|iet. iv. Tycho Brahe, and Copernicus. .

I rest of the planets; so that of all the celestialequipage, with which she had been formerlydignified, there only remained the moon to[attend and accompany her in her journey.

Europe, however, was still immersed in bar-Ibarism and ignorance ; and the general ideas ofIthe world, were not able to keep pace with thoseif a refined philosophy. This occasioned Co-Ipernicus to have few abettors, but many oppo-Inents. Threatened by the persecution of reli-Igious bigots on the one fide, and with an ob-[ilinate and violent opposition from those whocalled themselves philosophers, on the other, itwas not without the greatest solicitations, that hecould be prevailed upon to give up his papers topiis friends, with permisiion to make them public,lut, from continual importunities of this kind,he at last complied; and his book de Revolu-tionibus Orbium. cœlestium, after being sup-pressed for more than six and thirty years, wasit length published, and a copy of it broughtpo him a few hours before his death.

In this treatise he restores the ancient Pytha-gorean system, and deduces the appearances ofphe celestial motions from it in the most con-vincing and satisfactory manner. Every age[ince has produced new arguments in its favour;md notwithstanding the opposition it met with|tom the prejudices of sense against the earth's*motion, the authority of Aristotle in the schools,

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