BRAHE (Tycho)

, a celebrated astronomer, descended from a noble family originally of Sweden but settled in Denmark, was born the 14th of December 1546, at Knudstorp in the county of Schonen, near Helsimbourg. He was taught Latin when 7 years old, and studied 5 years under private tutors. His father dying while our author was very young, his uncle, George Brahe, having no children, adopted him, and sent him, in 1559, to study philosophy and rhetoric at Copenhagen. The great eclipse of the sun, on the 21st of August 1560, happening at the precise time the astronomers had foretold, he began to consider astronomy as something divine; and purchasing the tables of Stadius, he gained some notion of the theory of the planets. In 1562 he was sent by his uncle to Leipsic to study the law, where his acquirements gave manifest indications of extraordinary abilities. His natural inclination however was to the study of the heavens, to which he applied himself so assiduously, that, notwithstanding the care of his tutor to keep him close to the study of the law, he made use of every means in his power for improving his knowledge of astronomy; he purchased with his pocket money whatever books he could meet with on the subject, and read them with great attention, procuring assistance in difficult cases from Bartholomew Scultens his private tutor; and having procured a small celestial globe, he took opportunities, when his tutor was in bed, and when the weather was clear, to examine the constellations in the heavens, to learn their | names from the globe, and their motions from observation.

After a course of 3 years study at Leipsic, his uncle dying, he returned home in 1565. In this year a difference arising between Brahe and a Danish nobleman, they fought, and our author had part of his nose cut off by a blow; a defect which he so artfully supplied with one made of gold and silver, that it was not perceivable. About this time he began to apply himself to chemistry, proposing nothing less than to obtain the philosopher's stone. But becoming greatly disgusted to see the liberal arts despised, and finding his own relations and friends uneasy that he applied himself to astronomy, as thinking it a study unsuitable to a person of his quality, he went to Wirtemberg in 1566, from whence the breaking out of the plague soon occasioned his removal to Rostock, and in 1569 to Augsburg, where he was visited by Peter Ramus, then professor of astronomy at Paris, and who greatly admired his uncommon skill in this science.

In 1571 he returned to Denmark; and was favoured by his maternal uncle, Steno Billes, a lover of learning, with a convenient place at his castle of Herritzvad near Knudstorp, for making his observations, and building a laboratory. And here it was he discovered, in 1573, a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. But soon after, his marrying a country girl, beneath his rank, occasioned so violent a quarrel between him and his relations, that the king was obliged to interpose to reconcile them.

In 1574, by the king's command, he read lectures at Copenhagen on the theory of the planets. The year following he began his travels through Germany, and proceeded as far as Venice. He then resolved to remove his family, and settle at Basil; but Frederic the 2d, king of Denmark, being informed of his design, and unwilling to lose a man who was capable of doing so much honour to his country, he promised to enable him to pursue his studies, and bestowed upon him for life the island of Huen in the Sound, and promised that an observatory and laboratory should be built for him, with a supply of money for carrying on his designs: and accordingly the first stone of the observatory was laid the 8th of August 1576, under the name of Uranibourg: The king also gave him a pension of 2000 crowns out of his treasury, a fee in Norway, and a canonry of Roshild, which brought him in 1000 more. This situation he enjoyed for the space of about 20 years, pursuing his observations and studies with great industry: here he kept always in his house ten or twelve young men, who assisted him in his observations, and whom he instructed in astronomy and mathematics. Here it was that he received a visit from James the 6th, king of Scotland, afterward James the 1st of England, having come to Denmark to espouse Anne, daughter of Frederick the 2d: James made our author 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 interrupted. Soon after the death of king Frederick, by the aspersions of envious and malevolent ministers, he was deprived of his pension, fee, and canonry, in 1596. Being thus rendered incapable of supporting the expences of his establish- ment, he quitted his favourite Uranibourg, and withdrew to Copenhagen, with some of his instruments, and continued his astronomical observations and chemical experiments in that city, till the same malevolence procured from the new king, Charles the 4th, an order for him to discontinue them. This induced him to fall upon means of being introduced to the emperor Rodolphus, who was fond of mechanism and chemical experiments: and to smooth the way to an interview, Tycho now published his book, Astronomia instaurata Mechanica, adorned with figures, and dedicated it to the emperor. That prince received him at Prague with great civility and respect; 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 3 years after, he died, on the 24th of October 1601, of a retention of urine, in the 55th year of his age, and was interred in a very magnisicent manner in the principal church at Prague, where a noble monument was erected to him; leaving, beside his wife, two sons and four daughters. On the approach of death, he enjoined his sons to take care that none of his works should be lost; exhorted the students to attend closely to their exercises; and recommended to Kepler the finishing of the Rudolphine tables he had constructed for regulating the motion of the planets.

Brahe's skill in astronomy is universally 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 presages: 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 it was a bad omen: Also, when he lived at Uranibourg, he kept at his house a madman, whom he placed at his feet at table, and fed himself; for as he imagined that every thing spoken by mad persons presaged something, he carefully observed all that this man said; and because it sometimes proved true, he fancied it might always be depended on. He was of a very irritable disposition: a mere trifle put him 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 taken with himself.—The principal part of his writings, according to Gassendus, are,

1. An account of the New Star, which appeared Nov. 11th 1572, in Cassiopeia; Copenh. 1573, in 4to. —2. An Oration concerning the Mathematical Sciences, pronounced in the university of Copenhagen, in the year 1574: published by Conrad Aslac, of Bergen in Norway.—3. A treatise on the Comet of the year 1577, immediately after it disappeared. Nine years afterward, he revised it, and added a 10th chapter. Printed at Uranibourg, 1589.—4. Another treatise on the New Phenomena of the heavens. In the first part of which he treats of the Restitution, as he calls it, of the sun, and of the sixed stars. And in the 2d part, of | a New Star, which then had made its appearance.— 5. A collection of Astronomical Epistles: printed in 4to, at Uranibourg in 1596; Nuremberg in 1602; and at Franckfort in 1610. It was dedicated to Maurice landgrave of Hesse; because there are in it a considerable 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. —6. The Mechanical Principles of Astronomy restored: Wandesburg, 1598, in folio.—7. An Answer to the Letter of a certain Scotchman, concerning the comet, in the year 1577.—8. On the composition of an Elixir for the Plague; addressed to the emperor Rodolphus.—9. An elegy upon his Exile: Rostock, 1614, 4to.—10. The Rudolphine Tables; which he had not finished when he died; but were revised, and published by Kepler, as Tycho had desired.—11. An accurate Enumeration of the Fixed Stars: addressed to the emperor Rodolphus.—12. A complete Catalogue of 1000 of the Fixed Stars; which Kepler has inserted in the Rudolphine Tables.—13. Historia Cælestis; or a History of the Heavens; in two parts: The 1st contains the Observations he had made at Uranibourg, in 16 books: The latter contains the Observations made at Wandesburg, Wittenberg, Prague, &c; in 4 books.— 14. Is an Epistle to Caster Pucer; printed at Copenhagen 1668.