NEW STABS. 205 



seven. We shall presently show that if from the tail-less 

 comets we separate the new stars which, according to the 

 records of Ma-tuan-lin, have been observed in China, and 

 go back to the middle of the second century before the 

 Christian era, that for about 2000 years scarcely more than 

 twenty or twenty-two of such phenomena can be adduced 

 with certainty. 



Before I proceed to general considerations, it seems not 

 inappropriate to quote the narrative of an eye-witness, and 

 by dwelling on a particular instance to depict the vividness 

 of the impression produced by the sight of a new star. " On 

 my return to the Danish islands, from my travels in Germany," 

 says Tycho Brahe, " I resided for some time with my uncle, 

 Steno Bille (ut aulicse vitee fastidium lenirem), in the old and 

 pleasantly situated monastery of Herritzwadt; and here I 

 made it a practice not to leave my chemical laboratory until 

 the evening. Raising my eyes, as usual, during one of my 

 walks, to the well-known vault of heaven, I observed, with 

 indescribable astonishment, near the zenith, in Cassiopeia, a 

 radiant fixed star, of a magnitude never before seen. In my 

 amazement, I doubted the evidence of my senses. However, 

 to convince myself that it was no illusion, and to have the testi- 

 mony of others, I summoned my assistants from the labora- 

 tory, and inquired of them, and of all the country people 

 that passed by, if they also observed the star that had thus 

 suddenly burst forth. I subsequently heard that, in Germany, 

 waggoners and other common people first called the attention 

 of astronomers to this great phenomenon in the heavens a 

 circumstance which, as in the case of non-predicted comets, 

 furnished fresh occasion for the usual raillery at the expense of 

 the learned. 



" This new star," Tycho Brahe continues, " I found to be with- 

 out a tail, not surrounded by any nebula, and perfectly like all 

 other fixed stars, with the exception that it scintillated more 



