IlKAHfi, TYCHO. 



r.HAHr:, TYCHO. 



The family at BraM M originally Swedish, but Tyeho, tit* grand- 

 father of the astronomer, and Otto hw father, belonged to a branch 

 which had MttUd in Denmark. Tvcbo Brantf himself wu the eldest 

 MM and second ehild of hU father, and wa bora at Knudathorp, near 

 the lialtie <S* 46' N. Ut, according to Ga**endi), on the 14th of 

 December 1540. HU father had U-n children, of whom the last, Sophia 

 Braiu!, wa* known in her day a* a Latin poetess, and also u a mathe- 

 matician and astrologer. Thii family wat u noblo and a* ignorant a* 

 sixteen undisputed quartering* could make them ; but Steno, the 

 maternal uncle of Ty oho, volunteered to taks charge of him. Perceiving 

 that be had talent, hi* uncle employed marten to teaoh him Latin, 

 much against the will of hU father, who intended him to do nothing 

 but bear anna. In 1559 Tycho wa* eent to the University of Copen- 

 hagen, where hi* attention was called to sstronomy by the pretenatoni 

 of the Mtroloiter*, and by the total eclipee of the lun, August 21, 1560. 

 He began to tu<ly the doctrine of the sphere, and the epbemerides of 

 Sudius. In 1562 his uncle, who intended him for the law, Rent him 

 to Leipxio with a tutor. But he disliked the study, aud would attend 

 no more to that science than just enough to gave appearances. In 

 the meanwhile he spent hU time and money on astronomical instru- 

 ment*; aud, whiU his tutor slept, uwd to watch the constellations by 

 aid of a small globe not bigger than his fUt With these ulender 

 means he was able to see that both the Alphomine and Prutenic tables 

 gave the places of the planets visibly wrong, and particularly so in the 

 cue of a predicted conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in 1563. lie 

 took strongly into hi* head the correction of these tables, and his first 

 iustrnment was a pair of common compasses, which he used as an 

 instrument for observing the angles between stars. By drawing a 

 circle with the same radius u the leg of the compasses, and laying 

 down angle* upon it he was able to find the Alphonsine tables more 

 than a month in error, and the Prutonic several days. He procured a 

 bettor instrument, and corrected the deficiencies of its graduation by a 

 table. This instrument was a parallactic rule, or radius, in the manner 

 of Gemma Kriuus. 



He was recalled in 1565 by the death of an uncle, and soon became 

 disgusted by the contempt with which his equals and associates spoke 

 of all liberal knowledge. HU uncle Steno however recommended him 

 to follow his favourite pursuit, and he left his country once more and 

 took up hU residence at Wittenberg in 1566, from whence he was 

 driven to Hostock in the autumn by the plague. While in thin place 

 a quarrel arose between him and one Paiberg, a Dane of family like 

 himself, at a public festival The affair was decided by single combat, 

 and Tycbo lost all the front ]>art of hw nose. A contemporary, cited 

 by Oauendi, hints that they took tnU method of settling which was 

 the better mathematician of the two. Tycho always afterwards wore 

 an artificial nose made of goM, but so well formed and coloured as to 

 be hardly distinguishable from the one with which he began life ; and 

 he always carried a small box of ointment, with which to anoint this 

 artificial member. 



In 1569 he went to Augsburg, where, being pleased with the place, 

 and finding astronomers there, he determined to remain. He here 

 caused to be constructed a large quadrant, such as twenty strong men 

 could hardly lift, with which he made observations while he remained 

 then. He left Augsburg and returned home in 1571, when his uncle 

 Steoo offered him a part of bu house, with the means of erecting an 

 observatory and a laboratory ; for Tycho had become much attached 

 to chemistry, and declares himself that from hU twenty-third year he 

 attended as much to that science u to astronomy. He constructed 

 only a large sexteut, for be always intended to return and pursue hU 

 studies in Germany, finding the public life of a Danish noble to bo a 

 hindrniKf An event however happened in 1672, which, if our memory 

 aervea us, has been sometimes stated in popular works as the first 

 excitement he received to study astronomy with what correctness 

 we have seen. Returning from his laboratory on the eveniug of 

 November 11, 1572, he cast hu eyes upon the constellation Casaiopea, 

 and was astounded by there perceiving not only a new star but one of 

 greater splendour than any in that constellation. The country people 

 also saw it, and h* immediately set himself to determine its place and 

 motion, if any. Happening to vuit Copenhagen early in the year 1573, 

 he carrie. 1 with him bU journal, and found that the < savans ' of the 

 university had not yet taken notice of the phenomenon. He excited 

 great derision at a oonvivLU party by mentioning his discovery, which 

 however was changed to astonishment on his actually showing them 

 the star. They thereupon became urgent that he should publish hia 

 notes, which be refused, being, as be afterwards confessed, under the 

 prejudice that it was unbecoming for a nobleman to publish anything ; 

 bat afterwards, seeing bow many and worthless were the writings on 

 the same subject, and being pressed by his friends at Copenhagen, he 

 sent bis account, with additions, to one of thorn for publication. The 

 tar itoelf continued vinble, though gradually diminishing in bright- 

 new, till March 1574. It was at one time u bright as Venus. 



A* soon as Tycbo had conquered hi* arittccratic aversion to being 

 useful, be committed a much more serious offence against his order 

 by marrying in 1673 a peasant, or at least n plebcUn girl of Knuds- 

 thorp, named Christiana : some say she wss the daughter of n clergy- 

 man, liy the interposition of the king the fury of his family at this 

 step was cooled. Never were man's prejudices subjected to a more 

 mluUry conn* of discipline than those of Tycho Brand. In two short 



years the proud noble became an author, a lecturer, and the husband 

 of a woman of inferior rank. The student* of the university desired 

 to profit by bit knowledge, and on hU positive refusal, the king, to 

 whom he felt hU obligations, made it his own earnest request No 

 choice was therefore left to the unfortunate recusant ; and be accord- 

 ingly delivered the public lecture marked (H) in our preceding list, 

 which, putting aside the astrology, is a sensible discourse; and, 

 excepting a hint at the beginning, that nothing but the request of the 

 king and of the audience (for politeness' sake) bad made him under- 

 take an office for which he was so unfit by station and mediocrity of 

 talent (for modesty's sake), does not contain any allusion to the sup- 

 posed derogation. He informs hu audience at the end that he intends 

 to lecture on the I'ruteuic tables, and he did so accordingly. This 

 lecture was first published in 1010 by Conrad Aslacus (we cannot 

 unlatiuise Qassendi's name), who got it from Tycho himself. 



Tycho Brand had all this time intended to travel again. He set out 

 in 1575, leaving hU wife aud infant daughter at home, and proceeded 

 to the court of the Landgrave William of Hcsw-Cassel, who was himself 

 a persevering observer; so much so that when, during an observation 

 of the new star of 1572, servants ran to tell him th house was on fire, 

 he would not stir till he had fiuUbed. On leaving hU court, Tycho 

 wandered through Switzerland and Germany, apparently seeking where 

 he might best set up hU observatory, and he had fixed hU thoughts 

 upon Basel But in the meanwhile ambassadors bad been sent from 

 Denmark to the Landgrave of Henso Cassel, and that prince took 

 occasion warmly to recommend Tycho ISrnlu' and his studies to the 

 notice of hia own sovereign. The latter (Frederic II.) accordingly sent 

 for Tycho after bis return to Knudsthorp in 1576, and offered him 

 posse* lion for life of the Ulaiul of Hvcn, or Hoi-ne, taking upon himself 

 all the expenses of his settlement. The oflVr was gladly accepted, and 

 the first stone of tho astronomical castle, called Uraniberg, or Oranien- 

 berg (the City of the Heavens) was laid on August 13, 157'3. There 

 is a full description of it in Gassendi, as also in (U) and (K). The 

 drawing in the following page is extracted from the former: it is 

 scarcely necessary to warn our readers that the clumsiness of the old 

 wood-cut U purposely imitated. 



Besides this there was an observatory sunk in the grontul.Tind named 

 Stellberg(City of tho Stars). These two buildings contained 28 in-ti u- 

 menU, all extra-meridional, but distinguished, as appears in (K), by 

 many nuw contrivances for avoiding error, aud by a size and solidity 

 which rendered graduation to a single minute attainable ; though it 

 may be doubted whether the instruments themselves were calculated 

 to give so sms.ll a quantity (for that time) with certainty. Tycho's 

 instrument* are vaguely said to have cost 200,000 crowns : the king 

 allowed 2000 dollars a year, besides a fief in Norway and a cauonry 

 in the church of Roeskildo. 



In 1577 he began his observations, and on November 13th 1577 saw 

 the comet which is the subject of (B). This luminary and others of 

 the same kind, gave occasion to hU discovery that the spheres of the 

 planets [PnuiUM MOBILE; PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM, in A UTS AND St. Div.J 

 could not be solid, since they were cut in all directions by the orbits 

 of comets, which must be called the first decisive blow against the 

 received notions. And Tycho was the first who proved comets to have 

 such a parallax as was incompatible with their being atmospheric or 

 oven sublunary bodies. Ho observed altogether seven comets, the last 

 in 1596. 



It is not our intention to follow Tycho Brand at length through his 

 splendid career at Uraniberg. No space here allowable would suffice 

 to detail hu results sufficiently for astronomical reference. We must 

 therefore content ourselves with a few words on the state in which he 

 found and left astronomy. The reader may fill up various point* from 

 the article ASTRONOIIY, in ARTS AND Sc. Div. 



From the time of Ptolemy it may be said that astronomy had made 

 gome advances, but these did not certainly compensate the defects 

 which time must introduce into tables of pure observation, unaided by 

 any such knowledge of the system u will make accurate prediction 

 possible. If the Arabs did some good by their observations, they aid 

 nearly as much mischief by their theories ; and the Alphousine tables 

 are a proof that the astronomers of that day did not know their 

 heavens so well as Ptolemy did his. It was impossible for any one to 

 make a considerable advance with such instruments as Tycho Brain- 

 actually found in use, or without rejecting all theories of the heavenly 

 bodies then in vogue, and relying entirely upon observation. The 

 test of a theory U its accordance with nature ; those of the time in 

 question were so defective that their falsehood might be perceived by 

 merely a little globe large enough to be held in one hand. Thoie who 

 were engaged in observation ought to have seen this : it is tho in. rit 

 of Tycho Brand that he was the first who did see it. But ho did 

 more than this : ha saw also the means of remedying the evil by his 

 mechanical knowledge in the construction of instruments, his per. 

 of the way in which those instruments were to be used, and the rc.ulU 

 of observation to be compared. Ho showed himself a sound nuthi- 

 maticiau in his methods for determining refraction, in bu deduction 

 of the variation and annual equation of the moon, and in many other 

 ways. He proved himself to be at the same time an inventor of the 

 means of observation and of the way of using them, such as hod not 

 appeared since Hipparchua; and it U to his observation that we owe, 

 firstly, the deduction of tho real laws of a planet's motion by K> jilcr, 



