ASTRONOMY IN SHAKESPEARE'S TIME— ABBOT 



111 



the heavenly bodies. Kepler and Galileo, who made such notable dis- 

 coveries, were Shakespeare's contemporaries. The telescope was 

 invented during his lifetime, and exact mechanisms were no longer 

 rare. But printing was still costly, and intelligence traveled slowly. 

 Indeed, the work of these great astronomers just named was slow in 

 receiving recognition. I believe there is no evidence from Shakes- 

 peare's writings that he was aware of them or of the results of their 

 investigations. Like practically all other outstanding men of his 

 time, he appears to have accepted the system of Ptolemy, wherein 

 the earth was regarded as the center of the universe. Though that 

 master introduced his numerous epicycles and equants merely as 



FiQDRB 2. — Diagram of the Ptolemaic system. The four substances, earth, water, air, fire, 

 which the auclents supposed to be world elements, are at the center. (From The Uni- 

 verse, from Crystal Spheres to Relativity, by Frank Allen. Harcourt, Brac;i & Co., New 

 York. 1931.) 



mathematical devices, the vulgar understanding of his system con- 

 ceived it to imply that the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars 

 were affixed to spheres of greater and greater remoteness from the 

 earth. These spheres, it was supposed, moved according to combina- 

 tions or circular guidances too complicated for description here. It 

 was the concert of these spheres which made heavenly harmony ac- 

 cording to Pythagoras. Beyond the farthest sphere, to which the 

 stars were fixed, lay Heaven itself, the homeland of the blest. 



