carefully marked every thing he said. Lest it should be supposed that
this was done to no purpose, Longomontanus relates that when any person
in the island was sick, Lep never, when interrogated, failed to predict
whether the patient would live or die. It is stated also in the letters
of Wormius, both to Gassendi and Peyter, that when Tycho was absent, and
his pupils became very noisy and merry in consequence of not expecting
him soon home, the idiot, who was present, exclaimed, _Juncher xaa
laudit_, "Your master has arrived." On another occasion, when Tycho had
sent two of his pupils to Copenhagen on business, and had fixed the day
of their return, Lep surprised him on that day while he was at dinner,
by exclaiming, "Behold your pupils are bathing in the sea." Tycho,
suspecting that they were shipwrecked, sent some person to the
observatory to look for their boat. The messenger brought back word that
he saw some persons wet on the shore, and in distress, with a boat upset
at a great distance. These stories have been given by Gassendi, and may
be viewed as specimens of the superstition of the age.
Tycho left behind him a wife and six children, but even in the time of
Gassendi nothing was known of their history, excepting that Tengnagel,
who married one of the daughters, gave up his scientific pursuits, and,
having been admitted among the Emperor's counsellors, was employed in
several of his embassies.
The instruments of Tycho were purchased from his heirs, by the Emperor,
for 22,000 crowns. They were shut up in the house of Curtius, and were
treated with such veneration, that no astronomer, not even Kepler
himself, was permitted to see or to use them.
Here they remained till the death of the Emperor Matthias, in 1619, when
the troubles in Bohemia took place. When Prague was taken by the forces
of the Elector Palatine, the instruments were carried off, and some were
destroyed, and others converted to different purposes. The great brass
globe, however, was saved. It was first carried to Niessa, the episcopal
city of Silesia; and having been presented to the College of Jesuits, it
was preserved in their museum, till Udalric, the son of Christian, King
of Denmark, took Niessa in 1632. The globe was recognized as having
belonged to Tycho, and it was carried in triumph to Denmark. An
inscription was written upon it by Longomontanus, and it was deposited
with some pomp in the Library of the Academy of Sciences.
After Ty
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