OF THE COSMOS. NEW STARS. 133 



reckon, of comets visible to the naked eye, about 63, and 

 of new stars only 9 ; thus, for the period within which, in 

 European civilised countries, we can count on a tolerably 

 accurate enumeration, we find the proportion of new stars to 

 comets, both being visible to the naked eye, as 1 to 1 * We 

 shall soon show, that if in the Chinese registers of Ma- 

 tuan-lin, we carefully distinguish the observations of newly- 

 appeared stars from those of tail-less comets, and if we. go 

 back to a century and a half before the Christian era, we 

 find that, in the course of almost 2000 years, 20 or 22 of 

 such phsenomena are the utmost that can be adduced with 

 any degree of certainty. 



Before proceeding to general considerations, I prefer, by 

 dwelling on a single example, and by the narration of an 

 eye- witness, to attempt to convey to my readers a just idea 

 of the vividness of the impression produced by the appearance 

 of a new star. " When," says Tycho Brahe, " I was returning 

 to the Danish Islands, after travelling in Germany, I 

 remained awhile (ut aulicse vitse fastidium lenirem) with my 

 uncle, Steno Bille, at the pleasantly- situated former convent 

 of Herritzwadt, where I was in the habit of only quitting my 

 chemical laboratory in the evening. On coming forth into 

 the open air, and raising my eyes as usual to the well-known 

 heavenly vault, I saw, with indescribable astonishment, near 

 the zenith, in Cassiopeia, a radiant fixed star of a magnitude 

 never before seen. In the excitement, I thought I could 

 not trust my senses. In order to convince myself that it 

 was no illusion, and to collect the testimony of others, I 

 called my workman from the laboratory, and asked all the 

 country people who were passing by, whether they saw the 

 new suddenly-outshining bright star as I did. Subsequently 



