rOL. III.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. JI8: 



These observations of the noble Tycho, as they were procured and preserved 

 by the Emperors, Rudolph II. Ferdinand II. and III; so they were lately by the 

 command of his Imperial Majesty Leopold made public. They are ushered in 

 by a liber prologomenos, compendiously representing the observations made 

 from the time of the very infancy of astronomy unto that of its restoration by 

 the illustrious Tycho ; and reduced into seven classes, viz. 1. The Babylonian 

 observations ; from An. before Christ 721, to An. 432. 2. The Grecian ; from 

 An. before Christ 432, to the beginning of the vulgar Christian account. 

 3. The Alexandrian; from An. Christi 1, till An. 827. 4. The Syro-Persian ; 

 from A. C. 827, to 1457. 5. The Norimbergian, from A. C. 1457, to 1509. 

 6. The Borussian ; from A. C. 1509, to 1529. 7. Mixt observations; from 

 A. C. 1529, to 1582. In which year, 1582, begin the observations of Tycho, 

 contained in 20 books, and made in as many years, ending An. Chr. 160 1, 



and mathematics. And here it was that Tycho received a visit from James the 6th, king of Scot- 

 land, afterwards James the first of England, who had gone into Denmark to espouse the princes* 

 Anne of that country. On this occasion James made Tycho some noble presents, and wrote a copj 

 of Latin verses in his praise. 



Tycho's tranquillity however in this happy situation was at length fatally interrupted. Soon after 

 the deatli of king Frederick, by the aspersions of envious and malevolent ministers he was deprived 

 of his emoluments, and obliged to quit his favourite Uranibourg, in 1596. He removed to Copen- 

 hagen, witli some of his instruments, continuing there his observations and his experiments, till the 

 same malevolence procured from the new king, Charles the 4th, an order for him to discontinue 

 them. T)'cho then turned his views to Rudolph, emperor of Germany, an encourager of learning, 

 to whom he soon after repaired. That prince received him at Prague very graciously j accommo- 

 dated him with a convenient situation, and a noble revenue, promising also to settle a fee for his 

 descendants. Here tlien Tycho settled in the latter part of 1598, with his own family and his 

 scholars, and among them the celebrated Kepler, who had joined him. But he did not long enjoy 

 this happy situation ; for he died about three years after, viz. in l601, of a retention of urine, in the 

 55th year of his age ; exhorting his scholars to attend closely to their exercises, and particularly re- 

 commending to Kepler to complete the Rudolphin Tables, which he had constructed for regulating 

 the motion of the planets. 



Tycho was autlior of many important works and improvements in astronomy. He was of a pious 

 and devout disposition, which led him, to support the credit as he thought of tlie scriptures, to in- 

 vent a new system of the planets, that might give stability to tlie earth, and motion to the sun. He 

 was of a very irritable temper: a mere trifle put hhn in a passion j 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 soon provoked when the same liberty was taken with himself. He was also very credu- 

 lous with regard to judicial astrology, and superstitiously anxious about presages : if he met an old 

 woman on first going out of doors, or a hare on the road in a journey, he immediately turned back, 

 from the persuasion it was an ill omen : And during his residence at Uranibourg, he retained an idiot 

 in his house, whom he placed at his feet at table, and fed himself j carefully noting all that was ut- 

 tered by this madman, believing that every thing spoken by such persons had some secret important 

 ^meaning. 



VOL. I, R R 



