KEPLER, JOHN. 



KEPLER, JOHN. 



7C6 



putting forth opinions, however mischievous or absurd, be at this 

 time tolerated. 



Lord Kenyon trusted too much to the power of the terrors of the 

 law iii guarding the rights of property from fraud or violence ; and he 

 inflicted death as the most terrible and therefore the most preventive 

 punishment. That this proceeded rather from a mistaken judgment 

 an ignorance of, or a want of power to give sufficient weight to, 

 those circumstances which exert a more powerful influence upon 

 human character, and not from a cold and sanguinary disposition the 

 following anecdote may be considered as a proof: He passed sentence 

 of death upon a young woman who had committed a theft; she 

 fainted. Lord Kenyon, in great agitation, cried out, " I don't mean to 

 hang you ; will nobody tell her that I don't mean to hang her?" 



Indeed, in behalf of poor and ignorant offenders who were the 

 dupes or tools of knaves his kindly feelings were often displayed, and 

 humble individuals of the workiug classes who were harassed by 

 informers were sure to be shielded by him. A prosecution was com- 

 menced against a man for practising the trade of a tailor without 

 having served an apprentices hip, and an attempt was made to punish 

 him for several acts done in the same day. " Prosecute the man," 

 said Lord Kenyon, "for different acts in one day ! Why not sue for 

 penalties on every stitch ? ' 



Lord Mansfield, when chief-justice, had somewhat unsettled the 

 bounds of the courts of law ; but Lord Kenyon, with much wisdom, 

 reverted to the ancient strictness, and he expressed his determination 

 to maintain it He wisely refused to allow the plain words of a 

 statute to be refined away, however severe in its enactments, by any 

 subtle sophistry. " The arguments," he said, " that have been pressed 

 upon us might have had some effect if they were addressed to the 

 legislature ; but we are sitting in a court of law, and must administer 

 justice according to the known laws of the laud. Let application be 

 made to the legislature to amend the act : as long as it remains upon 

 the statute-book we must enforce it." 



At Nisi Piius he never brought a book with him into court to refer 

 to. The extent as well as the arrangement of his legal knowledge 

 ne ded no such assistance. In performing the laborious duties of his 

 profession he was diligent and exact, and proceeded with so much 

 expedition as often to get through twenty-five or twenty-six causes to 

 the entire satisfaction of the court. Hi* adjudications, though occa- 

 sionally objected to at the time, are now regarded as of the highest 

 authority. 



H died in 1802, sorrow-stricken by the loss of his eldest son, after 

 having accumulated a fortune of 300.000/. 



In bis private habits Lord Kenyon was temperate, frugal even to 

 parsimony, and an early riser. For his happiness he looked to his 

 home, being most deeply attached to his family. He entirely disre- 

 garded outward appearance; his dress was shabby, his equipage mean, 

 while he entirely neglected to exercise the hospitality becoming his 

 high station and large fortune. 



(Law Magazine, No. 37, p. 49.) 



Khl'LKK, JUHN, was born at Weil in the duchy of Wiirtomberg, 

 21t of December 1571. He was a seven-mouths child, very weak 

 and sickly, and survived with difficulty a severe attack of smallpox. 

 His parents, Henry Kepler and Catherine Ouldenmann, were of noble 

 descent, although tht-ir circumstances were far from affluent. The 

 father, at the time of his marriage, was a petty officer in the service 

 of the Duke of Wurtemberg, aud joined the army in the Nether- 

 lands a few years after the birth of his eldest son John. Upon his 

 return to Germany he learnt that an acquaintance for whom he had 

 incautiously become security had absconded, and bad left him the 

 unexpected charge of liquidating the bond. This circumstance obliged 

 him to dispose of his house and nearly the whole of his possession^, 

 and to become a tavern-keeper at Elmendingen. Young Kepler had 

 been sent in the year 1577 to a school at Elmeudingen, and he con- 

 tinued there until the occurrence of the event to which we have just 

 alluded, and which was the cause of a temporary interruption in his 

 education, as it appears that be was taken home and employed in 

 menial services until his twelfth year, when he returned to school. 

 In ISsG be was admitted into the monastic school of Maulbronn, 

 wht-re the cost of his education was defrayed by the Duke of 

 Wiirtemberg. The regulations of this school required that after 

 remaining a year in the superior classes the students should offer 

 themselves for examination at the college of Tubingen for the degree 

 of Bachelor. On obtaining this degree they returned with the title of 

 veterans ; and having completed the prescribed course of study, they 

 were admitted as resident students at Tubingen, whence they pro- 

 ceeded in about a year to the degree of Master. During his under- 

 graduateahip Kepler's studies were much interrupted by periodical 

 returns of the disorders which had so nearly proved fatal to him 

 during childhood, as also by the dissensions between his parents, in 

 consequence of which his father left his home, and soon after died 

 abroad. Notwithstanding the many disadvantages he must have 

 laboured under from the above circumstances, aud from the confused 

 state in which they had left his domestic affairs, Kepler took the 

 degree of Master in August 1591, attaining the second place in the 

 annual examination. The first name on the list was John Hippolytus 

 Brentius. 



While thug engaged at Tubingen, the astronomical lectureship of 

 BIOO. DIV. VOL. III. 



Griitz, the chief town in Styria, became vacant by the death of 

 George Stadt, and the situation was offered to Kepler, who was forced 

 to accept it by the authority of his tutors, although we have his own 

 assurance that at that period he had given no particular attention to 

 astronomy. This must have been in the year 1593-94. In 1596 he 

 published his ' Mysterium Cosmographicum,' wherein he details the 

 j many ingenious hypotheses which he had successively formed, 

 | examined, aud rejected, concerning the number, distance, and periodic 

 ! times of the planets; and finally, proposes a theory wbich he imagines 

 j will account in a satisfactory niauuer for the order of the heavenly 

 I bodies, which theory rests upon the fancied analogy between the 

 relative dimensions of the orbits of those bodies, and the diatiu ters of 

 circles inscribed and circumscribed about the five regular solids. lu 

 1597 Kepler married Barbara Muller von Muhleckh, a lady who, 

 although two years younger than himself, was already a widow for 

 the second time. This alliance soon involved him in difficulties, 

 which together with the troubled state of the province of Styria, 

 arising out of the two great religious parties into which the empire 

 was then divided, induced him to withdraw from Griitz into Hungary, 

 whence he transmitted to a friend at Tubingen, several short treatises 

 ' On the Magnet,' ' On the Cause of the Obliquity of the Ecliptic,' 

 and 'On the Divine Wisdom as shown in the Creation.' In 1600 

 Kepler, having learned that Tycho Branti was at Benach in Bohemia, 

 and that his observations had led him to a more accurate determina- 

 tion of the eccentricities of the planets' orbits, determined ou paying 

 him a visit, and was welcomed in the kindest rnaiiuer by Tycho, by 

 whom he was introduced the following year to the emperor, and 

 honoured with the title of imperial mathematician, on condition of 

 assisting Tycho in his calculations. Upon the death of Tycho, which 

 happened in the month of October of the same year, Kepler suc- 

 ceeded him as principal mathematician to the emperor. To this great 

 man Kepler was under many obligations, not merely for the pecuniary 

 assistance ami hospitality which himself aud family so often expe- 

 rienced from Tycho, and upon which at one period they entirely 

 depended for subsistence, but still more for the sound advice which 

 he gave him, to abandon speculation, and to apply himself to the 

 deduction of causes from their observed effects, advice which Kepler 

 greatly needed, and to which, if he had adhered more closely, his fame 

 would have been even greater than what it now is. It is to bo 

 regretted that upon several occasions the conduct of Kepler towards 

 Tycho Brane! ill-accorded with the generosity of the latter, though this 

 appears to be attributable rather to the impetuosity of Kepler's 

 temper, than to any want of gratitude towards bis benefactor. It 

 has been eaid that Kepler was appoiuted imperial mathematician on 

 condition of assisting Tycho in his calculations. The object of these 

 calculations was the formation of new a-trouomical tables generally, 

 which were to be called the Rudolphiue Tables, in honour of Rudolph 

 the then emperor of Bohemia, who had promised, not merely to 

 defray the expense of their construction, but likewise to provide 

 Kepler with a liberal salary ; neither of which his circumstances ever 

 permitted him to fulfil. The part more particularly allotted to 

 Kepler was the reduction of Tycho's observations relative to the 

 planet Mars, aud to this circumstance is mainly owing his graud 

 discovery of the law of elliptic orbits, and that of the equable 

 description of areas. The pecuniary difficulties however in which he 

 found himself almost incessantly involved in cousequeuce of the non- 

 payment of his salary, greatly retarded the progress of his labours, 

 and obliged him to seek a livelihood by casting nativities. The 

 liudolphiue. Tables were therefore postponed, and he applied himself 

 to works of a less costly character, from which ho might expect to 

 derive more immediate remuneration. In 1602 appeared uii 'Funda- 

 mental Principles of Astrology;' iu 1604 his 'Supplement to 

 Vitellion; 1 in 1605 'A Letter concerning the Solar Eclipse;' and in 

 16U6 ' An Account of the New Star which had appeared in 1604 in 

 the Constellation Cassiopeia.' Of these the ' Supplement to Vitelliou ' 

 was important, as containing the first consistent theory of that 

 branch of optics termed dioptrics. 



At length, in 1609 appeared his ' New Astronomy,' containing his 

 great and extraordinary book ' Ou the Motion of Mars ; ' a work which 

 holds the intermediate place, and is the connecting link, between the 

 discoveries of Copernicus and those of Newtou. Tuo introduction is 

 occupied in refuting the then commonly-received theory of gravity, 

 and in declaring what were his own opinions upon the same subject. 

 In the course of this discussion he states distinctly that since the 

 attractive virtue of the moon extends as far as the e.irth, as is evident 

 from its enticing up the waters of the earth, with greater reason it 

 follows that the attractive virtue of the earth exteuds as far as the 

 moon, and much farther ; and he likewise asserts that if two bodies of 

 like nature be placed in any part of the world near each other, but 

 beyond the influence of auy other body, they would approach each 

 other like two magnets, each parsing over a space reciprocally iu pro- 

 portion to its mass ; so that if the moon and earth were not retained 

 in their orbits by their animal force, or some other equivalent to it, 

 the earth would approach the moon by the 54th part of their distance, 

 aud the moon would approach the earth by the remaining 53 parts. 

 Previous to the publication of this remarkable work it was supposed 

 that each planet moved uniformly in a small circle called an epicycle, 

 the centre of which epicycle moved with an equal angular velocity iu 



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