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CHAPTER II. 



THE SCIEXTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



" No Augustan epoch flowered, 

 No Lorenzo favours showered 



Ever German Art upon ; 

 She was not by glory nourished 

 And her blossom never flourished 



In the rays of Royal sun." ^ 



Perhaps with more correctness Schiller might, early in 

 the century, have applied these lines to German science 

 than to German art. If art and poetry were only slightly 

 indebted to princely protection, German science was still 

 less so." Leibniz's scientific labours languished while he 



^ Schiller, "Die deutsche Muse." 

 ^ Astronomy was the only science 

 that enjoyed some little princely 

 favour. William IV., surnamed 

 "the Wise," son of Philip the 

 Magnanimous of Hesse and himself 

 Elector, was an astronomer of some 

 note, and stood in intimate re- 

 lations with Mercator, Tycho, and 

 other astronomers. In 1561 he 

 built himself an observatory at 

 Cassel and appointed Rothmann to 

 be his "Mathematicus." Frederick 

 II. of Denmark gave Tycho a 

 magnificent observatory, called 

 " Uranienburg," where he laboured 



from 1576 to 1597, but which was 

 subsequently destroyed. Tycho 

 was then employed by the Emperor 

 Rudolf II., and inaugurated the 

 observatory in Prague (1599-1601); 

 he made Kepler his assistant, and 

 enabled the latter by the use of his 

 observations to find and prove his 

 three celebrated laws (" Astronomia 

 nova," Prague, 1609 ; " Harmonices 

 mundi," Linz, 1619; "Tabulaj 

 Rudolphinaj," 1627). Full details 

 will be found in Rudolf Wolf, 

 ' Geschichte der Astronomie,' Miin- 

 chen, 1877, p. 266, &c. 



