94

OF THE DISCOVERIES OF

the Earth to silver; Venus to lead; Mercury toquicksilver ; and the Sun to gold, which is theheaviest of all substances we are yet acquaintedwith. Excepting the density of the fun, thisrule differs but little from the truth; and thoughit was founded upon false reasoning, it was ne-vertheless a happy conjecture. The time wasnot yet come for philosophers to weigh thecelestial bodies, and to estimate with exactnesstheir different densities.

This great man, whose whole life was so glo-riously employed in cultivating and improvingthe sciences, had his last days embittered by allthe horrors of poverty and distress. A smallpension, which was scarcely sufficient for hissubsistence, was frequently withheld or unpaid;and the trouble and vexation this occasioned himwas so great, that it obscured his genius, andsoon put a period to his existence. He died on the15th of November 1631, in the fifty-ninth yearof his age, leaving nothing for his wife andchildren, but the glory of his name, and thefame which he had so justly acquired: but as thesewere insufficient to relieve his own wants, theycould afford but little comfort to a helplesswidow and her wretched offspring, whose indi-gence is said to have been such, that they hadnot even the common necessaries of life.

Whilst Kepler, in Germany, was tracing theorbits of the planets, and fettling the laws of

their