distinguished characters
whom England has starved and dishonoured.

In the year 1620, Kepler was exposed to a severe calamity, which
continued to harass him for some time. His mother, Catherine Kepler, to
whose peculiarities of temper we have already referred, was arrested on
the 5th April, upon a charge of a very serious nature. One of her
friends having some years before suffered a miscarriage, was
subsequently attacked with violent headaches, and Catherine was charged
with having administered poison to her friend. This accusation was
indignantly repelled, and a young doctor of the law, whom she consulted,
advised her to raise an action against her calumniator. From
professional reasons, or probably pecuniary ones, this zealous
practitioner continued to delay the lawsuit for five years. The judge
who tried it happened to be displaced, and was succeeded by another, who
had a personal quarrel with the prosecutor. The defender, who was aware
of this favourable change in her case, became the accuser, and, in July
1620, Catherine Kepler was sent to prison, and condemned to the torture.
The moment this event reached the ears of her son, he quitted Linz, and
arrived in time to save her from punishment. He found that the evidence
upon which she was condemned had no other foundation but her own
intemperate conduct; and, though his interference was successful, yet
she was not finally released from prison till the 4th November 1621.
Convinced of her innocence, this bold woman, now in the 79th year of her
age, raised a new action for damages against her opponent; but her
death, in April 1622, put an end to her own miseries, as well as to the
anxiety of her son. Among the virtues of this singular woman, we must
number that of generosity. Moestlin, the old preceptor of Kepler, had
generously declined any compensation for his instructions. Kepler never
forgot this act of kindness, and, in the midst of his poverty, he found
means to send to Moestlin a handsome silver cup in token of his
gratitude. In acknowledging this gift, Moestlin remarks, "Your mother
had taken it into her head that you owed me 200 florins, and had brought
15 florins and a chandelier towards reducing the debt, which I advised
her to send to you. I asked her to stay to dinner, which she refused.
However, we hanselled your cup, as you know she is of a thirsty
temperament."

In the same year in which his mother was arrested, the States of Styria
ordered all the co