128 DISSERTATION SECOND. [parti. 



After Copernicus, Tycho Brahe was the most distin- 

 guished astronomer of the sixteenth century. An eclipse 

 of the sun which he witnessed in 1560, when he was yet a 

 very young man, by the exactness with which it answered to 

 the prediction, impressed him with the greatest reverence 

 for a science which could see so far and so distinctly into 

 the future, and from that moment he was seized with the 

 strongest desire of becoming acquainted with it. Here, 

 indeed, was called into action a propensity nearly allied 

 both to the strength and the weakness of the mind of this 

 extraordinary man, the same that attached him, on one 

 hand, to the calculations of astronomy, and, on the other, 

 to the predictions of judicial astrology. 



In yielding himself up, however, to his love of astrono- 

 my, he found that he had several difficulties to overcome. 

 He belonged to a class in society, elevated, in the opinion 

 of that age, above the pursuit of knowledge, and jealous 

 of the privilege of remaining ignorant with impunity. Ty- 

 cho was of a noble family in Denmark, so that it required 

 all the enthusiasm and firmness inspired by the love of 

 knowledge, to set him above the prejudices of hereditary 

 rank, and the opposition of his relations. He succeeded, 

 however, in these objects, and also in obtaining the pa- 

 tronage of the King of Denmark, by which he was enabled 

 to erect an observatory, and form an establishment in the 

 island of Huena, such as had never yet been dedicated to 

 astronomy. The instruments were of far greater size, 

 more skilfully contrived, and more nicely divided, than any 

 ' that had yet been directed to the heavens. By means of 

 them, Tycho could measure angles to ten seconds, which 

 may be accounted sixty times the accuracy of the instru- 

 ments of Ptolemy, or of any that had belonged to the 

 .school of Alexandria. 



