io2, io 3 ] Life at Hveen 135 



Hveen his tenants complained of work which he illegally 

 f reed from them ; chapel services which his canonry 

 required him to keep up were neglected, and he entirely 

 refused to make certain recognised payments to the widow 

 of the previous canon. Further difficulties arose out of a 

 lighthouse, the maintenance of which was a duty attached 

 to one of his estates, but was regularly neglected. Nothing 

 shews the King's good feeling towards Tycho more than 

 the trouble which he took to settle these quarrels, often 

 ending by paying the sum of money under dispute. Tycho 

 was moreover extremely jealous of his scientific reputation, 

 and on more than one occasion broke out into violent 

 abuse of some assistant or visitor whom he accused of 

 stealing his ideas and publishing them elsewhere. 



In addition to the time thus spent in quarrelling, a good 

 deal must have been occupied in entertaining the numerous 

 visitors whom his fame attracted, and who included, in 

 addition to astronomers, persons of rank such as several 

 of the Danish royal family and James VI. of Scotland 

 (afterwards James I. of England). 



Notwithstanding these distractions, astronomical work 

 made steady progress, and during the 21 years that Tycho 

 spent at Hveen he accumulated, with the help of pupils 

 and assistants, a magnificent series of observations, far 

 transcending in accuracy and extent anything that had 

 been accomplished by his predecessors. A good deal of 

 attention was also given to alchemy, and some to medicine. 

 He seems to have been much impressed with the idea 

 of the unity of Nature, and to have been continually 

 looking out for analogies or actual connection between 

 the different subjects which he studied. 



103. In 1577 appeared a brilliant comet, which Tycho 

 observed with his customary care ; and, although he had 

 not at the time his full complement of instruments, his 

 observations were exact enough to satisfy him that the 

 comet was at least three times as far off as the moon, and 

 thus to refute the popular belief, which he had himself 

 hold a few years before ( 100), that comets were generated 

 in our atmosphere. His observations led him also to the 

 belief that the comet was revolving round the sun, at a 

 distance "from it greater than that of Venus, a conclusion 



