COXE’s TRAVELS IN DENMARK. 333
Ptolemaic hypothefis. He was, indeed, too well acquainted with the motions of theheavenly bodies, not to be convinced that the fun was the centre of the fyftem; andthough {truck with the fimplicity and harmony of that of Pythagoras, revived by Co-pernicus , yet out of refpedt for feveral paffages offcripture, he abfurdly endeavoured toreconcile (what were never intended to be reconciled) his learning with his faith. Pierejected the diurnal rotation of the earth on its own axis; fuppofed that the earth wasquiefcent; that the fun, with all the planets, was carried about the earth in the fpace ofa year; and that the planets, by their proper motions, revolved round the fun in theirfeveral periods: thus retaining the mod abfurd part of the Ptolemaic hypothefis, whichmakes the whole planetary fyftem revolve round the earth in the fpace of twenty-fourhours.
Tycho , indeed, was fo bigotted to his own hypothefis, even in his lafl moments, as todefire his favourite fcholar, the great Kepler , to follow his fyftem rather than that of
If U'e were to eftimate the merits of Tycho Brahe as an aftronomer, we fhould com-pare the fcience as he left it with the date in which he found it. His great merit con-fined in his inventions and improvements of mathematical inftruments, and in the di-ligence and exadtnefs with which he made aftronomical obfervations for a feries ofyears. As his inftruments were remarkably good, he compofed a catalogue of fevenhundred and feventy-feven fixed ftars, obferved by himfelf, with an accuracy unknownto former aftronomers ; he difcovered the refraction of the air, demonftrated, contraryto the prevailing opinion of thofe times, that the comets were higher than the moon,and from his obfervations on the moon and planets, the theories of their motions were:afterwards corrected and improved *. He was the firft who compofed a table of re-fractions, and {hewed their ufe in aftronomy. Such is the reputation of Tycho Brahe ,for his great proficiency in that fcience, that Coftard, in the Hiftory of Aftronomy, hasfixed on his name for the beginning of a new period.
He embraced a large circle of the arts and fciences. He cultivated poetry, andWrote Latin verfes, not without fome degree of claffic elegance. He drew the plan forbuilding the caftle of Cronborg, and fketched the defign for the noble maufoleum ofFrederic the Second, which was executed in Italy , and is ereCted in the cathedral ofH-olkild. He dabbled alfo in phyfic;- was fond of being confulted, and gave his ad-Vj ce and medicines gratis ; he invented an elixir, which he calls an infallible cure fore pidemic diforders, of which he publilhed the recipe in a letter to the Emperor Rho-dolph.
He was a good mechanic . He polfeffed feveral automates, took great delight injhewing them to the peafants, and was gratified if they were confidered as fpirits.f ycho was no lefs fond of being confulted as a fortune-teller, and willingly encouragedan opinion, that his knowledge of the heavenly bodies enabled him to obferve horo-scopes, and foretel events. Traditional fables of his predictions have been handedoown to pofterity, which {hew his pronenefs to judicial aftrology, and the weaknefs ofthofe who believed his predictions.
At Uranienburgh Tycho Brahe had feveral contrivances calculated to deceive anda ‘toni{h thofe who came to vifit and confult him. Among others, feveral bells, com-municated with the rooms in the upper ftory, inhabited by his fcholars, the handles ofwhich were concealed in his own apartments. Frequently, when company was withSum , he would pretend to want fomething, and having fecretly pulled the bell, would
* See Bannycaftle’s Introduction to Aftronomy, p. 61.
cry