BRAHE. 



tlevick the Second. James made our au- 

 thor some noble presents, and wrote a 

 copy of Latin verses in his praise. 



Brahe's tranquillity, however, in this 

 happy situation, was at length fatally in- 

 terrupted. Soon after the death of King 

 Frederick, by the aspersions of envious 

 and malevolent ministers, he was depriv- 

 ed of his pension, fee, and canonry, in 

 1596. Being thus rendered incapable of 

 supporting; the expenses of his esta- 

 blishment, he quitted his favourite Urani- 

 bourg, and withdrew to Copenhagen, 

 with some of his instruments, and conti- 

 nued his astronomical observations and 

 chemical experiments in that city, till 

 the same malevolence procured from the 

 new K?r, Charles the Fourth, an order 

 from him to discontinue them. This in- 

 duced him 1o fall upon means of being 

 introduced to the Emperor Rodolphus, 

 who was fond of mechanism and chenai- 

 cal experiments : and to smooth the way 

 to an interview, Tycho now published his 

 book, " Astronomia instaurata Mechani- 

 ca," adorned with figures, and dedicated 

 it to the Emperor. That prince received 

 him at Prague with great civility and re- 

 spect ; gave, him a magnificent house, till 

 he could procure one for him more fit 

 for astronomical observations ; he also 

 assigned him a pension of 3000 crowns ; 

 and promised him a fee for himself and his 

 descendants. Here then he settled in 

 the latter part of 1598, with his sons and 

 scholars, and among them the celebrated 

 Kepler, who had joined him. But he did 

 not long enjoy this happy situation, for 

 about three years after he died on the 24th 

 of October, 1601, of a retention of urine, 

 in the 55th year of his age, and was inter- 

 red in a very magnificent manner in the 

 principal church at Prague, where a no- 

 ble monument was erected to him, leav- 

 ing, besides his wife, two sons and four 

 daughters. On the approach of death 

 he enjoined his sons to to take care that 

 none of his works should be lost ; ex- 

 horted the students to attend closely to 

 theirs exercises ; and recommended to 

 Kepler the finishing of the Rudolphine 

 Tables, which he had constructed for re- 

 gulating the motion of the planets. 



Brahe's skill in astronomy is universal- 

 ly known ; and he is famed for being the 

 inventor of a new system of the planets, 

 which he endeavoured, though without, 

 success, to establish on the ruins of that 

 of Copernicus. He was very credulous 

 with regard to judicial astrology and pre- 

 sages : if he met an old woman when he 

 went out of doors, or a hare upon the 

 road on a journey, he would turn back 



immediately, being persuaded that is was 

 a bad omen : also, when he lived at 

 Uranibourg, he kept at his house a mad- 

 man, whom he placed at his feet at table, 

 and fed himself; for as he imagined that 

 every thing spoken by mad persons pre- 

 saged something, he carefully observed all 

 that this man said ; and because it some- 

 times proved true, he fancied it might al- 

 ways be depended upon. He was of a very 

 irritable disposition: a mere trifle puthim 

 in a passion: and against persons of the 

 first rank, whom he thought his enemies, 

 he openly discovered his resentment. He 

 was very apt to rally others, but highly 

 provoked when the same liberty was ta- 

 ken with himself. The principal part of 

 his writings are : 



1. An account of the New Star which 

 appeared Nov. llth, 1572, in Cassiopeia; 

 Copenh. 1573, in 4to. 2. Another treat- 

 tise on the New Phenomena of the Hea- 

 vens. In the first part of which he treats 

 of the restitution, as he calls it, of the 

 sun and of the fixed stars. And in the 

 second part, of a new star which had then 

 made its appearance. 3. A collection of 

 Astronomical Epistles ; printed in 4to. at 

 Uranibourg, in 1596; Nuremberg in 

 160? ; and at Frankfort in 1610. It was 

 dedicated to Maurice Landgrave of Hes- 

 se; because there are in it a considera- 

 ble number of letters of the Landgrave 

 William, his father, and of Christopher 

 Rothmann, the mathematician of that 

 prince, to Tycho, and of Tycho to them. 

 4. The Rudolphine Tables; which he 

 had not finished when he died ; but were 

 revised and published by Kepler, as Ty- 

 cho had desired. 5. An accurate Enu- 

 meration of the Fixed stars ; addressed to 

 the Emperor Rodolphus. 6. A complete 

 Catalogue of 1000 of the Fixed Stars ; 

 which Kepler has inserted in the Rudol- 

 phine Tables. 7. "Historia Coelestis," 

 or a History of the Heavens, in two parts : 

 the first contains the observations he had 

 made at Uranibourg, in sixteen books ; 

 the latter contains the observations made 

 at Wandesburg, Wittenburg, Prague, &c. 

 in four books. 



The apparatus of Tycho was purchased 

 by the Emperor Rodolphus for 22,000 

 crowns. It remained, however, useless 

 and concealed till the troubles of Bohe- 

 mia, when the army of the Elector Pala- 

 tine plundered them, and in the true 

 spirit of barbarism breaking some of 

 them, and^pplying others to purposes for 

 which they were never designed. The 

 great celestial globe of brass was preserv- 

 ed, carried from Prague, and deposited 

 with the Jesuits of Naysia in Silesia, 



