifted sage retains his 
 ascendancy among the ignorant. The hecatomb 
 which is sacrificed to the magician he receives as 
 an oblation to his science, and, conscious of poe- 
 
176 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 sessing real endowments, the idol devours the 
 meats that are offered to him without analyzing the 
 motives and expectations under which he is fed. 
 But even when the idolater and his god are not 
 placed in this transverse relation, the love of pow- 
 er or of notoriety is sufficient to induce good men 
 to lend a too willing ear to vulgar testimony in fa- 
 vour of themselves ; and in our own times it is not 
 common to repudiate the unmerited cheers of a 
 popular assembly, or to offer a contradiction to fic- 
 titious tales which record our talents or our cour- 
 age, our charity or our piety. 
 
 The conduct of the scientific alchymists of the 
 thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries pre- 
 sents a problem of very difficult solution. When 
 we consider that a gas, a fluid, and a solid may 
 consist of the very same ingredients in different 
 proportions ; that a virulent poison may differ from 
 the most wholesome food only in the difference of 
 quantity of the very same elements ; that gold and 
 silver, and lead and mercury, and, indeed, all the 
 metals, may be extracted from transparent crystals, 
 which scarcely differ in their appearance from a 
 piece of common salt or a bit of sugarcandy ; and 
 that diamond is nothing more than charcoal, we 
 need not greatly wonder at the extravagant expec- 
 tation that the precious metals and the noblest 
 gems might be procured from the basest materials. 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 177 
 
 These expectations, too, must have been often ex- 
 cited by the startling results of their daily experi- 
 ments. The most ignorant compounder of simples 
 could not fail to witness the magical transforma- 
 tions of chymical action ; and every new product 
 must have added to the probability that the tempt- 
 ing doublets of gold and silver might be thrown 
 from the dice-box with which he was gambling. 
 
 But when the precious metals were found in lead 
 and copper by the action of powerful reagents it 
 was natural to suppose that they had been actually 
 formed during the process ; and men of well-regu- 
 lated minds even might have thus been led to em- 
 bark in new adventures to procure a more copious 
 supply, without any insult being offered to sober 
 reason, or any injury inflicted on sound morality. 
 
 When an ardent and ambitious mind is once 
 dazzled with the fascination of some lofty pursuit, 
 where gold is the object or fame the impulse, it is 
 difficult to pause in a doubtful career, and to make 
 a voluntary shipwreck of the reputation which has 
 been staked. Hope still cheers the aspirant from 
 failure to failure, till the loss of fortune and the de- 
 cay of credit disturb the serenity of his mind, and 
 hurry him on to the last resource of baffled inge- 
 nuity and disappointed ambition. The philosopher 
 thus becomes an impostor ; and by the pretended 
 transmutation of the baser metals into gold or the 
 
178 TTCHO BRAHE. 
 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone, he attempts to 
 sustain his sinking reputation and recover the for- 
 tune he has lost. The communication of the great 
 secret is now the staple commodity with which he 
 is to barter, and the grand talisman with which he 
 is to conjure. It can be imparted only to a chosen 
 few : to those among the opulent who merit it by 
 their virtues and can acquire it by their diligence, 
 and the Divine vengeance is threatened against its 
 disclosure. A process commencing in fraud and 
 terminating in mysticism is conveyed to the wealthy 
 aspirant or instilled into the young enthusiast, and 
 the grand mystery passes current for a season, till 
 some cautious professor of the art, like Tycho, de- 
 nounces its publication as detrimental to society. 
 
 Among the extravagant pretensions of the al- 
 chymists, that of forming a universal medicine was 
 perhaps not the most irrational. It was only when 
 they pretended to cure every disease and to con- 
 fer longevity that they did violence to reason. 
 The success of the Arabian physicians in the use 
 of mercurial preparations naturally led to the belief 
 that other medicines, still more general in their ap- 
 plication and efficacious in their healing powers, 
 might still be brought to light ; and we have no 
 doubt that many substantial discoveries were the 
 result of such overstrained expectations. Tycho 
 was not merely a believer in the medical dogmas 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 179 
 
 of the alchymists, he was actually the discoverer of 
 a new elixir, which went by his name, and which 
 was sold in every apothecary's shop as a specific 
 against the epidemic diseases which were then rav- 
 aging Germany. The Emperor Rudolph having 
 heard of this celebrated medicine, obtained' a small 
 portion of it from Tycho by the hands of the gov- 
 ernor of Brandisium ; but, not satisfied with the 
 gift, he seems to have applied to Tycho for an ac- 
 count of the method of preparing it. Tycho ac- 
 cordingly addressed to the emperor a long letter, 
 dated September 7, 1599, containing a minute ac- 
 count of the process. The base of this remarka- 
 ble medicine is Venetian treacle, which undergoes 
 an infinity of chymical operations and admixtures 
 before it is ready for the patient. When properly 
 prepared, he assures the emperor that it is better 
 than gold, and that it may be made still more val- 
 uable by mixing with it a single scruple either of 
 the tincture of corals, or sapphire, or hyacinth, or 
 a solution of pearls, or of potable gold, if it can be 
 obtained free of all corrosive matter ! In order to 
 render the medicine universal for all diseases which 
 can be cured by perspiration, and which, he says, 
 form a third of those which attack the human frame, 
 he combines it with antimony, a well-known sudo- 
 rific in the present practice of physic. Tycho con- 
 cludes this letter by humbly beseeching the emperor 
 
180 TYCHO BRAHE. 
 
 to keep the process secret, and reserve the medi- 
 cine for himself alone ! 
 
 The same disposition of mind which made Tycho 
 an astrologer and an alchymist, inspired him with 
 a singular love of the marvellous. 
 
 He had various automata with which he delight. 
 ed to astonish the peasants ; and by means of in- 
 visible bells, which communicated with every part 
 of his establishment, and which rung with the gen- 
 llest touch, he had great pleasure in bringing any 
 of his pupils suddenly before strangers, muttering 
 at a particular time the words " Come hither, Peter," 
 as if he had commanded their presence by some 
 supernatural agency. If, on leaving home, he met 
 with an old woman or a hare, he returned imme- 
 diately to his house : but the most extraordinary 
 of all his peculiarities remains to be noticed. When 
 he lived at Uraniburg he maintained an idiot of the 
 name of Lep, who lay at his feet whenever he sat 
 down to dinner, and whom he fed with his own 
 hand. Persuaded that his mind, when moved, was 
 capable of foretelling future events, Tycho carefully 
 marked everything he said. Lest it should be sup- 
 posed that this was done to no purpose, Longomon- 
 tanus relates, that when any person in the island 
 was sick, Lep never, when interrogated, failed to 
 predict whether the patient would live or die. It 
 is stated also in the letters of Wormius, both to 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 181 
 
 Gassendi and Peyter, that when Tycho was absent, 
 and his pupils became very noisy and merry in con- 
 sequence of not expecting him soon home, the idiot, 
 who was present, exclaimed, Juncher xaa laudit, 
 "Your master has arrived." On another occa- 
 sion, when Tycho had sent two of his pupils to Co- 
 penhagen on business, and had fixed the day of their 
 return, Lep surprised him on that day while he was 
 at dinner by exclaiming, " Behold, your pupils are 
 bathing in the sea." Tycho, suspecting that they 
 were shipwrecked, sent some person to the observa- 
 tory to look for their boat. The messenger brought 
 back word that he saw some persons wet on the 
 shore and in distress, with a boat upset at a great 
 distance. These stories have been given by Gas- 
 sendi, and may be viewed as specimens of the su. 
 perstition of the age. 
 
 Tycho left behind him a wife and six children, but 
 even in the time of Gassendi nothing was known of 
 their history, excepting that Tengnagel, who mar- 
 ried one of the daughters, gave up his scientific pur- 
 suits, and, having been admitted among the emper- 
 or's counsellors, was employed in several of his 
 embassies. 
 
 The instruments of Tycho were purchased from 
 his heirs by the emperor for 22,000 crowns. They 
 were shut up in the house of Curtius, and were treat- 
 ed with such veneration that no astronomer, not 
 Q 
 
182 TYCHO BRAKE. 
 
 even Kepler himself, was permitted to see or to use 
 them. 
 
 Here they remained till the death of the Emper- 
 or Matthias in 1619, when the troubles in Bohe- 
 mia took place. When Prague was taken by the 
 forces of the Elector Palatine, the instruments were 
 carried off, and some were destroyed, and others 
 converted to different purposes. The great brass 
 globe, however, was saved. It was first carried to 
 Niessa, the episcopal city of Silesia ; and, having 
 been presented to the College of Jesuits, it was pre- 
 served in their museum till Udalric, the son of 
 Christian, king of Denmark, took Niessa in 1632. 
 The globe was recognised as having belonged to 
 Tycho, and it was carried in triumph to Denmark. 
 An inscription was written upon it by Longomon- 
 tanus, and it was deposited with some pomp in the 
 Library of the Academy of Sciences. 
 
 After Tycho left Huen, the island was transfer- 
 red to some of the Danish nobility, and the fol- 
 lowing brief but melancholy description of it was 
 given by Wormius : " There is in the island a field 
 where Uraniburg was." The scientific antiquities 
 of Huen have been more recently described by Mr. 
 Cox in his travels through Denmark. 
 
 " We landed," says he, " on the southwest part, 
 in a small bay, just below the place where a stream, 
 supplied by numerous pools and fishponds, fails 
 
TYCHO BRAKE. 183 
 
 into the sea. We ascended the shore, which is 
 clothed with short herbage, crossed the stream, and 
 passed over a gently- waving surface, gradually slo- 
 ping towards the sea, and walked a mile to a farm- 
 house, standing in the middle of the island, inhabit- 
 ed by Mr. Schaw, a Swedish gentleman, to whom 
 the greater part of the island belongs. He lives 
 here in summer, but in winter resides at Land- 
 scrona. This dwelling is the same as existed in 
 Tycho Brahe's time, and was the farmhouse be- 
 longing to his estate. A guide, whom we obtained 
 from Mr. Schaw, conducted us to the remains of 
 Tycho's mansion, which are near the house, and 
 consist of little more than a mound of earth which 
 enclosed the garden, and two pits, the sites of his 
 mansion and observatory."* 
 
 * Cox's Travels in Poland, &c., vol. v., p. 189, 190. 
 
LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
LIFE OF JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Kepler's Birth in 1571. His Family and early Education. 
 The Distress and Poverty of his Family. He enters the 
 Monastic School of Mauibronn, and is admitted into the Uni- 
 versity of Tubingen, where he distinguishes himself and 
 takes his Degrees. He is appointed Professor of Astrono- 
 my and Greek in 1594. His first Speculations on the Or- 
 bits of the Planets. Account of their Progress and Fail- 
 ure. His " Cosmographical Mystery" published. He Mar- 
 ries a Widow in 1597. Religious Troubles at Gratz. He 
 retires from thence to Hungary. Visits Tycho at Prague 
 in 1600. Returns to Gratz, which he again quits for 
 Prague. He is taken 111 on the Road. Is appointed Ty- 
 cho's Assistant in 1601. Succeeds Tycho as Imperial 
 Mathematician. His Work on the new Star of 1604T. 
 Singular Specimen of it. 
 
 IT is a remarkable circumstance in the history of 
 science, that astronomy should have been cultiva- 
 ted at the same time by three such distinguished 
 men as Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo. While Tycho, 
 in the 54th year of his age, was observing the heav- 
 ens at Prague, Kepler, only 30 years old, was ap- 
 plying his wild genius to the determination of the 
 orbit of Mars, and Galileo, at the age of 36, was 
 
188 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 about to direct the telescope to the unexplored re- 
 gions of space. The diversity of gifts which Prov- 
 idence assigned to these three philosophers was no 
 less remarkable. Tycho was destined to lay the 
 foundation of modern astronomy by a vast series of 
 accurate observations made with the largest and the 
 finest instruments ; it was the proud lot of Kepler 
 to deduce the laws of the planetary orbits from the 
 observations of his predecessors ; while Galileo en- 
 joyed the more dazzling honour of discovering by 
 the telescope new celestial bodies and new systems 
 of worlds. 
 
 John Kepler, the youngest of this illustrious band, 
 was born at the imperial city of Weil, in the duchy 
 of Wirtemburg, on the 21st December, 1571. His 
 parents, Henry Kepler and Catharine Guldenmann, 
 were both of noble family, but had been reduced to 
 mergence by their own bad conduct. Henry Kep- 
 ler had been long in the service of the Duke of 
 Wirtemburg as a petty officer, and in that capacity 
 had wasted his fortune. Upon setting out for the 
 army he left his wife in a state of pregnancy, and 
 at the end of seven -months she gave premature 
 birth to John Kepler, who was, from this cause, a 
 sickly child during the first years of his life. Be- 
 ing obliged to join the army in the Netherlands, his 
 wife followed him into the field, and left her son, 
 then five years old, under the charge of his grand- 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 189 
 
 father at Limberg. Some time afterward he was 
 attacked with the smallpox, and having with diffi- 
 culty recovered from this severe malady, he was 
 sent to school in 1577. 
 
 Having become security for one of his friends, 
 who absconded from his creditors, Henry Kepler 
 was obliged to sell his house and all his property, 
 and was driven to the necessity of keeping a tav- 
 ern at Elmendingen. Owing to these misfortunes, 
 young Kepler was taken from school about two 
 years afterward, and was obliged to perform the 
 functions of a servant in his father's house. In 
 1585 he was again placed in the school of Elmen- 
 dingen ; but his father and mother having been 
 both attacked with the smallpox, and he himself 
 having been seized with a violent illness in 1585, 
 his education had been much neglected, and he was 
 prohibited from all mental application. 
 
 In the year 1586, on the 26th of November, Kep- 
 ler was admitted into the school at the Monastery 
 of Maulbronn, which had been established at the 
 Reformation, and which was maintained at the ex- 
 pense of the Duke of Wirtemburg, as a preparato- 
 ry seminary for the University of Tubingen. After 
 remaining a year at the upper classes, the scholars 
 presented themselves for examination at the College 
 for the degree of Bachelor; and, having received 
 this, they returned to the school with the title of 
 
190 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 Veterans. Here they completed the usual course 
 of study ; and being admitted as resident students 
 at Tubingen, they took their degree of Master. In 
 prosecuting this course of study Kepler was sadly 
 interrupted, not only by periodical returns of his 
 former complaints, but by family quarrels of the most 
 serious import. These dissensions, arising greatly 
 from the perverseness of his mother, drove his fa- 
 ther to a foreign land, where he soon died ; and 
 his mother having quarrelled with all her relations, 
 the affairs of the family were involved in inextrica- 
 ble disorder. Notwithstanding these calamities, 
 Kepler took his degree of Bachelor on the 15th of 
 September, 1588, and his degree of Master in Au- 
 gust, 1591, on which occasion he held the second 
 place at the annual examination. 
 
 In his early studies Kepler devoted himself with 
 intense pleasure to philosophy in general, but he en- 
 tertained no peculiar affection for astronomy. Be- 
 ing well grounded in arithmetic and geometry, he 
 had no difficulty in making himself master of the 
 geometrical and astronomical theorems which oc- 
 curred in the course of his studies. While attend- 
 ing the lectures of Mcestlin, professor of mathemat- 
 ics, who had distinguished himself by an oration in 
 favour of the Copernican system, Kepler not only 
 became a convert to the opinions of his master, but 
 defended them in the physical disputations of the 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 191 
 
 students, and even wrote an essay on the primary 
 motion, in order to prove that it was produced by 
 the daily rotation of the earth. 
 
 In 1594, the astronomical chair at Gratz, in Sty- 
 ria, fell vacant by the death of George Stadt, and, 
 according to Kepler's own statement, he was forced 
 to accept this situation by the authority of his pro- 
 fessional tutors, "who recommended him to the no- 
 bles of Styria. Though Kepler had little knowl- 
 edge of the science, and no passion for it whatever, 
 yet the nature of his office forced him to attend to 
 astronomy ; and in the year 1595, when he enjoy- 
 ed some leisure from his lectures, he. directed the 
 whole energy of his mind to the three important 
 topics of the number, the size, and the motion of 
 the orbits of the planets. He first tried if the size 
 of the planets' orbits, or the difference of their sizes, 
 had any regular proportion to each other. Find- 
 ing -no proof of this, he inserted a new planet be- 
 tween Mars and Jupiter, and another between Ve- 
 nus and Mercury, which he supposed might be in. 
 visible from their smallness ; but even with these 
 assumptions the distances of the planets exhibited 
 no regular progression. Kepler next tried if these 
 distances varied as the cosines of the quadrant, and 
 if their motion varied as the sun's, the sine of 90 
 representing the motion at the sun, and the sine of 
 that at the fixed stars ; but in this trial he was 
 also disappointed. 
 
192 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 Having spent the whole summer in these fruit- 
 less speculations, and praying constantly to his Ma- 
 ker for success, he was accidentally drawing a dia- 
 gram in his lecture-room in July, 1595, when he 
 observed the relation between the circle inscribed 
 in a triangle and that described round it ; and the 
 ratio of these circles, which was that of 1 to 2, ap- 
 peared to his eye to be identical with that of Jupi- 
 ter's and Saturn's orbits. Hence he was led to 
 compare the orbits of the other planets' circles de- 
 scribed in pentagons and hexagons. As this hypoth- 
 esis was as inapplicable to the heavens as its pred- 
 ecessors, Kepler asked himself, in despair, " What 
 have plane figures to do with solid orbits ? Solid 
 bodies ought to be used for solid orbits." On the 
 strength of this conceit, he supposed that the dis- 
 tances of the planets were regulated by the sizes of 
 the five regular solids described within one another. 
 " The Earth is the circle, the measurer of all. 
 Round it describe a dodecahedron ; the circle in- 
 cluding this will be Mars. Round Mars describe a 
 tetrahedron ; the circle including this will be Jupi- 
 ter. Describe a cube round Jupiter ; the circle in- 
 cluding this will be Saturn. Then inscribe in the 
 Earth an icosahedron ; the circle described in it will 
 be Venus. Inscribe an octohedron in Venus ; the 
 circle inscribed in it will be Mercury." 
 
 This discovery, as he considered it, harmonized 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 193 
 
 in a very rude way with the measures of the plan- 
 etary orbits given by Copernicus ; but Kepler was 
 so enamoured with it, that he ascribed the differen- 
 ces to errors of observation, and declared that he 
 would not renounce the glory of having made it for 
 the whole Electorate of Saxony. 
 
 In his attempt to discover the relation between 
 the periodic times of the planets and their distances 
 from the sun, he was not more successful ; but as 
 this relation had a real existence, he made some 
 slight approach to its determination. These ex- 
 traordinary researches, which indicate the wildness 
 and irregularity of Kepler's genius, were published 
 in 1596, in a work entitled " Prodromus of Cosmo- 
 graphical Dissertations ; containing the cosmo- 
 graphical mystery respecting the admirable pro- 
 portion of the celestial orbits, and the genuine and 
 real causes of the number, magnitude, and periods 
 of the planets demonstrated by the five regular ge- 
 ometrical solids." 
 
 Notwithstanding the speculative character of this 
 volume, it obtained for its author a high name 
 among astronomers. Galileo and Tycho, whose 
 opinions of it he requested, spoke of it with some 
 commendation. The former praised the ingenuity 
 and good faith which it displayed ; and Tycho, 
 though he requested him to try to adapt something 
 of the same nature to the Tychonic system, saw 
 R 
 
194 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 the speculative character of his mind, and advised 
 him " to lay a solid foundation for his views by ac- 
 tual observation, and then, by ascending from these, 
 to strive to reach the causes of things." 
 
 In 1592, before Kepler had quitted Tubingen, 
 he was on the eve of entering into the married 
 state. Though the foolish scheme was fortunately 
 broken off, yet he resumed it again in 1596, when 
 he paid his addresses to Barbara Millar, of Muleckh, 
 who was a widow for the second time, though only 
 twenty-three years of age. Her parents, however, 
 would not consent to the match till Kepler proved 
 his nobility ; and, owing to the delay which arose 
 from this circumstance, the marriage did not take 
 place till 1597. The income which Kepler derived 
 from his professorship was very small, and as his 
 wife's fortune turned out less than he had been led 
 to expect, he not only was annoyed with pecuniary 
 difficulties, but was involved in disputes with his 
 wife's relations. These evils were greatly increas- 
 ed by the religious troubles which took place in 
 Styria. The Catholics at Gratz rose against the 
 Protestants, and threatened to expel them from the 
 city. Kepler, who openly professed the Protestant 
 religion, saw the risks to which he was exposed, 
 and retired with his wife into Hungary. Here he 
 continued nearly a year, during which he composed 
 and transmitted to his friend Zehentmaier, at Tu- 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 195 
 
 bingen, several small treatises, " On the Magnet," 
 On the Cause of the Obliquity of the Ecliptic," 
 and " On the Divine Wisdom, as shown in the 
 Creation," all of which seem to have been lost. In 
 1599 Kepler was recalled to Gratz by the States 
 of Styria, and resumed his professorship ; but the 
 city was still divided into two factions, and Kepler, 
 who was a lover of peace, found his situation very 
 uncomfortable. Having learned from Tycho that 
 he had been able to determine more accurately than 
 had been done the eccentricities of the orbits of the 
 planets, Kepler was anxious to avail himself of 
 these observations, and set out on a visit to Tycho 
 at Prague, where he arrived in January, 1600. 
 Tycho received him with great kindness, notwith- 
 standing the part which he had taken against him 
 along with Raimar, and he spent three or four 
 months with him at Benach. It was then arranged 
 that Kepler should be appointed Tycho's assistant 
 in the observatory, with a salary of 100 florins, 
 provided the States of Styria should, on the em- 
 peror's application, allow him to be absent for two 
 years and retain his salary. Kepler had returned 
 to Gratz before this arrangement was completed, 
 and new troubles having broke out in that city, he 
 resigned his professorship. Dreading lest this step 
 would frustrate his scheme of joining Tycho, he 
 resolved to ask the patronage of the Duke of Wir. 
 
196 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 temburg for the professorship of medicine at Tu- 
 bingen ; and with this view he corresponded with 
 Moestlin and his other friends in that University. 
 When Tycho heard of this plan, he pressed him to 
 abandon it, and promised his best exertions to pro- 
 cure a permanent situation for him from the em- 
 peror. 
 
 Encouraged by these promises, Kepler and his 
 wife set off for Prague, but he was unfortunately 
 attacked on the road with a quartan ague, which 
 lasted seven months ; and having exhausted the 
 little money which he had along with him, he was 
 obliged to apply to Tycho for a supply. After his 
 arrival at Prague he was supported entirely by the 
 bounty of his friend, and he endeavoured to make 
 some return for this kindness by attacking in a 
 controversial pamphlet two of the scientific oppo- 
 nents of Tycho. Kepler's total dependance on the 
 generosity of his friend had made him suspicious 
 of his sincerity. He imagined that Tycho had not 
 freely communicated to him all his observations, 
 and that he had not been sufficiently liberal in sup- 
 plying his wife with money in his absence. While 
 absent a second time from Prague, and influenced by 
 these feelings, he addressed a violent letter to Tycho 
 filled with reproaches. On the plea of being oc- 
 cupied with his daughter's marriage, Tycho re- 
 quested Ericksen, one of his assistants, to reply to 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 197 
 
 Kepler's letter ; and he did this with so much ef- 
 fect, that Kepler saw his mistake, and in the no- 
 blest and most generous manner supplicated the 
 forgiveness of his friend. Tycho exhibited the 
 same good feeling ; and the kindness of Hoffman, 
 president of the States of Styria, completed the rec- 
 onciliation of these two astronomers. 
 
 On his return to Prague in 1601, he was pre- 
 sented by Tycho to the emperor, who conferred 
 upon him the title of imperial mathematician, on 
 the condition that he would assist Tycho in his cal- 
 culations. This connexion was peculiarly valua- 
 ble to Kepler, as the observations of his colleague 
 were the only ones made in the world which could 
 enable him to carry on his own theoretical inqui- 
 ries. These two astronomers now undertook to 
 compute, from Tycho's observations, a new set of 
 astronomical tables, to be called the Rudolphine 
 Tables, in honour of the emperor. This scheme 
 flattered the vanity of their master, and he pledged 
 himself to pay all the expenses of the work. Lon- 
 gomontanus, Tycho's principal assistant, took upon 
 himself the labour of arranging and discussing the 
 observations on the stars, while Kepler devoted 
 himself to the more congenial task of examining 
 those on the planet Mars, with which Tycho was 
 at that time particularly occupied. The appoint- 
 ment of Longomontanus to a professorship in Den- 
 R2 
 
198 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 mark, and the death of Tycho in October, 1601, 
 put a stop to these important schemes. 
 
 Kepler succeeded Tycho as principal mathema- 
 tician to the emperor, and was provided with a 
 handsome salary, which was partly charged on the 
 imperial treasury, and partly on the States of Si- 
 lesia, and the first instalment of which was to be 
 paid in March, 1602. The generosity of the em. 
 peror did not fail to excite the jealousy of ignorant 
 individuals, who were not aware of the value of 
 science to the state ; but the increasing fame of 
 Kepler, and the valuable works which he published, 
 soon silenced their opposition. 
 
 In September, 1604, astronomers were surprised 
 with the appearance of a new star in the foot of 
 Serpentarius. It was not seen before the 29th of 
 September, and Mo3stlin informs us that, on account 
 of clouds, he did not obtain a good view of it till 
 the 6th of October. Like that of 1572,* it at first 
 surpassed Jupiter in brightness, and rivalled even 
 Venus ; but it afterward became as small as Regu- 
 lus and as dull as Saturn, and disappeared at the 
 end of a few months. It constantly changed its 
 colour, and was at first tawny, then yellow, then 
 purple and red, and often white at great altitudes. 
 It had no parallax, and therefore was a fixed star. 
 Kepler wrote a short account of this remarkable 
 * See the Life of Tycho, page 129. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 199 
 
 body, and maintained its superiority to that of 1572, 
 as this last came in an ordinary year, while the 
 other appeared in the year of the fiery trigon, or 
 that in which Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are in the 
 three fiery signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, an 
 event which occurs only every 800 years. After 
 discussing a great variety of topics but little con- 
 nected with his subject, and in a style of absurd 
 jocularity, he attacks the opinions of the Epicu- 
 reans, that the star was a fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms, in the following remarkable paragraph, 
 which is a good specimen of the work : " When I 
 was a youth, with plenty of idle time on my hands, 
 I was much taken with the vanity, of which some 
 grown men are not ashamed, of making anagrams, 
 by transposing the letters of my name, written in 
 Latin. Out of Joannes Keplerus came Serpens in 
 Akuleo (a serpent in his sting) ; but not being sat- 
 isfied with the meaning of these words, and being 
 unable to make another, I trusted the thing to 
 chance, and taking out of a pack of playing-cards 
 as many as there were letters in the name, I wrote 
 one upon each, and then began to shuffle them, and 
 at each shuffle to read them in the order they 
 came, to see if any meaning came of it. Now 
 may all the Epicurean gods and goddesses con- 
 found this same chance, which, although I have 
 spent a good deal of time over it, never showed 
 
200 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 me anything like sense even from a distance. So- 
 I gave up my cards to the Epicurean eternity, to 
 be carried away into infinity, and it is said they 
 are still flying about there in the utmost confusion 
 among the atoms, and have never yet come to any 
 meaning. I will tell those disputants, my oppo- 
 nents, not my own opinion, but my wife's. Yes- 
 terday, when weary with writing, and my mind 
 quite dusty with considering these atoms, I was 
 called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was 
 set before me. * It seems, then,' said I, aloud, * that 
 if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, 
 drops of water, vinegar, and oil, and slices of egg, 
 had been flying about in the air from all eternity, 
 it might at last happen by chance that there would 
 come a salad.' * Yes,' says my wife, * but not so 
 nice and well-dressed as this of mine is.' " 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 201 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Kepler's pecuniary Embarrassments. His Inquiries respect- 
 ing the Law of Refraction. His Supplement to Vitellio. 
 His Researches on Vision. His Treatise on Dioptrics. 
 His Commentaries on Mars. He discovers that the Or- 
 bit of Mars is an Ellipse, with the Sun in one Focus, and 
 extends the Discovery to all the other Planets. He estab- 
 lishes the two first Laws of Physical Astronomy. His 
 Family Distresses. Death of his Wife. He is appointed 
 Professor of Mathematics at Linz. His Method of choos- 
 ing a second Wife. Her Character, as given by himself. 
 Origin of his Treatise on Gauging. He goes to Ratis- 
 bon to give his Opinion to the Diet on the Change of Style. 
 He refuses the Mathematical Chair at Bologna. 
 
 ALTHOUGH Kepler now filled one of the most 
 honourable situations to which a philosopher could 
 aspire, and possessed a large salary fitted to sup- 
 ply his most reasonable wants, yet, as the imperial 
 treasury was drained by the demands of an expen- 
 sive war, his salary was always in arrear. Owing 
 to this cause he was constantly involved in pecu- 
 niary difficulties, and, as he himself described his 
 situation, he was perpetually begging his bread 
 from the emperor at Prague. His increasing fam. 
 ily rendered the want of money still more distress- 
 
202 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 ing, and he was driven to the painful alternative of 
 drawing his income from casting nativities. From 
 the same cause he was obliged to abandon his plan 
 of publishing the Rudolphine Tables, and to devote 
 himself to works of a less expensive kind, and 
 which were more likely to yield some pecuniary 
 advantages. 
 
 In spite of these embarrassments, and the occu- 
 pation of his time in the practice of astrology, Kep- 
 ler found leisure for his favourite pursuits. No 
 adverse circumstances were capable of extinguish- 
 ing his scientific ardour, and whenever he directed 
 his vigorous mind to the investigation of phenom- 
 ena, he never failed to obtain interesting and origi- 
 nal results. Since the death of Tycho his atten- 
 tion had been much occupied with the subject of 
 refraction and vision, and in 1606 he published 
 the result of his researches in a work entitled " A 
 Supplement to Vitellio, in which the optical part ot 
 astronomy is treated, but chiefly on the artificial 
 observation and estimation of diameters, and of the 
 eclipses of the Sun and Moon." Astronomers had 
 long been perplexed with the refraction of the at- 
 mosphere, and so little was known of the general 
 subject, as well as of this branch of it, that Tycho 
 believed the refraction of the atmosphere to cease 
 at 45 of altitude. Even at the beginning of the 
 second century, Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandrea 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 203 
 
 had unravelled its principal mysteries, and had 
 given in his Optics a theory of astronomical refrac- 
 tion more complete than that of any astronomer 
 before the time of Cassini $* but the MSS. had un- 
 fortunately been mislaid, and Alhazen, and Vitel- 
 lio, and Kepler were obliged to take up the subject 
 from its commencement. Ptolemy had not only 
 determined that the refraction of the atmosphere 
 had gradually increased from the zenith to the ho- 
 rizon, but he had measured with singular accuracy 
 the angles of refraction for water and glass, from 
 a perpendicular incidence to a horizontal one. 
 
 Kepler treated this branch of science in his own 
 peculiar way, " hunting down," as he expressed it, 
 every hypothesis which his fertile imagination had 
 successively presented to him. In his various at- 
 tempts to discover the law of refraction, or a meas- 
 ure of it, as varying with the density of the body 
 and the angle of incidence of the light, he was near- 
 er the goal in his first speculation than in any of 
 the rest ; and he seems to have failed in conse- 
 quence of his not separating the question as it re- 
 lated to' density from the question as it related to 
 incidence. "I did not leave untried," says he, 
 " whether, by assuming a horizontal refraction ac- 
 cording to the density of the medium, the rest 
 would correspond to the sines of the distances from 
 * Cassini was born in 1625. and died in 1712. 
 
204 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 a vertical direction, but calculation proved that it 
 was not so : and, indeed, there was no occasion to 
 have tried it, for thus the refraction would increase 
 according to the same law in all mediums, which is 
 contradicted by experiment." 
 
 Although completely foiled in his search after 
 the law of refraction, which was subsequently dis- 
 covered by Willebrord Snell, and some time after- 
 ward by James Gregory, he was singularly suc- 
 cessful in his inquiries respecting vision. Regard- 
 ing the eye as analogous in its structure with the 
 camera obscura of Baptista Porta, he discovered 
 that the images of external objects were painted in 
 an inverted position on the retina, by the union of 
 the pencils of rays which issued from every point 
 of the object. He ascribed an erect vision to an 
 operation of the mind, by which it traces the rays 
 back to the pupil, where they cross one another, 
 and thus refers the lower parts of the image to the 
 higher parts of the object. He also explained the 
 cause of long-sighted and short-sighted vision, and 
 showed how convex and concave lenses enabled 
 those who possessed these peculiarities of vision to 
 see distinctly, by accurately converging the pencils 
 of rays to a focus on the retina. Kepler likewise 
 observed the power of accommodating the eye to 
 different distances, and he ascribed it to the con- 
 traction of the ciliary processes, which drew the 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 205 
 
 sides of the eyeball towards the crystalline lens, and 
 thus elongated the eye so as to produce an adjust, 
 ment of it for near objects. Kepler wisely declined 
 to inquire into the way in which the mind perceives 
 the images painted on the retina, and he blames 
 Vitellio for attempting to determine a question 
 which he considered as not belonging to optics. 
 
 The work of Kepler now under consideration 
 contains the method of calculating eclipses which 
 is in use at the present day. 
 
 The only other optical treatise written by Kepler 
 was his Dioptrics, with an appendix on the use of 
 optics in philosophy. This admirable work, which 
 laid the foundation of the science, was published at 
 Augsburg in 1611, and reprinted at London in 
 1653. Although Maurolycus had made some slight 
 progress in studying the passage of light through 
 different media, yet it is. to Kepler that we owe the 
 methods of tracing the progress of rays through 
 transparent bodies with convex and concave surfa- 
 ces, and of determining the foci of lenses, and of 
 the relative positions of the images which they form, 
 and the objects from which the rays proceed. He 
 was thus led to explain the rationale of the telescope, 
 and to invent the astronomical telescope, which con- 
 sists of two convex lenses, by which objects are seen 
 inverted. Kepler also discovered the important 
 fact that spherical surfaces were not capable of 
 3 
 
206 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 converging rays to a single focus, and he conjee- 
 tured, what Descartes afterward proved, that this 
 property might be possessed by lenses having the 
 figure of some of the sections of the cone. The 
 total reflection of light at the second surface of 
 bodies was likewise studied by Kepler, and he de- 
 termined that the total reflection commenced when 
 the angle of incidence was equal to' the angle of re- 
 fraction, which corresponded to an incidence of 90. 
 Two years before the publication of his Dioptrics, 
 viz., in 1609, Kepler had given to the world his great 
 work, entitled " The New Astronomy, or Comment- 
 aries on the Motions of Mars." The discoveries 
 which this volume records form the basis of physi- 
 cal astronomy. The inquiries by which he was led 
 to them began in that memorable year 1601, when 
 he became the colleague or assistant of Tycho. 
 The powers of original genius were then for the 
 first time associated with inventive skill and patient 
 observation ; and though the astronomical data pro- 
 vided by Tycho were sure of finding their applica- 
 tion in some future age, yet without them Kepler's 
 speculations would have been vain, and the laws 
 which they enabled him to determine would have 
 adorned the history of another century. Having 
 tried in vain to represent the motion of Mars by a 
 uniform motion in a circular orbit, and by the cy- 
 cles and epicycles with which Copernicus had en- 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 207 
 
 deavoured to explain the planetary inequalities, 
 Kepler was led, after many fruitless speculations,* 
 to suppose the orbit of the planet to be oval ; and, 
 from his knowledge of the conic sections, he after- 
 ward determined it to be an ellipse, with the sun 
 placed in one of its foci. He then ascertained the 
 dimensions of the orbit ; and, by a comparison of 
 the times employed by the planet to complete a 
 whole revolution or any part of one, he discovered 
 that the time in which Mars describes any arches 
 of his elliptic orbit were always to one another as 
 the areas contained by lines drawn from the focus 
 or the centre of the sun to the extremities of the 
 respective arches ; or, in other words, that the ra- 
 dius vector, or the line joining the Sun and Mars, 
 described equal areas in equal times. By examin- 
 ing the inequalities of the other p'lanets, he found 
 that they all moved in elliptic orbits, and that the 
 radius vector of each described areas proportional 
 to the times. These two great results are known 
 by the name of the first and second laws of Kepler. 
 The third law, or that which relates to the connex. 
 ion between the periodic times and the distances of 
 the planets, was not discovered till a later period of 
 his life. 
 
 * An interesting account of the steps by which Kepler pro- 
 ceeded will be found in Mr. Drinkwater Bethune's admirable 
 Life of Kepler, in the Library of Useful Knowledge. 
 
208 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 When Kepler presented to Rudolph the volume 
 which contained these fine discoveries, he remind- 
 ed him jocularly of his requiring the sinews of war 
 to make similar attacks upon the other planets. 
 The emperor, however, had more formidable en- 
 emies than Jupiter and Saturn, and from the treas- 
 ury, which war had exhausted, he found it difficult 
 to supply the wants of science. While Kepler was 
 thus involved in the miseries of poverty, misfor- 
 tunes of every kind filled up the cup of his adver- 
 sity. His wife, who had long been the victim of low 
 spirits, was seized, towards the end of 1610, with 
 fever, epilepsy, and phrenitis, and before she had 
 completely recovered all his three children were 
 simultaneously attacked with the smallpox. His 
 favourite son fell a victim to this malady, and at 
 the same time Prague was partially occupied by the 
 troops of Leopold. The part of the city where 
 Kepler resided was harassed by the Bohemian lev- 
 ies, and, to crown this list of evils, the Austrian 
 troops introduced the plague into the city. 
 
 Some time afterward Kepler set out for Austria, 
 with the view of obtaining the professorship of 
 mathematics at Linz, which was now vacant ; but, 
 upon his return in June, he found his wife in a de- 
 cline, brought on by grief for the loss of her son, 
 and she was some time afterward seized with an 
 infectious fever, of which she died. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 209 
 
 The Emperor Rudolph was unwilling to allow 
 Kepler to quit Prague. He encouraged him with 
 hopes that the arrears of his salary would be paid 
 from Saxony ; but these hopes were fallacious, and 
 it was not till the death of Rudolph, in 1612, that 
 Kepler was freed from these distressing embarrass- 
 ments. 
 
 On the accession of Mathias, Rudolph's brother, 
 Kepler was reappointed imperial mathematician, 
 and was allowed to accept the professorship at 
 Linz. His family now consisted of two children, a 
 daughter, Susannah, born in 1602, and a son, Louis, 
 born in 1607. His own time was so completely oc- 
 cupied by his new professorial duties, as well as by 
 his private studies, that he found it necessary to 
 seek another parent for his children. For this 
 purpose he gave a commission to his friends to look 
 out for him a suitable wife, and in a long and jocu- 
 lar letter to Baron Strahlendorf he has given an 
 amusing account of the different negotiations which 
 preceded his marriage. The substance of this let- 
 ter is so well given by Mr. Drinkwater Bethune, 
 that we shall follow his account of it. 
 
 The first of the eleven ladies among whom his 
 inclinations wavered " was a widow, an intimate 
 friend of his first wife, and who, on many accounts, 
 appeared a most eligible match. At first," says 
 Kepler, " she seemed favourably inclined to the pro- 
 S2 
 
210 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 posal ; it is certain that she took time to consider 
 it, but at last she very quietly excused herself." It 
 must have been from a recollection of this lady's 
 good qualities that Kepler was induced to make his 
 offer ; for we learn rather unexpectedly, after being 
 informed of her decision, that when he soon after- 
 ward paid his respects to her, it was the first time 
 that he had seen her during the last six years ; and 
 he found, to his great relief, that " there was no 
 'single pleasing part about her." The truth seems 
 to be, that he was nettled by her answer ; and he is 
 at greater pains than appears necessary, consider- 
 ing this last discovery, to determine why she would 
 not accept his offered hand. Among other reasons 
 he suggested her children, among whom were two 
 marriageable daughters ; and it is diverting after- 
 ward to find them also in the catalogue which Kep. 
 ler appeared to be making of all his female ac- 
 quaintance. * * * Of the other ladies, one 
 was too old ; another in bad health ; another too 
 proud of her birth and quarterings ; a fourth had 
 learned nothing but showy accomplishments, " not 
 at all suitable to the sort of life she would have to 
 lead with me ;" another grew impatient, and mar- 
 ried a more decided admirer while he was hesita- 
 ting. " The mischief," says he, " in all these at- 
 tachments was, that while I was delaying, com- 
 paring and balancing conflicting reasons, every 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 211 
 
 day saw me inflamed with a new passion." By 
 the time he reached the 8th, he found his match 
 in this respect. " Fortune at length has avenged 
 herself on my doubtful inclinations. At first she 
 was quite complying, and her friends also ; present- 
 ly, whether she did or did not consent, not only I, 
 but she herself did not know. After the lapse of a 
 few days came a renewed promise, which, however, 
 had to be confirmed a third time ; and four days af- 
 ter that she again repeated her confirmation, and 
 begged to be excused from it. Upon this I gave her 
 up, and this time all my counsellors were of one 
 opinion." This was the longest courtship in the 
 list, having lasted three months ; and, quite disheart- 
 ened by its bad success, Kepler's next attempt was 
 of a more timid complexion. His advances to No. 
 9 were made by confiding to her the whole story of 
 his recent disappointment, prudently determining to 
 be guided in his behaviour by observing whether 
 the treatment he had experienced met with a proper 
 degree of sympathy. Apparently the experiment 
 did not succeed ; and, almost reduced to despair, 
 Kepler betook himself to the advice of a friend, who 
 had for some time past complained that she was not 
 consulted in this difficult negotiation. When she 
 produced No. 10 and the first visit was paid, the re- 
 port upon her was as follows : " She has undoubt- 
 edly a good fortune, is of good family, and of eco- 
 
212 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 nomical habits ; but her physiognomy is most hor- 
 ribly ugly ; she would be stared at in the streets, not 
 to mention the striking disproportion in our figures. 
 I am lank, lean, and spare, she short and thick ; 
 in a family notorious for fulness, she is considered 
 superfluously fat." The only objection to No. 11 
 seems to have been her excessive youth ; and when 
 this treaty was broken off on that account, Kepler 
 turned his back upon all his advisers, and chose for 
 himself one who had figured as No. 5 in the list, to 
 whom he professes to have felt attached throughout, 
 but from whom the representations of his friends 
 had hitherto detained him, probably on account of 
 her humble station. 
 
 The following is Kepler's summary of her char- 
 acter : " Her name is Susannah, the daughter of 
 John Reuthinger and Barbara, citizens of the town 
 of Eferdingen. The father was by trade a cabin- 
 et-maker, but both her parents are dead. She has 
 received an education well worth the largest dow. 
 ry, by favour of the Lady of Stahrenberg, the 
 strictness of whose household is famous throughout 
 the province. Her person and manners are suit- 
 able to mine : no pride, no extravagance. She can 
 bear to work ; she has a tolerable knowledge how 
 to manage a family ; middle-aged, and of a dispo- 
 sition and capability to acquire what she still wants. 
 Her I shall marry, by favour of the noble Baron of 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 213 
 
 Stahrenberg, at 12 o'clock on the 30th of next Oc- 
 tober, with all Eferdingen assembled to meet us, 
 and we shall eat the marriage-dinner at Maurice's, 
 at the Golden Lion."* 
 
 Kepler's marriage seems to have taken place at 
 the time here mentioned ; for, in his book on gau- 
 ging, published at Linz in 1615, he informs us that 
 he took home his new wife in November, on which 
 occasion he found it necessary to stock his cellar 
 with a few casks of wine. When the wine-mer- 
 chant came to measure the casks, Kepler objected 
 to his method, as he made no allowance for the dif- 
 ferent sizes of the bulging parts of the cask. From 
 this accident Kepler was led to study the subject 
 of gauging, and to write the book which we have 
 mentioned, and which contains the earliest speci- 
 mens of the modern analysis. 
 
 About this period Kepler was summoned to the 
 Diet at Ratisbon, to give his opinion on the reform- 
 ation of the calendar, and he published a short es- 
 say on the subject ; but, though the government 
 did not scruple to avail themselves of his services, 
 yet his pension was allowed to fall in arrear, and, 
 in order to support his family, he was obliged to 
 publish an almanac suited to the taste of the age. 
 " In order," says he, " to defray the expense of the 
 
 * Life of Kepler, chap. vi. 
 
214 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 Ephemeris for two years,* I have been obliged to 
 compose a vile prophesying almanac, which is scarce- 
 ly more respectable than begging, unless from its 
 saving the emperor's credit, who abandons me en- 
 tirely, and would suffer me to perish with hunger." 
 Although Kepler's residence at Linz was render- 
 ed uncomfortable by the Roman Catholics, who had 
 excommunicated him on account of his refusing to 
 subscribe to some opinions respecting the ubiquity 
 of our Saviour, or, as others maintain, on account 
 of some opinions which he had expressed respect, 
 ing transubstantiation, yet he refused in 1617 to 
 accept of an invitation to fill the mathematical 
 chair at Bologna. The prospect of his fortune 
 being bettered by such a change could not recon- 
 cile him to live in a country where his freedom of 
 speech and manners might expose him to suspicion ; 
 and he accordingly declined, in the most respectful 
 manner, the offer which was made him. 
 
 * These Ephemerides, from 1617 to 1620, were published 
 at Linz in 1616. The one for 1620 was dedicated to Baron 
 Napier, of Merchiston. 
 
 J.. . 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 215 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Kepler's continued Embarrassments. Death of Mathias. 
 Liberality of Ferdinand. Kepler's " Harmonies of the 
 World." The Epitome of the Copernican Astronomy.-^ 
 It is prohibited by the Inquisition. -Sir Henry Wotton, the 
 British Ambassador, invites Kepler to England. He de- 
 clines the Invitation. Neglect of Genius by the English 
 Government. Trial of Kepler's Mother. Her final Ac- 
 quittal, and Death at the Age of seventy-five. The States 
 of Styria burn publicly Kepler's Calendar. He receives 
 his Arrears of Salary from Ferdinand. The Rudolphine 
 Tables published in 1628. He receives a gold Chain from 
 the Grand- duke of Tuscany. He is patronised by the Duke 
 of Friedland. He removes to Sagan, in Silesia. Is ap- 
 pointed Professor of Mathematics at Rostoch. Goes to 
 Ratisbon to receive his Arrears. His Death, Funeral, and 
 Epitaph. Monument erected to his Memory in 1803. 
 His Family. His posthumous Volume, entitled " The 
 Dream, or Lunar Astronomy." 
 
 KEPLER was kept in a state of constant anxiety 
 from the delay in the government to pay up the ar- 
 rears of his pension, while their repeated promises 
 prevented him from accepting of other employ, 
 ments. He had hoped that the affair of the Bo- 
 lognese chair would rouse the imperial treasury to 
 a sense of its duty, and enable him to publish the 
 
216 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 Rudolphine Tables ; that great work which he 
 owed to the memory both of Tycho and of Rudolph. 
 But, though he was disappointed in this expectation, 
 an event now occurred which at least held out the 
 prospect of a favourable change in his circumstan- 
 ces. The Emperor Mathias died in 1619, and was 
 succeeded by Ferdinand III., who not only con- 
 tinued him in the situation of his principal mathe- 
 matician with his former pension, but promised to 
 pay up the arrears of it, and to furnish the means 
 for publishing the Rudolphine Tables. 
 
 The year 1619, so favourable to Kepler's pros- 
 pects in life, was distinguished also by the publica- 
 tion at Linz of one of his most remarkable produc- 
 tions, entitled " The Harmonies of the World." 
 It is dedicated to James I. of England, and will be 
 forever memorable in the history of science, as 
 containing the celebrated law that the squares of 
 the periodic times of the planets are to one another 
 as the cubes of their distances. This singular vol- 
 ume, which is marked with all the peculiarities 
 which distinguish his Cosmographical Mystery, is 
 divided into five books. The first two books are 
 principally geometrical, and relate to regular poly- 
 gons inscribed in a circle ; the third book is a 
 treatise on music, in which musical proportions are 
 derived from figures ; the fourth book is astrologi- 
 cal, and treats of the harmony of rays emanating 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 217 
 
 on the earth from the heavenly bodies, and on their 
 influence over the sublunary or human soul ; the 
 fifth book is astronomical and metaphysical, and 
 treats of the exquisite harmonies of the celestial 
 motions, and of the celebrated third law of the uni- 
 verse which we have already referred to. 
 
 This law, as he himself informs us, first entered 
 his mind on the. 8th of March, 1618 ; but, having 
 made an erroneous calculation, he was obliged to 
 reject it. He resumed the subject on the 15th of 
 May ; and, having discovered his former error, he 
 recognised with transport the absolute truth of a 
 principle which for seventeen years had been the 
 object of his incessant labours. The delight which 
 this grand discovery gave him had no bounds. 
 " Nothing holds me," says he ; "I will indulge in 
 my sacred fury ; I will triumph over mankind by 
 the honest confession that I have stolen the golden 
 vases of the Egyptians to build up a tabernacle for 
 my God, far away from the confines of Egypt. If 
 you forgive me, I rejoice ; if you are angry, I can 
 bear it. The die is cast ; the book is written, to 
 be read either now or by posterity, I care not 
 which. It may well wait a century for a reader, 
 as God has waited six thousand years for an ob- 
 server." 
 
 About the same time, in 1618, Kepler published 
 at Linz the first three books of his " Epitome of 
 T 
 
218 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 the Copernican Astronomy," of which the fourth 
 was published at the same place in 1622, and the 
 Jifth, sixth, and seventh at Frankfort in the same 
 year. This interesting work is a kind of summary 
 of all his astronomical views, drawn up in the form 
 of a dialogue for the perusal of general readers, 
 Immediately after its publication it was placed by 
 the Inquisition in the list of prohibited books ; and 
 the moment Kepler learned this from his corre- 
 spondent Remus, he was thrown into great alarm, 
 and requested from him some information respect- 
 ing the terms and consequences of the censure 
 which was then pronounced against him. He was 
 afraid that it might compromise his personal safety 
 if he went to Italy ; that he would be compelled to 
 retract his opinions ; that the censure might ex- 
 tend to Austria ; that the sale of his work would 
 be ruined ; and that he must either abandon his 
 country or his opinions. 
 
 The reply of his friend Remus calmed his agi- 
 tated mind, by explaining to him the true nature of 
 the prohibition ; and he concluded his letter with 
 a piece of seasonable exhortation, " There is no 
 ground for your alarm either in Italy or in Austria, 
 only keep yourself within bounds, and put a guard 
 upon your own passions." 
 
 In the year 1620, Sir Henry Wotton, the English 
 ambassador at Venice, paid a visit to Kepler on 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 219 
 
 his way through Germany. It does not appear 
 whether or not this visit was paid at the desire of 
 James L, to whom Kepler had dedicated one of his 
 works ; but, from the nature of the communication 
 which was made to him by the ambassador, there 
 are strong reasons to think that this was the case. 
 Sir Henry Wotton urged Kepler to take up his res- 
 idence in England, where he could assure him of a 
 welcome and an honourable reception ; but, not- 
 withstanding the pecuniary difficulties in which he 
 was then involved, he did not accept of the invita- 
 tion. In referring to this offer in one of his letters, 
 written a year after it was made, he thus balances 
 the difficulties of the question : "The fires of civil 
 war," says he, " are raging in Germany. Shall I 
 then cross the sea, whither Wotton invites me ? I, 
 a German, a lover of firm land, who dread the con- 
 finement of an island, who presage its dangers, and 
 must drag along with me my little wife and flock 
 of 'children ?" As Kepler seems to have entertain- 
 ed no doubt of his being well provided for in Eng- 
 land, it is the more probable that the British sover- 
 eign had made him a distinct offer through his am- 
 bassador. A welcome and an honourable recep- 
 tion, in the ordinary sense of these terms, could 
 not have supplied the wants of a starving astrono- 
 mer, who was called upon to renounce a large 
 though an ill-paid salary in his native land ; and 
 
220 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 Kepler had experienced too deeply the faithlessness 
 of royal pledges to trust his fortune to so vague an 
 assurance as that which is implied in the language 
 of the English ambassador. During the two cen- 
 turies which have elapsed since this invitation was 
 given to Kepler, there has been no reign during 
 which the most illustrious foreigner could hope for 
 pecuniary support, either from the sovereign or the 
 government of England. What English science 
 has never been able to command for her indigenous 
 talent, was not likely to be proffered to foreign 
 merit. The generous hearts of individual Eng- 
 lishmen, indeed, are always open to the claims of 
 intellectual pre-eminence, and ever ready to wel- 
 come the stranger whom it adorns ; but through 
 the frozen lifeblood of a British minister such sym- 
 pathies have seldom vibrated ; and, amid the strug- 
 gles of faction and the anxieties of personal and 
 family ambition, he has turned a deaf ear to the 
 demands of genius, whether she appeared in the 
 humble posture of a suppliant, or in the prouder 
 attitude of a national benefactor. 
 
 If the imperial mathematician, therefore, had no 
 other assurance of a comfortable home in England 
 than that of Sir Henry Wotton, he acted a wise 
 part in distrusting it ; and we rejoice that the sa- 
 cred name of Kepler was thus withheld from the 
 long list of distinguished characters whom England 
 has starved and dishonoured. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 221 
 
 In the year 1620 Kepler was exposed to a severe 
 calamity, which continued to harass him for some 
 time. His mother, Catharine Kepler, to whose pe- 
 culiarities of temper we have already referred, was 
 arrested on the 5th of April upon a charge of a 
 very serious nature. One of her friends having 
 some years before suffered a miscarriage, was sub- 
 sequently attacked with violent headaches, and 
 Catharine was charged with having administered 
 poison to her friend. This accusation was indig- 
 nantly repelled, and a young doctor of the law 
 whom she consulted advised her to raise an action 
 against her calumniator. From professional rea- 
 sons, or probably pecuniary ones, this zealous prac- 
 titioner continued to delay the lawsuit for five years. 
 The judge who tried it happened to be displaced, 
 and was succeeded by another, who had a personal 
 quarrel with the prosecutor. The defender, who 
 was aware of this favourable change in her case, 
 became the accuser, and in July, 1620, Catharine 
 Kepler was sent to prison and condemned to the 
 torture. The moment this event reached the ears 
 of her son, he quitted Linz, and arrived in time to 
 save her from punishment. He found that the evi- 
 dence upon which she was condemned had no other 
 foundation but her own intemperate conduct ; and, 
 though his interference was successful, yet she was 
 not finally released from prison till the 4th of No- 
 T2 
 
222 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 vember, 1621. Convinced of her innocence, this 
 bold woman, now in the 79th year of her age, rais- 
 ed a new action for damages against her opponent ; 
 but her death in April, 1622, put an end to her own 
 miseries, as well as to the anxiety of her son. 
 Among the virtues of this singular woman we 
 must number that of generosity. Moestlin, the old 
 preceptor of Kepler, had generously declined any 
 compensation for his instructions. Kepler never 
 forgot this act of kindness, and, in the midst of his 
 poverty, he found means to send to Moestlin a hand- 
 some silver cup in token of his gratitude. In ac- 
 knowledging this gift, Moestlin remarks, " Your 
 mother had taken it into her head that you owed me 
 200 florins, and had brought 15 florins and a chan- 
 delier towards reducing the debt, which I advised 
 her to send to you. I asked her to stay to dinner, 
 which she refused. However, we hanselled your 
 cup, as you know she is of a thirsty temperament." 
 In the same year in which his mother was arrest- 
 ed, the States of Styria ordered all the copies of 
 the Calendar for 1624 to be publicly burned. There 
 does not seem to be any reason for supposing that 
 this insult proceeded from his old enemies the Cath- 
 olics. They would, no doubt, take an active share 
 in carrying it into effect ; but it would appear that 
 his former patrons were affronted at Kepler's giv- 
 ing the precedence in his titlepage to the States of 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 223 
 
 Upper Ens, where he then resided, above the States 
 of Styria. 
 
 In 1622 the Emperor Ferdinand, notwithstand- 
 ing his own pecuniary difficulties, ordered the whole 
 of Kepler's arrears to be paid, even those which 
 had been due by Rudolph and Mathias; and so 
 great was his anxiety to have the Rudolphine Ta- 
 bles published, that he supplied the means for their 
 immediate completion. New difficulties, however, 
 sprung up to retard still longer the appearance of 
 this most important work. The wars of the Refor- 
 mation, which were then agitating the whole of 
 Germany, interfered with every peaceful pursuit. 
 The library of Kepler was sealed up by order of 
 the Jesuits, and it was only his position as imperial 
 mathematician that saved him from personal incon- 
 venience. A popular insurrection followed in the 
 train of these disasters. The peasantry blockaded 
 Linz, the place of Kepler's residence, and it was 
 not till the year 1627, as the titlepage bears, or 
 1628, as Kepler elsewhere states, that these cele- 
 brated Tables were given to the world. 
 
 The Rudolphine Tables were published at Ulm 
 in one volume folio. These Tables were calcula- 
 ted by Kepler from the Observations of Tycho, and 
 are founded on his own great discovery of the el- 
 lipticity of the planetary orbits. The first and third 
 parts of the work contain logarithmic and other 
 
224 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 auxiliary tables, for the purpose of facilitating as- 
 tronomical calculations. The second part contains 
 tables of the sun, moon, and planets ; and the fourth 
 a catalogue of 1000 stars, as determined by Tycho. 
 A nautical map is prefixed to some copies of the 
 tables, and the description of it contains the first 
 notice of the method of determining the longitude 
 by means of occultations. 
 
 A short time after the publication of these tables, 
 the Grand-duke of Tuscany, instigated no doubt 
 by Galileo, sent Kepler a gold chain in testimony 
 of his approbation of the great service which he 
 had rendered to astronomy. 
 
 About this time Albert Wallenstein, duke of 
 Friedland, a great patron of astrology, and one of 
 the most distinguished men of the age, made the 
 most munificent offers to Kepler, and invited him to 
 take up his residence at Sagan in Silesia. The re- 
 ligious dissensions which agitated Lin/., the love of 
 tranquillity, which Kepler had so little enjoyed, and 
 the publication of his great work, induced him to 
 accept of this offer. He accordingly removed his 
 family from Linz to Ratisbon in 1629, and he him- 
 self set out for Prague, with the double object of 
 presenting the Rudolphine Tables to the emperor, 
 and of soliciting his permission to go into the ser- 
 vice of the Duke of Friedland. The emperor did 
 not hesitate to grant this request, and would have 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 225 
 
 gladly transferred Kepler's arrears, as well as him- 
 self, to the charge of a foreign prince. Kepler ac- 
 cordingly set out with his wife and family for Sa- 
 gan, where he arrived in 1629. The Duke Albert 
 treated him with liberality and distinction. He 
 supplied him with an assistant for his calculations, 
 and also with a printing press ; and, by his influ- 
 ence with the Duke of Mecklenburg, he obtained for 
 him a professorship in the University of Rostoch. 
 
 In this remote situation Kepler found it extreme- 
 ly difficult to obtain payment of the imperial pen- 
 sion which he still retained. The arrears had ac- 
 cumulated to 8000 crowns, and he resolved to go 
 to the Imperial Assembly at Ratisbon to make a 
 final effort to obtain them. His attempts, however, 
 were fruitless. The vexation which this occasion- 
 ed, and the great fatigue which he had undergone, 
 threw him into a violent fever, which is said to have 
 been one of cold, and to have been accompanied 
 with an irnposthume in his brain, occasioned by too 
 much study. This disease baffled the skill of his 
 physicians, and carried him off on the 5th of Novem- 
 ber, O. S., 1630, in the sixtieth year of his age. 
 
 The remains of this great man were interred in 
 St. Peter's Churchyard at Ratisbon, and the follow, 
 ing inscription, imbodying an epitaph which he had 
 written for himself, was engraven on his tombstone : 
 
226 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 IN HOC QUIESCIT VIR NOBILISSIMUS, DOCTIS8IMU8 ET CELE- 
 BEBRIMU8 DOM. JOHANNES KfiPLERUS, TR1UM IMPERATORUM 
 
 RUDOLPHI II., MATHIJE, ET FERDINANDI II., PER ANNOS 
 
 XXX., ANTEA VERO PROCERUM SxYRI^E AB ANNO 1594 USQUB 
 1600, POSTEA QCOQUE ASTRIACORUM ORDINUM AB ANNO 1612 
 USQUE AD ANNUM 1628, MATHEMAT1CUS TOTI ORBI CHBISTIANI, 
 PER MONUMENTA PUBL1CA COGNITU8, AB OMN'IBUS DOCTIS, IN- 
 TER PRINCIPES ASTRONOMIC NUMERATUS, QUI PROPRIA MANU 
 
 ASSIONATUM POST 8E REL1QUIT TALE EPITAPHIUM. 
 
 Mensus eram coelos, nunc terrae metior umbras : 
 Mens coelestis erat, corporis umbra jacet. 
 IN CHRISTO PIE OBIIT ANNO SALUTIS 1630, DIE 5 NOVBM- 
 BRIS, .&TATI8 SUJE 3EXAGESIMO. 
 
 This monument was not long preserved. It was 
 destroyed during the wars which desolated Germa- 
 ny, and no attempt was made till 1786 to mark 
 with honour the spot which contained such venera- 
 ble remains. This attempt, however, failed, and it 
 was not till 1803 that this great duty was paid to 
 the memory of Kepler, by the Prince Bishop of 
 Constance, who erected a handsome monumental 
 temple near the place of his interment, and in the 
 Botanical Garden of the city. The temple is sur- 
 mounted by a sphere, and in the centre is a bust of 
 Kepler in Carrara marble. 
 
 Kepler left behind him a wife and seven children : 
 two by his first wife, Susanna and Louis ; and 
 three sons and two daughters by his second wife, 
 viz., Sebald, Cordelia, Friedman, Hildebert, and 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 227 
 
 Anna Maria. The eldest of these, Susanna, was 
 married a few months before her father's death to 
 Jacob Bartschius, his pupil, who was educated as a 
 physician ; and his son Louis died in 1663, while 
 practising medicine at Konigsberg. The children 
 by his second wife are said to have died young. 
 They were left in very narrow circumstances ; and 
 though 24,000 florins were due to Kepler by the 
 emperor, yet only a part of this sum was received 
 by Susanna, in consequence of her refusing to give 
 up Tycho's Observations till the debt was paid. 
 Kepler composed a little work entitled " The Dream 
 of John Kepler, or Lunar Astronomy," the object 
 of which was to describe the phenomena seen from 
 the moon ; but he died while he and Bartschius 
 were engaged in its publication, and Bartschius 
 having resumed the task, died also before its com- 
 pletion. Louis Kepler dreaded to meddle with a 
 work which had proved so fatal to his, father and 
 his brother-in-law, but this superstitious feeling was 
 overcome, and the work was published at Frank- 
 fort in 1636. 
 
228 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Number of Kepler's published Works. His numerous Man- 
 uscripts in 22 folio Volumes. Purchased by Hevelius, and 
 afterward by Hansch, who publishes Kepler's Life and 
 Correspondence at the Expense of Charles VI. The His- 
 tory of the rest of his Manuscripts, which are deposited in 
 the Library of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. 
 General Character of Kepler. His Candour in acknowl- 
 edging his Errors. His Moral and Religious Character. 
 His Astrological Writings and Opinions considered. His 
 Character as an Astronomer and a Philosopher. The 
 Splendour of his Discoveries. Account of his Methods of 
 Investigating Truth. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the labours of Kepler were frequently 
 interrupted by severe and long-continued indisposi- 
 tion, as well as by the pecuniary embarrassments 
 in which he was constantly involved, yet the ardour 
 and power of his mind enabled him to surmount all 
 the difficulties of his position. Not only did he 
 bring to a successful completion the leading inqui- 
 ries which he had begun, but he found leisure for 
 composing an immense number of works more or 
 less connected with the subject of his studies. Be- 
 tween 1594, when he published his Calendar at 
 Gratz, and 1630, the year of his death, he publish. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 229 
 
 ed no fewer than thirty.three separate works ; and 
 he left behind him twenty-two volumes of manu. 
 scripts, seven of which contain his epistolary cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 The celebrated astronomer Hevelius, who was a 
 contemporary of Louis Kepler, purchased all these 
 manuscripts from Kepler's representatives. At 
 the death of Hevelius they were bought by M. 
 Gottlieb Hansch, a zealous mathematician, who 
 was desirous of giving them to the world. For 
 this purpose he issued a prospectus in 1714 for 
 publishing them by subscription, in 22 volumes fo- 
 lio ; but this plan having failed, he was introduced 
 to Charles VI., who liberally obtained for him 1000 
 ducats to defray the expense of the publication, 
 and an annual pension of 300 florins. With such 
 encouragement, Hansch published in 1718, in one 
 volume folio, the correspondence of Kepler, enti 
 tied " Epistola ad Joannem Keplerum, insertis ad, 
 easdem responsionibus Keplerianis, quidquid hacte- 
 nus reperiri potuerunt, opus novum, et cum Jo. Kep- 
 leri vita." 
 
 The expenses of this volume unfortunately ex- 
 hausted the 1000 ducats which had been granted by 
 the emperor, and, instead of being able to publish 
 the rest of the MSS., Hansch was under the neces- 
 sity of pledging them for 828 florins. Under these 
 difficulties he addressed himself in vain to the cel- 
 U 
 
230 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 ebratcd Wolfius, to the Royal Society of London, 
 and to other bodies that were likely to interest 
 themselves in such a subject. In 1761, when M. 
 De Murr, of Nuremberg, was in London, he made 
 great exertions to obtain the MSS., and Dr. Brad- 
 ley is said to have been on the eve of purchasing 
 them. The competition probably raised the de- 
 mands of the proprietor, in whose hands they con- 
 tinued for many years. In 1773 they were offered 
 for 4000 francs, and some time afterward M. De 
 Murr purchased them for the Imperial Academy of 
 Sciences at St. Petersburg, in whose library they 
 still remain. Euler, Lexell, and Kraft undertook 
 the task of examining them, and selecting those 
 that were best fitted for publication, but we believe 
 that no steps have yet been taken for executing 
 this task, nor are we aware that science would de- 
 rive any advantage from its completion. 
 
 Although, in drawing his own character, Kepler 
 describes himself as " troublesome and choleric in 
 politics and domestic matters," yet the general 
 events of his life indicate a more peaceful disposi- 
 tion than might have been expected from the pecu- 
 liarities of his mind and the ardour of his temper, 
 ament. On one occasion, indeed, he wrote a vio- 
 lent and reproachful letter to Tycho, who had giv- 
 en him no just ground of offence ; but the state of 
 Kepler's health at that moment, and the necessitous 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 231 
 
 circumstances in which he had been placed, present 
 some palliation of his conduct. But, independent 
 of this apology, his subsequent conduct was so tru- 
 ly noble as to reconcile even Tycho to his penitent 
 friend. Kepler quickly saw the error which he 
 committed ; he lamented it with genuine contri- 
 tion, and was anxious to remove any unfavourable 
 impression which he might have given of his friend 
 by the most public confession of his error, and by 
 the warmest acknowledgments of the kindness of 
 Tycho. 
 
 In his relations with the scientific men of his 
 own times, Kepler conducted himself with that can- 
 dour and love of truth which should always distin- 
 guish the philosopher. He was never actuated 
 by any mean jealousy of his rivals. He never 
 scrupled to acknowledge their high merits ; and 
 when the discoveries made by the telescope estab- 
 lished beyond a doubt the errors of some of Kep- 
 ler's views, he willingly avowed his mistake, and 
 never joined in the opposition which was made by 
 many of his friends to the discoveries of Galileo. 
 A striking example of this was exhibited in refer, 
 ence to his supposed discovery of Mercury on the 
 sun's disk. In the year 1607* Kepler observed 
 
 * It is said that Kepler saw this dark spot while looking at 
 the sun in a camera obscura. As a camera obscura is actual- 
 ly a telescope, magnifying objects in proportion to the focal 
 
232 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 upon the face of the sun a dark spot, which he mis- 
 took for Mercury ; but the day proving cloudy, he 
 had not the means of determining by subsequent 
 observations whether or not this opinion was well 
 founded. As spots on the sun were at that time 
 unknown, Kepler did not hesitate to publish the 
 fact in 1607, in his Mercurius in Sole visus ; but 
 when Galileo, a few years afterward, discovered a 
 great number of similar spots with the telescope, 
 Kepler retracted his opinions, and acknowledged 
 that Galileo's discovery afforded an explanation, 
 also, of many similar observations in old writers, 
 which he had found it difficult to reconcile with the 
 actual motions of Mercury. 
 
 Kepler was not one of those cold-hearted men 
 who, though continually occupied in the study of 
 the material world, and ambitious of the distinction 
 which a successful examination of it confers, are 
 yet insensible to the goodness and greatness of the 
 Being who made and sustains it. His mind was 
 cast in a better mould. The magnificence and har- 
 mony of the Divine works excited in him not only 
 admiration, but love. He felt his own humility the 
 farther he was allowed to penetrate into the mys- 
 teries of the universe ; and sensible of the incom- 
 petency of his unaided powers for such transcend- 
 
 length of the lens employed, he may be said to have first seen 
 these spots with the aid of an optical instrument. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 233 
 
 ent researches, and recognising himself as but the 
 instrument which the Almighty employed to make 
 known his wonders, he never entered upon his in- 
 quiries without praying for assistance from above. 
 This frame of mind was by no means inconsistent 
 with that high spirit of delight and triumph with 
 which Kepler surveyed his discoveries. His was 
 the unpretending ovation of success, not the osten- 
 tatious triumph of ambition ; and if a noble pride 
 did occasionally mingle itself with his feelings, it 
 was the pride of being the chosen messenger of 
 physical truth, not that of being the favoured pos- 
 sessor of superior genius. With such a frame of 
 mind, Kepler was necessarily a Christian. The 
 afflictions with which he was beset confirmed his 
 faith and brightened his hopes ; he bore them in all 
 their variety and severity with Christian patience ; 
 and though he knew that this world was to be the 
 theatre of his intellectual glory, yet he felt that his 
 rest and his reward could be found only in another. 
 It is difficult to form any very intelligible idea of 
 the nature and extent of Kepler's astrological opin- 
 ions, and of the degree of credit which he himself 
 placed in the opinions that he did avow. In his 
 Principles of Astrology, published in 1602, and in 
 other works, he rails against the vanity and worth- 
 lessness of the ordinary astrology. He regards 
 those who professed it as knaves and charlatans ; 
 U2 
 
234 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 and maintains that the planets and stars exercise no 
 influence whatever over human affairs. He con- 
 ceives, however, that certain harmonious configu- 
 rations of suitable planets, like the spur to a horse 
 or a speech to an audience, have the power of ex- 
 citing the minds of men to certain general actions 
 or impulses ; so that the only effect of these con- 
 figurations is to operate along with the vital soul in 
 producing results which would not otherwise have 
 taken place. As an example of this, he states that 
 those who are born when many aspects of the plan- 
 ets occur, generally turn out busy and industrious, 
 whether they be occupied in amassing wealth, man- 
 aging public affairs, or prosecuting scientific stud- 
 ies. Kepler himself was born under a triple con- 
 figuration, and hence, in his opinion, his ardour and 
 activity in study ; and he informs us that he knew 
 a lady born under nearly the same configurations, 
 " who not only makes no progress in literature, but 
 troubles her whole family, and occasions deplorable 
 misery to herself." This excitement of the facul- 
 ties of sublunary natures, as he expresses it, by the 
 colours, and aspects, and conjunctions of the planets, 
 is regarded by Kepler as a fact, which he had de- 
 duced from observation, and which has " compelled 
 his unwilling belief." " I have been driven to this," 
 says he, " not by studying or admiring Plato, but 
 singly and solely by observing seasons, and noting 
 the aspects by which they are produced. I have 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 235 
 
 seen the state of the atmosphere almost uniformly 
 disturbed as often as the planets are in conjunction, 
 or in the other configurations so celebrated among 
 astrologers. I have noticed its tranquil state either 
 when there are none or few such aspects, or when 
 they are transitory and of short duration." Had 
 Kepler been able to examine these hasty and erro- 
 neous deductions by long-continued observation, he 
 would soon have found that the coincidence which 
 he did observe was merely accidental, and he would 
 have cheerfully acknowledged it. Speculations of 
 this kind, however, are, from their very nature, less 
 subject to a rigorous scrutiny ; and a long series of 
 observations is necessary either to establish or to 
 overturn them. The industry of modern observ- 
 ers has now supplied this defect, and there is no 
 point in science more certain than that the sun, 
 moon, and planets do not exercise any influence on 
 the general state of our atmosphere. 
 
 The philosophers in Kepler's day, who had stud- 
 ied the phenomena of the tides without having any 
 idea of their cause, and who observed that they 
 were clearly related to the daily motions of the two 
 great luminaries, may be excused for the extrava- 
 gance of their belief in supposing that the planets 
 exercised other influences over " sublunary nature." 
 Although Kepler, in his Commentaries on Mars, had 
 considered it probable that the waters of our ocean 
 are attracted by the moon, as iron is by a loadstone, 
 
236 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 yet this opinion seems to have been a very transient 
 one, as he long afterward, in his System of Har- 
 monies, stated his firm belief that the earth is an 
 enormous living animal, and enumerates even the 
 analogies between its habits and those of known 
 animated beings. He considered the tides as waves 
 produced by the spouting out of water through its 
 gills, and he explains their relation to the solar and 
 lunar motions by supposing that the terrene mon- 
 ster has, like other animals, its daily and nightly al- 
 ternations of sleeping and waking. 
 
 From the consideration of Kepler's astrological 
 opinions, it is an agreeable transition to proceed to 
 the examination of his high merits as an astrono- 
 mer and a philosopher. As an experimental phi- 
 losopher or as an astronomical observer, Kepler 
 does not lay claim to our admiration. He himself 
 acknowledges, " that for observations his sight was 
 dull, and for mechanical operations his hand was 
 awkward." He suffered much from weak eyes, 
 and the delicacy of his constitution did not permit 
 him to expose himself to the night air. Notwith- 
 standing these hinderances, however, he added sev- 
 eral observations to those of Tycho, which he made 
 with two instruments that were presented to him by 
 his friend Hoffman, the president of the States of 
 Styria. These instruments were an iron sextant 
 2 feet in diameter, and a brass azimuthal quadrant 
 3 feet in diameter, both of which were divided into 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 237 
 
 single minutes of a degree. They were very sel- 
 dom used, and we must regard the circumstances 
 which disqualified Kepler for an observer as high- 
 ly favourable to the development of those great 
 powers which he directed with undivided energy to 
 physical astronomy. 
 
 Even if Kepler had never turned his attention to 
 the heavens, his optical labours would have given 
 him a high rank among the original inquirers of 
 his age ; but when we consider him also as the dis- 
 coverer of the three great laws which bear his 
 name, we must assign him a rank next to that of 
 Newton. The history of science does not present 
 us with any discoveries more truly original, or 
 which required for their establishment a more pow- 
 erful and vigorous mind. The speculations of his 
 predecessors afforded him no assistance. From 
 the cumbrous machinery adopted by Copernicus, 
 Kepler passed at one step to an elliptical orbit, 
 with the sun in one of its foci, and from that mo- 
 ment astronomy became a demonstrative science. 
 The splendid discoveries of Newton sprung imme 
 diately from those of Kepler, and completed the 
 great chain of truths which constitute the laws of 
 the planetary system. The eccentricity and bold- 
 ness of Kepler's powers form a striking contrast 
 with the calm intellect and the enduring patience of 
 Newton. The bright spark which the genius of the 
 
238 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 one elicited, was fostered by the sagacity of the 
 other into a steady and a permanent flame. 
 
 Kepler has fortunately left behind him a full ac- 
 count of the methods by which he arrived at his 
 great discoveries. What other philosophers have 
 studiously concealed, Kepler has openly avowed 
 and minutely detailed ; and we have no hesitation 
 in considering these details as the most valuable 
 present that has ever been given to science, and as 
 deserving the careful study of all who seek to em- 
 ulate his immortal achievements. It has been as- 
 serted that Newton made his discoveries by follow- 
 ing a different method ; but this is a mere assump- 
 tion, as Newton has never favoured the world with 
 any account of the erroneous speculations and the 
 frequent failures which must have preceded his ul- 
 timate success. Had Kepler done the same, by re- 
 cording only the final steps of his inquiries, his 
 method of investigation would have obtained the 
 highest celebrity, and would have been held up to 
 future ages as a pattern for their imitation. But 
 such was the candour of his mind and such his in- 
 ordinate love of truth, that he not only recorded his 
 wildest fancies, but emblazoned even his greatest 
 errors. If Newton had indulged us with the same 
 insight into his physical inquiries, we should have 
 witnessed the same processes which were employ- 
 ed by Kepler, modified only by the different char- 
 acters and intensities of their imaginative powers. 
 
JOHN KEPLER. 239 
 
 When Kepler directed his mind to the discovery 
 of a general principle, he set distinctly before him, 
 and never once lost sight of, the explicit object of his 
 search. His imagination, now unreined, indulged 
 itself in the creation and invention of various hy- 
 potheses. The most plausible, or, perhaps, the most 
 fascinating of these, was then submitted to a rigor- 
 ous scrutiny ; and the moment it was found to be 
 incompatible with the results of observation and 
 experiment, it was willingly abandoned, and anoth- 
 er hypothesis submitted to the same severe ordeal. 
 By thus gradually excluding erroneous views and 
 assumptions, Kepler not only made a decided ap- 
 proximation to the object of his pursuit, but in the 
 trials to which his opinions were submitted, and in 
 the observations or experiments which they called 
 forth, he discovered new facts and arrived at new 
 views which directed his subsequent inquiries. By 
 pursuing this method he succeeded in his most dif- 
 ficult researches, and discovered those beautiful and 
 profound laws which have been the admiration of 
 succeeding ages. In tracing the route which he 
 followed, it is easy for those who live under the light 
 of modern science to say that his fancies were of- 
 ten wild and his labour often wasted ; but, in judg- 
 ing of Kepler's methods, we ought to place our- 
 selves in his times, and invest ourselves with the 
 opinions and the knowledge of his contemporaries. 
 In the infancy of a science there is no specula- 
 
240 JOHN KEPLER. 
 
 tion so absurd as not to merit examination. The 
 most remote and fanciful explanations of facts have 
 often been found the true ones ; and opinions which 
 have in one century been objects of ridicule, have 
 in the next been admitted among the elements of 
 our knowledge. The physical world teems with 
 wonders, and the various forms of matter exhibit to 
 us properties and relations far more extraordinary 
 than the wildest fancy could have conceived. Hu- 
 man reason stands appalled before this magnificent 
 display of creative power, and they who have drunk 
 deepest of its wisdom will be the least disposed to 
 limit the excursions of physical speculation. 
 
 The influence of the imagination as an instru- 
 ment of research has, we think, been much over- 
 looked by those who have ventured to give laws to 
 philosophy. This faculty is of the greatest value 
 in physical inquiries. If we use it as a guide and 
 confide in its indications, it will infallibly deceive 
 us ; but if we employ it as an auxiliary, it will afford 
 us the most invaluable aid. Its operation is like 
 that of the light troops which are sent out to ascer- 
 tain the strength and position of an enemy. When 
 the struggle commences, their services terminate ; 
 and it is by the solid phalanx of the judgment that 
 the battle must be fought and won. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
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