304 cOx^Mos. 



for thirty-three years on the completion of his work, entitled 

 De Revolutionibus Orhiuni Coelestium.^ The first printed 

 copy was brought to him when, shattered in mind and body, 

 he was preparing himself for death. He saw it and touched 

 it, but his thoughts were no longer fixed on earthly things, 

 and he died — not, as Gassendi says, a few hours, but several 

 days afterward (on the 24th of May, 15431). Two yeara 



* Westphal, in his Biograpliie des Copernicus (1822, s. 33), dedicated 

 to the great astronomer of Konigsberg, Bessel, calls the Bishop of Erm- 

 land Lucas Watzelrodt von Allen, as does also Gassendi. According 

 to explanations which I have very recently obtained, through the kind 

 uess of the learned historian of Prussia, Voigt, director of the Archives, 

 ** the family of the mother of Copernicus is called in original documents 

 Weiselrodt, Weisselrot, Weisselrodt, and most commonly Waisselrode. 

 His mother was undoubtedly of German descent, and the family of 

 Waisselrode, who were originally distinct from that of Von Allen, which 

 had flourished at Thorn from the beginning of the 15th century, prob- 

 ably took the latter name in addition to their own, through adoption, or 

 from family connections." Sniadecki and Czynski {Kopernik et ses 

 Travaux, 1847, p. 26) call the mother of the great Copernicus Barba- 

 ra Wasselrode, and state that she was married at Thorn, in 1464, to his 

 father, whose family they believe to be of Bohemian origin. The name 

 of the astronomer, which Gassendi writes Tornfeus Borussus, Westphal 

 and Czynksi write Kopernik, and Krzyzianowski, Kopirnig. In a let 

 terof the Bishop of Ermland, Martin Cromer of Heilsberg, dated Nov. 

 21, 1580, it is said, " Cum Jo. (Nicolaus) Copernicus vivens ornamento 

 fuerit, atque etiam nunc post fata sit, non solum huic ecclesiaB, verum 

 etiam toti Prussiae patriae suee, iniquam esse puto, eum post obi turn ca- 

 rere honor esepulchri sive monumenti." 



t Thus Gassendi, in Nicolai Copernici Vita, appended to his biography 

 of Tycho ( Tychonis Brahei Vita, 1655, Hagoe Comitum, p. 320) : " eo- 

 dem die et horis non multis priusquam animam efflaret." It is only 

 Schubert, in his Astronoviy , th. i., s. 115, and Robert Small, in the very 

 learned Account of the Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler, 1804, p, 92, 

 who maintain that Copernicus died "a few days after the appearance 

 of his work." This is also the opinion of Voigt, the director of the Ar- 

 chives at Konigsberg; because, in a letter which George Donner, canon 

 of Ermland, wrote to the Duke of Prussia shortly after the death of 

 Copernicus, it is said that " the estimable and worthy Doctor INi(^lauf 

 Koppernick sent forth his work, like the sweet song of the swan, a short 

 time before his departure from this life of sorrows." According to the 

 ordinarily received opinion (Westphal, Nilcolaus Kopernikvs, 1822, s. 

 73 und s. 82), the work was begun in 1507, and was so far completed 

 in 1530 that only a few corrections were subsequently added. The 

 publication was hastened by a letter from Cardinal Schonberg, w^ritten 

 from Rome in 1536. The cardinal wishes to have the manuscript cop- 

 ied and sent to him by Theodor von Reden. We learn from Coperni- 

 cus himself, in his dedication to Pope Paul III., that the performance 

 of the work has lingered on into the quartum noven^iium. If we remem- 

 ber how much time was required for printing a work of 400 pages, and 

 that the great man died in May, 1543, it may be conjectured that the 

 dedication was not written in the last-named year which, reckoning 

 backward thirty-six years, would not give us a later, but an earlier yeaf 



