NEW STARS. 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 aulicae vitae 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 



